Princess Bajrakitiyabha of Thailand, who was in a coma for more than three years, has died, the royal house has announced. She was 47 years old, notes the BBC.
The princess had suddenly collapsed in December 2022 while training her dogs. Doctors attributed this to an extremely irregular heart rhythm caused by an infection.
With her death, the Thai royal family has lost its most visible member, with her likely to play an important role in an as-yet unclear succession.
She was the eldest of seven children of King Vajiralongkorn, born on 7 December 1978 to his first wife and cousin, Princess Soamsawali.
“The medical team gave her the most careful and intensive care possible, but her condition continued to deteriorate progressively,” the palace said in a statement on Friday morning, adding that the woman died at 19:48 local time (1248 GMT) the previous day at Chulalongkorn Hospital.
. Credit line: Krit Phromsakla Na SAKOLNAKORN / AFP / Profimedia
He studied law, obtaining two post-graduate degrees from Cornell University in the US. He worked briefly at the Thai mission to the United Nations in New York before returning to Thailand to work in the offices of the Attorney General in Bangkok and other parts of the country.
From 2012 to 2014 he was Thailand's ambassador to Austria, where he built a relationship with the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
She started talking about the need for criminal reform, with a particular focus on vulnerable women who end up in prison; Thailand has one of the highest prison populations in the world.
Once back in Thailand, she became the UNODC ambassador for the rule of law in Southeast Asia and continued to advocate for reform of Thailand's criminal justice system, which often gives harsh sentences to people convicted of relatively minor drug possession charges.
In 2021, her father appointed her chief of staff in his private guard, giving her the rank of general.
Princess Bajrakitiyabha was also a fitness enthusiast who often participated in long distance runs.
Her abilities and the confidence her father seemed to have in her made her an inevitable subject of speculation about the royal succession.
King Vajiralongkorn, 73, has yet to name an heir. Thai custom dictates that the heir must be a man, but a 1974 constitutional amendment allows a woman to ascend the throne.
The king has five sons, but four of them, born from his second marriage, were disowned in 1996 and have been living with their mother in the US ever since. His fifth son, Dipangkorn, from his third wife, is the heir presumptive, although questions have been raised about his ability to fulfill the role of monarch in a country where the royal institution wields so much influence.
To many Thai royalists, Princess Bajrakitiyabha seemed the most promising figure to succeed her father, either as queen or as regent to assist Prince Dipangkorn.
Her death leaves the question of succession unanswered in Thailand, and the strictness of the country's lese majesty law precludes any public discussion of the matter.
