Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures.
BANGKOK – The year-long funeral ceremony of Thailand’s former queen Sirikit started Sunday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace.
Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide.
Former queen Sirikit, the mother of the current King Vajiralongkorn and wife of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late Friday at the age of 93.
Black and white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertising billboards, on TVs in supermarkets and hotel lobbies, and as pop-up notices on Thai banking apps.
Tanaburdee Srimuang has kept a vigil outside the Grand Palace since confirmation of Sirikit’s death broke in the early hours of Saturday.
“I am not tired,” the 24-year-old told AFP. “I am happy to be here for her for the last time, to be part of her send-off on this historic day.”
The former queen’s body is due late on Sunday afternoon to make the short trip from Chulalongkorn Hospital to the seat of the Thai royalty, where she will lie in state for one year before cremation.
Television newscasters are wearing black and media websites have turned monochrome, while citizens have been asked to dress in muted colours and curtail celebratory public events for 90 days.
About half of the people in a supermarket and on a shopping street in central Bangkok were wearing the traditional Thai mourning colours of black or white, an AFP journalist saw.
K-pop supergroup Blackpink went ahead with sold-out Saturday and Sunday shows at Bangkok’s 50,000-seat Rajamangala National Stadium, but attendees were asked “to wear black attire as a mark of mourning”.
– ‘Mother of the Nation’ –
Hundreds of black-clad mourners also filed into the Grand Palace from Sunday morning, even before Sirikit’s remains arrived, paying tribute to ornate portraits depicting her.
“I knew today would come one day, but now it has come I am sad — very sad,” said 52-year-old insurance worker Taksina Puttisan. “Her kindness toward Thais will be in our minds forever.”
Throughout her 66-year marriage to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Queen Sirikit carved a dual reputation as a glittering fashionista and the nation’s caring mother figure.
Some Western media compared Sirikit favourably to former US first lady Jackie Kennedy, in rapturous coverage on the front pages of their glossy magazines.
Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul delayed his departure to Malaysia on Saturday for a summit of Asean leaders to sign a peace deal with Cambodia, witnessed by US President Donald Trump.
But he still jetted out for a quick turnaround endorsement of the pact, made after cross-border clashes in July killed more than 40 people and forced around 300,000 to flee their homes.
“I send my condolences to the Great People of Thailand,” Trump said on social media, en route to Malaysia where the pact was signed on Sunday afternoon.
The lengthy reign of Sirikit’s husband, from 1946 until 2016, was bookended by World War II and Trump’s first election win.
Though King Bhumibol’s son inherited the throne about nine years ago, many still revere him as the nation’s most steadfast figurehead — and Queen Sirikit as his constant companion.
She retired from the public eye in recent years, her privacy sealed by strict lese majeste laws that limit what can be reported about the royal family.
Queen Sirikit had “suffered several illnesses” while hospitalised since 2019, including a blood infection this month, the palace said in a statement.
But in her glamorous heyday in the 1960s she mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley, while at home touring Thailand to visit villagers in rural areas.
She was referred to as the “Mother of the Nation” and her birthday was designated the country’s Mother’s Day.