He King Maha Vajiralongkorn of Thailand was crowned in 2019 with pageantry at the Grand Royal Palace in Bangkok, consolidating the start of a new era in the country after that of his father, the revered Bhumibol Adulyadej, who died in 2016. The 70-year-old monarch was accompanied by his wife, Queen Suthida, a former flight attendant with whom he married and rose to the throne by surprise, as well as members of the royal family, the Government and the King’s Privy Council.
He is the second of four children born to the former monarch and his beautiful wife, Queen Sirikit. Vajiralongkorn was educated in private schools in Great Britain and Australia, in addition to graduating from the Royal Military University of Duntroon, in Canberra, and studying at the University of New South Wales. He also has a law degree from Sukhothai Thammatirat University in Bangkok. In the 1970s, as a young military pilot, he participated in operations against the insurgency of the communist forces in Thailand. Now he is the only one who can free Daniel Sancho from the death penalty.
Educated at foreign universities and passionate about Germany, where he spends long periods of time, Rama X is known for being more open-minded than his predecessors in a country where polygamy was allowed in the monarchy until 1935. Still, appointed a royal consort two months after marrying Queen Suthidasomething that probably would not have reached the Western press if it were not for what happened shortly after.
In 2020, he shocked the whole world when he decided to deal with the coronavirus epidemic. from a luxury hotel in the Alps snow-capped, thousands of kilometers from the warm Thai beaches, along with his retinue of servants and concubines.
The Grand Hotel Sonnenbichl doesn’t seem like the worst place to endure the rigors of confinement. Rising at the foot of the Alps, it offers a glorious panorama from which emerges the Zugspitze, the highest mountain in the country. The decoration of its suites exudes that regal luxury of the old Central European capitals. And these days it is also the only hotel in the town of Garmisch-Patenkirchen that has ignored the opening ban. A district spokesperson has justified the “special permit & rdquor; in the “homogeneous group without fluctuations & rdquor; made up of guests, says the German newspaper ‘Bild’. Perhaps it also played a role that Vajiralongkorn is the richest monarch in the world.
The Thais did not expect much from the current king, but this shameful flight has been judged excessive even by their standards. Not even the draconian Lese Majesty Law, which punishes any criticism of the monarchy with 15 years in prison, this time silenced the people.
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The monarchy was the most revered institution in the country while King Bhumibol was on the throne. His death, two years ago, plunged the town into an unbearable mourning that the imminent replacement by his son did not help to alleviate. While Bhumibol donned mundane T-shirts, his son appeared in suspenders and tattooed. When the former toured the agricultural provinces and took photographs with the peasants, the latter lavished on gargantuan parties and banquets. And if the deceased king financed projects and infrastructures in the poorest regions, the current one named his dog Foo Foo marshal, took him to official receptions and organized a four-day funeral after his death.
The people perceive Vajiralongkorn as a loose cannon, collector of women and extramarital children, eccentric, violent and partying.