Paul Handley, the author of this year’s most important book on Thailand, The King Never Smiles, has a short article in Asia Sentinel. In today’s contribution, Handley asks, “Who gets the kingdom’s sceptre when Bhumibol leaves the stage?” While not fully answering his own question, Handley does argue that:
The coup was about Thaksin’s ambition and misrule, certainly, but what really got General Sonthi Boonyaratklin and his cohorts to move was the issue of succession to the throne. There was a clear meeting of minds between the crown and the military, through King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s number one aide Prem Tinsulanonda, that they did not want Thaksin in a position to exert influence on the passing of the Chakri Dynasty mantle to Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn.
The full text is definitely worth a read.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Pum // Nov 7, 2006 at 4:36 am
It’s one of the rumors I’ve heard from this coup. I have no comment on the validity or truth of it.
2 polo // Nov 7, 2006 at 9:35 am
Handley doesn’t offer any evidence for what he says. Even if it sounds reasonable, how do we know if this is true?
Anyway, he also has a letter regarding Grant Evans (I think discussed here earlier) in the new Far Eastern Economic Review.
http://www.feer.com/articles1/2006/0611/free/p006.html
3 Frustrated // Nov 7, 2006 at 3:48 pm
I think guess or suspect is OK in this case, the case which everything is suspiciously behaved, suspiciously existed. You have no chance to know the truth, the whole truth. They won’t tell you or even if they tell you it will never the full story that you can use against them. Guess is the best thing you can do unless our people have a strong mandate and strong request for transparency from every institution in the country, including the monarch.
4 New Mandala » Siam Rumoured: The Thongchai Lecture in London // Dec 15, 2006 at 10:24 am
[...] In Thongchai’s historical overview, Series 3 describes the power relations among what he rather playfully called “M/P3”. This is the series that focuses on the interactions between “Politicians (elected)/Money; People/Mass; Palace/Monarchists, Monarchy”. He sees this series, which begins in 1973, as heralding “the revival of the monarchy”. Speaking of the bloody events of October 1976, Thongchai argued that nobody mentions that “the King’s intervention is part of the massacre”. This is all part of Series 3. In this scheme, “Royalists now talk democracy” and have, very cunningly, created an “upper floor of politics”. This is a “second floor [that] provides the moral authority”. On this point, and as a digression, Thongchai briefly noted that Paul Handley’s widely debated book, The King Never Smiles, is, in his view, “not academic but worth listening to”. [...]
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