While Vajiralongkorn has reigned since 2016 after his father’s passing, he was not considered a divine monarch, or devaraja, nor was he officially the kingdom’s main patron of Buddhism, until he was consecrated by today’s sacred events.

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While legally above politics, Vajiralongkorn has already made his royal mark on the country’s entrenched political conflict, recently accentuated by an inconclusive March 24 election result after five years of military rule, in pronouncements that have signaled a more assertive and interventionist crown.

That included his royal rejection on February 8 of his sister Princess Ubolratana’s announced intention to run as a prime ministerial candidate for a new party linked with criminally convicted, self-exiled ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra, the military’s and conservative elite’s bête noire.

The party, Thai Raksa Chart, was subsequently disbanded for acting against the monarchy by the Election Commission. It remains unclear if Vajiralongkorn was aware of his elder sister’s intention to join politics before his unusual royal rebuke of a move that had sparked widespread criticism over social media.

The day before the March 24 polls, Vajiralongkorn released a royal statement asking Thais to only select “good people” at the ballot box, a broad and open message echoing a previous Bhumibol speech that analysts and diplomats nonetheless perceived as a rebuke of Thaksin’s coup-ousted Peua Thai party.

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Speculation is now rife among the capital’s chattering classes that the royal palace may recommend the formation of a “national unity” government to break the deadlock, potentially headed by Vajiralongkorn’s trusted aide and economics technocrat Amporn Kittiamporn. Any move in that direction would pull the monarchy more deeply into the nation’s deeply polarized politics.

RickyBobby wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2019 11:56 pm You would have thought with some selective breeding over the generations they would have had some better looking royals.