Thai king opposes his sister's campaign for prime minister


Thailand's King Maha Vajiralongkorn on Friday said a bid by his sister, Princess Ubolratana Mahidol, to serve as the country's prime minister would be "inappropriate" and unconstitutional.
The Thai royal family traditionally stays out of electoral politics, and "though she has relinquished her royal titles in writing," the king said, his sister "maintained her status and carried herself as a member of the Chakri dynasty."
Ubolratana was nominated by the Thai Raksa Chart Party, which opposes the military junta that took power via coup in 2014, including current Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha.
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The election in March will be Thailand's first since the coup. Read more about the Thai junta here at The Week.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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