Thailand's revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej has a throat infection and is on a drip, his daughter said today after he failed to make his traditional birthday eve address amid a crippling political crisis.
Many Thais had been looking to the influential monarch, who turns 81 tomorrow, to issue a call for unity after the political maelstrom saw Bangkok's main airport shut for a week by royalist People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protesters.
Seen as semi-divine by many of Thailand's 65 million people, the king has intervened decisively in politics three times during his six decades on the throne, variously favouring elected and military administrations.
His speeches in the past three years have been nuanced and focused on the need for national unity, although his calls for clean government were widely read as a swipe at Thaksin Shinawatra, the populist prime minister ousted in a 2006 coup.
Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn, who also deputised at the ceremony, said his father was "slightly ill". Neither the prince nor the princess made any mention of politics.
The monarch has been thrust into the centre of the fray by the PAD's persistent use of his name in their fight with Thaksin, whose popularity with rural voters, based on cheap healthcare and credit, upset Bangkok's old royal and military elite.
Bringing hope to 230,000 stranded foreign tourists, Airports of Thailand said the Suvarnabhumi airport, one of Asia's largest, would resume "full service" tomorrow after a week-long shutdown by PAD protesters.
Thai Airways said it had 12 flights out today but sources said other carriers were being fasttracked into getting back in the air and were worried about the effect of short-cuts on safety and security procedures.
"We are under enormous pressure to open - from the airport authorities, from stuck passengers, from shareholders, from the tourist industry," said one airline official who asked not to be named. "But our genuine security concerns are being ignored."
The airport shutdown has already cost the tourism- and export-dependent economy hundreds of millions of euro. The central bank cited the economic impact of the unrest when it slashed interest rates by one point to 2.75 per cent yesterday.
Exports are already feeling the pinch from the global slowdown, and Moody's followed other rating agencies in cutting its outlook for Thailand to negative from stable, warning the political problems could undermine government creditworthiness.
A caretaker government has called a special parliamentary session for Monday to select a replacement for prime minister Somchai Wongsawat, who was barred from politics by the courts this week.
However, House speaker Chai Chidchob told reporters it might not go ahead as the king had not yet responded to parliament's request for an extraordinary sitting.