“It has become too obvious that the King is doing this for his own self-indulgence,” Chachavalpongpun says, pointing to the King’s lavish lifestyle in the Bavarian Alps as proof. But when Rama X became sole arbiter of the Crown’s wealth, he crossed that line. That ambiguity, Chachavalpongpun says, allowed the previous monarch to spend with impunity, while maintaining an image of frugality. The line between the king’s finances and the crown’s was always blurred, says Pavin Chachavalpongpun, an associate professor at Kyoto University’s Centre for Southeast Asian Studies. In 2018, the CPB issued a statement confirming it had “returned” all its assets to the King so that he may manage the funds “at his discretion.”
RICH KING IN TO KILL A KINGDOM FULL
The same year, the government passed an amendment to the Crown Property Act, giving the King full control of the CPB’s portfolio. In 2017, the King appointed his private secretary as chairman of the CPB’s board, ousting the Minister of Finance from the seat. The hotel was given special permission to host the king and his entourage other hotels in Germany were forced shut due to the pandemic. But among Thailand’s discontent, the king has another moniker-the German-because for the past ten years Vajiralongkorn has been living in Germany, some 9,000 miles away from his kingdom.Īccording to German media, as the pandemic raged this summer, the 68-year-old King Rama ensconced himself in a luxury hotel in the Bavarian Alps that was rented entirely for himself, a retinue of servants and a bevy of women. When Vajiralongkorn was officially coronated in 2019, three years after his father’s death, the new king was given Rama X as his regnal name. As his kingdom’s economy is set to contract 7.8% this year, protesters are making unprecedented demands to have the king’s taxes investigated. That wealth used to belong to the Crown-the institution, not the ruler-but Vajiralongkorn took control of the privy purse in 2018.Īlthough criticizing the monarchy is illegal in Thailand, with violators sentenced to 15 years in prison, Vajiralongkorn’s lavish spending and appropriation of the crown’s $40 billion portfolio has opened the monarch up to criticism.
Thailand’s government has budgeted over $1 billion to finance the monarchy this year, despite the fact that King Maha Vajiralongkorn is one of the world’s wealthiest rulers, with an estimated $40 billion in assets.
0 kommentar(er)
