BANGKOK, Thailand — Dashing the hopes of Thais who looked to their monarch to help lead them out of a political crisis, King Bhumibol Adulyadej on Thursday canceled the speech he normally gives on the eve of his birthday.
Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn said at a reception for 20,000 of the king’s subjects that the monarch, who celebrates his 81st birthday today, was ill with bronchitis.
“Yesterday, his majesty the king was eating fine,” the princess said. “But today the king suffered from bronchitis and has a lot of phlegm.”
She said the king’s “condition is not serious.” Doctors recommended rest.
The king has helped resolve numerous political problems during his 62-year reign, and many here hoped he would use his birthday address to nudge the country’s rival political factions toward a compromise.
Instead, the silence has left a void as politicians haggle behind the scenes, trying to build a new governing coalition to fill the political vacuum left by beleaguered Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat’s resignation Tuesday.
Bhumibol, revered as a demigod by many Thais, was admitted to a hospital in 2007 to treat what his doctors said was poor blood flow to the left side of his brain. If he were to suffer a serious illness, it could complicate efforts to resolve Thailand’s political stalemate, which is dealing a severe blow to an economy already reeling from a spreading global recession.
Banned from politics for five years by the Constitutional Court, Somchai handed over power to a caretaker prime minister. His party and two allied parties were ordered dissolved. All three groups were found guilty of voter fraud in elections a year ago.
Somchai’s disbanded party has regrouped under a new name, the Puea Thai Party. The anti-government People’s Alliance for Democracy, or PAD, which agreed to suspend its six months of protests after the court order, regards the new party as another front for former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a bloodless 2006 military coup.
Thais fear the military will intervene if Thaksin allies return to government and PAD protesters return to the streets. The country is still struggling to recover from the economic damage wrought by a week-long blockade of Bangkok’s two airports. On Thursday, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi international airport received its first international flights, two days after thousands of protesters ended an occupation that stranded more than 300,000 travelers.
