Over the past six years, Sirikit had been permanently hospitalized and suffered from “several illnesses,” according to the palace. She had been struggling with a blood infection since mid-October. Despite the efforts of her medical team, her condition did not improve.
Thailand’s government has declared a 30-day mourning period and flags are flying at half-mast following the death of the Queen Mother. The government requests Thais not to wear colorful clothing for 90 days.
Civil servants, employees of state-owned enterprises and government officials must observe one year of mourning from today. The public is encouraged to observe whatever period of mourning they deem appropriate.
The Queen Mother’s body will lie in state in the Dusit Throne Hall of the Grand Palace in Bangkok. Thais will be allowed to pay their respects there on Sunday and take part in a ceremony in front of a portrait of Sirikit in the Sahathai Samakhom Pavilion.
70 years of king
Thais gathered at Chulalongkorn Hospital on Saturday morning with portraits of Sirikit and expressed their grief. “My heart feels empty,” says 68-year-old Wilai. “I have known her since I was born. I will always remember her dedication.”
The late King Bhumibol Adulyadej with Queen Sirikit and then Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, the current King of Thailand, at the Grand Palace in Bangkok in 2007. © AFP
Sirikit was married for more than sixty years to Thailand’s longest-serving king, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in 2016 after seventy years on the throne.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul canceled his Saturday flight to Malaysia, where a summit of Southeast Asian leaders will take place in the coming days, following news of the Queen Mother’s death. The Thai leader instead held a cabinet meeting to discuss the funeral.
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According to local media, Prime Minister Anutin will fly to Malaysia on Sunday, the same day that US President Donald Trump will attend the signing of a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia after a border dispute turned into a bloody conflict in July.
Development programs
Sirikit was born into a wealthy, aristocratic family in Bangkok in 1932, the year Thailand’s absolute monarchy was replaced by a constitutional system. She met Bhumibol in 1948 in Paris, where her father was the Thai ambassador and the 16-year-old Sirikit was studying music and languages.
The couple married two years later, a week before Bhumibol was officially crowned Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty. They had four children together: King Vajiralongkorn and the princesses Ubolratana, Sirindhorn and Chulabhorn.
Queen Sirikit is welcomed by French fashion designer Pierre Balmain at a haute couture show in Paris in 1960. © AFP
During their early period on the throne, the young Thai royals traveled the world as ‘goodwill’ ambassadors. They forged personal ties with world leaders and Sirikit became internationally known for her fashion sense.
From the 1970s onwards, the royal family focused more on Thailand’s domestic problems. They set up development programs to tackle social and environmental problems, including deforestation, rural poverty and opium addiction among indigenous peoples in the north of the country.
From the 2000s onwards, Sirikit took on a more politicized role during a period of protests between the royalist ‘Yellow Shirts’ and the so-called ‘Red Shirts’, supporters of the controversial former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
For example, she publicly expressed her condolences for the royalist demonstrators and in 2008 attended the funeral of Angkhana Radappanyawutt, a member of the royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), who was killed during clashes with the police.
The majority of those killed in the political conflict were Red Shirts, especially during the Thai army’s crackdown in Bangkok in 2010, which killed at least 90 people, including a Reuters cameraman and an Italian news photographer.
Draconian lese majeste laws
The royal family is officially revered in Thailand and protected by some of the strictest laws in the world banning criticism of the monarchy.
Members of the royal family are treated by many as semi-divine figures and showered with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and homes across the country.
King Bhumibol’s death in 2016 was followed by intense expressions of public grief and a year-long official mourning period, with many Thais choosing to wear black for the entire period.