The recent news that the Thai King Maha Vajiralongkorn has stripped his royal consort of her titles and military ranks just months after bestowing them upon her has sent ripples throughout the Southeast Asian country.
Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi was accused of “disloyalty” and of seeking to undermine the position of the 67-year-old monarch’s official wife, Queen Suthida, an official palace announcement said.
It added that the 34-year-old was “ungrateful” and that she had tried to rise to the level of the queen.
Wongvajirapakdi was only selected as “official consort” in July alongside the new queen, the first such appointment in nearly a century.
What is a consort?
A consort generally refers to a spouse or companion of a reigning monarch but, in this instance, Wongvajirapakdi was appointed as “royal consort” as a partner for the king in addition to his wife.
In Thailand, the taking of royal consorts and polygamy has a historical purpose, according to Tamara Loos, professor of history and Asian studies at Cornell University.
“If you just go back about a hundred years or more, polygyny [the practice of a man having more than one wife] performed a political function,” she said.
Multiple spouses enabled the king to maintain power over different settlements of the kingdom in a large geographical area in his absence.
“It wasn’t about sex, it wasn’t about depravity - and I’m not saying that didn’t happen - but, it really served an important political purpose,” she said.
Prior to Wongvajirapakdi’s recent appointment, the last time a Thai king took an official consort was in the 1920s.
Who is Wongvajirapakdi?
According to the official royal biography, General Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi – who is known by the nickname “Koi” – was born on 26 January 1985 in the northern Thai province of Nan.
She graduated from the Army Nursing College in 2008 and has completed military courses in combat, jungle warfare and night parachuting, as well as training to be a private pilot, according to state broadcaster Thai PBS.
After being given the title in July, the Thai Royal Household shared a selection of images of both the king and Wongvajirapakdi, alongside pictures of her flying a fighter jet and shooting weapons.
Wongvajirapakdi was appointed two months after the king married his fourth wife, Suthida Tidjai, 41, who he named his queen in May.
What has she been accused of?
According to an official notice, Wongvajirapakdi is guilty of "repeated violations and attempted interference with royal affairs", disloyalty and overstepping authority. Explicit details of exactly what this entailed have not been confirmed.
“After her repeated violations and attempted interference with royal affairs, His Majesty the King graciously granted her the title of Royal Noble Consort in July out of hope that Sineenat Wongvajirapakdi would lessen her pressure and change her behavior and acts,” an official announcement stated.
However, Wongvajirapakdi “overstepped her authority”, according to the notice.
"Her actions are considered as disloyal, ungrateful, and ungracious of His Majesty’s kindness.
“They caused division among the royal servants and led to misunderstanding among the public. These amount to acts of sabotages against the country and the monarchy.”
The king, the statement said, had learned “she neither was grateful to the title bestowed upon her, nor did she behave appropriately according to her status”.
What will happen to Wongvajirapakdi?
Wongvajirapakdi’s ongoing relationship with the Thai Royal Family is unknown and how much we learn of her future is entirely dependent on what the Thai Royal Household chooses to share with the public. The country’s lese-majeste law prohibits any criticism of the monarchy, with offenders subject to a substantial prison sentence, contributing to a culture of uncertainty.
King Maha Vajiralongkorn denounced both his second and third wives, but neither have ever issued a statement about this.
Andrew MacGregor Marshall, author of "A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand's Struggle for Democracy in the 21st Century", told The Independent: "By appointing an official consort and acknowledging royal polygamy for the first time in a century, Vajiralongkorn was sending a political signal - he intends to reign as an absolute monarch like the Thai kings of the past.
"By suddenly stripping his consort of her status just three months later, he is also signalling his power," he said.
"He wants Thais to recognise that he has the power to elevate people and crush people based on his whims, and nobody can stand in his way."
