Thai Princess Bajrakitiyabha dies at 47 after coma
Thai princess bajrakitiyabha died at 47 after more than three years in a coma, the Thai royal household said on Friday morning. She died at 19:48 local time on the previous day in Chulalongkorn Hospital, ending a closely watched health crisis that had shadowed Thailand's royal succession picture.
Chulalongkorn Hospital death
The palace said, “The medical team provided the closest and most intensive care possible, but her condition continued to decline progressively.” Bajrakitiyabha was the eldest of King Vajiralongkorn's seven children and had been in a coma since December 2022, when she collapsed while exercising her dogs. Her doctors attributed that collapse to a severely irregular heartbeat caused by a mycoplasma infection in her heart.
Vajiralongkorn succession picture
She was born on 7 December 1978 to King Vajiralongkorn's first wife and cousin, Princess Soamsawali, and later trained as a lawyer before earning two post-graduate degrees from Cornell University in the US. She worked briefly at the Thai mission to the United Nations in New York, then in the Attorney-General's offices in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand. From 2012 to 2014, she was Thailand's ambassador to Austria, and after returning to Thailand she became the UNODC's Ambassador for the Rule of Law in South East Asia.
Thai custom and legal limits
In 2021, King Vajiralongkorn made her a chief of staff in his private bodyguard and gave her the rank of general. Many Thai royalists regarded her as a possible successor to King Vajiralongkorn, either as queen or as a regent for Prince Dipangkorn, but Thai custom dictates that the heir should be male, while a 1974 amendment to the constitution allows a female to take the throne. King Vajiralongkorn has not yet named an heir, and Bajrakitiyabha's death leaves that question open.
The royal household announced her death on Friday morning, but the succession question now rests on the king's unspoken choice and the place of Dipangkorn, his fifth son and the presumed heir. Four of Vajiralongkorn's sons by his second marriage were disowned in 1996 and have lived since then with their mother in the US, leaving Thailand's royal line of succession concentrated around the remaining son and the king's decision.
