The palace and Crown Property Bureau have been active in recent months as they seek, for the king, to consolidate what he considers the “royal precinct.” We have previously mentioned assertions of royal control over the Bangkok or Dusit Zoo, Suan Amphon and the Ananta Samakhom Hall. And who can forget the illegal (and still unexplained) removal of the 1932 plaque that the king and the junta must have thought sullied the “royal precinct.”
The most recent territory marking involves the Royal Turf Club and the Nang Loeng horse-racing track, also in Dusit district. It is reported that the CPB has demanded the Royal Turf Club vacate the property in 180 days.
Anant Waiwitaya, a CPB legal affairs officer recently wrote to the club “to demand the departure.”
For many years the very large property has been in the hands of aged military people who benefit from gambling and while having been in operation for more than 100 years, is most recently remembered as the home of anti-Thaksin/anti-Yingluck grey activists under General Boonlert Kaewprasit’s Pitak Siam. This group was supported by all kinds of old royalists and conservatives who began the initial agitation against Yingluck. Boonlert was – maybe still is – secretary-general of the Royal Turf Club.
The CPB’s Anant noted that the lease had expires and that the Royal Turf Club had to vacate the property and its “track, five-storey stand, two six-storey parking buildings, a five-storey management building, a one-storey structure and a swimming pool.”
The CPB stated that it “had to use the land and the buildings.”
The report says: “Initiatives to relocate it were discussed during the previous governments of Chuan Leekpai and Thaksin Shinawatra.” Nothing resulted.
We see the action as another effort to create the “royal precinct,” rumored to include plans for a massive palace. The map below shows that the king’s moves over the last six months have massively expanded his territory.
[…] The land abuts other plots the CPB has been reclaiming for the monarchy. […]
[…] The land abuts other plots the CPB has been reclaiming for the monarchy. […]
[…] This long background is a way of introducing a Bangkok Post editorial that raises questions regarding the opaque deal being done on the Dusit Zoo. This is a deal to return public space to the monarch. It is a part of the king’s unstated but all too obvious plan to recover land that he feels rightly belongs to the monarch. He’s rolling back the 1932 revolution one property at a time. […]
[…] This long background is a way of introducing a Bangkok Post editorial that raises questions regarding the opaque deal being done on the Dusit Zoo. This is a deal to return public space to the monarch. It is a part of the king’s unstated but all too obvious plan to recover land that he feels rightly belongs to the monarch. He’s rolling back the 1932 revolution one property at a time. […]
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[…] which reverts to the Crown Property Bureau, which itself is now the personal property of the king. We have posted on this. This article says little about that link, which is odd, as it is the […]
[…] well and good, but our suspicion is that there’s more going on than the story lets on. Think zoo, race course, Suan Amphon and Ananta Samakhom Hall. Perhaps the royal rolling back extends to the […]
[…] well and good, but our suspicion is that there’s more going on than the story lets on. Think zoo, race course, Suan Amphon and Ananta Samakhom Hall. Perhaps the royal rolling back extends to the […]
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[…] of this has been seen already (see here, here and here), but this retrograde law makes everyone […]
[…] PPT has posted on this general topic several times (here, here, here and here), this article is well worth […]
[…] PPT has posted on this general topic several times (here, here, here and here), this article is well worth […]
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