Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha, the eldest daughter of King Maha Vajiralongkorn, has died after spending more than three years in a coma, the royal household announced on Friday. She passed away at 19:48 local time (12:48 GMT) on Thursday at Chulalongkorn Hospital in Bangkok, where she had been treated since collapsing in December 2022 while exercising her dogs. Doctors attributed the collapse to a severely irregular heartbeat caused by a mycoplasma infection in her heart. “The medical team provided the closest and most intensive care possible, but her condition continued to decline progressively,” the palace said in a statement.
Born on 7 December 1978 to King Vajiralongkorn – then crown prince – and his first wife, Princess Soamsawali, Bajrakitiyabha was the eldest of the king’s seven children. She trained as a lawyer, earning two post-graduate degrees from Cornell University in the US, including a doctorate in 2005 with a dissertation on protecting the rights of the accused. After working briefly at the Thai mission to the United Nations in New York, she returned to serve as a public prosecutor and later as Thailand’s ambassador to Austria from 2012 to 2014. She became a UN Office on Drugs and Crime goodwill ambassador for the rule of law in South East Asia, advocating penal reform with a focus on vulnerable women. Her Kamlangjai, or “Inspire,” project aimed to rehabilitate incarcerated women ahead of their release.
“Thai Princess Bajrakitiyabha, eldest daughter of King Vajiralongkorn, dies after three-year coma at age 47.”
In 2021, her father appointed her a chief of staff in his private bodyguard, giving her the rank of general. A fitness enthusiast who often took part in long-distance runs, the princess was widely seen as the most accomplished member of the royal family. Her abilities and her father’s apparent trust made her an inevitable topic of speculation about the royal succession. King Vajiralongkorn, 73, has not yet named an heir. Though Thai custom dictates a male heir, a 1974 constitutional amendment allows a female to take the throne. The king has five sons, but four from his second marriage were disowned in 1996 and live in the US. The fifth, Prince Dipangkorn Rasmijoti, is the presumptive heir, though questions have been raised about his ability to perform the monarch’s role. For many royalists, Bajrakitiyabha seemed the most promising figure to succeed her father, either as queen or regent. With her death, the royal family has lost its most visibly accomplished member, and the already unclear succession has become more uncertain.