Succession blues

This from the conservative U.S. The National Interest, via the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, under the headline “Five Political Corpses in 2011“:

In the case of kings, family succession is more obvious. And also more complicated. King Abdullah appointed his stepbrother Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz as heir. The problem is that the younger successor is also an octogenarian. And he too is quite sick, having battled—or perhaps he is still battling—cancer. Succession decisions are made through complicated and secret negotiations involving the different factions of the Saudi royal family.

The same is true in Thailand. The king’s son, Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn (fifty-seven years old) is the natural heir. But while his father is revered, the prince is feared and unpopular. His controversial love life, his adoration of Fu-Fu, his poodle that has a military rank and sometimes sits in banquets, and the constant rumors about some of his more unsavory friends stand in sharp contrast with the admiration for his sister, Princess Sirindhorn. One possible, and highly speculative, scenario is that on his deathbed, the king could skip his son and appoint the princess or one of his grandchildren. In any case, the last thing troubled Thailand needs is to add to the violent political confrontations taking place in the street a power struggle inside the royal palace.

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