Thais queue up at hospital to wish 81-year-old king speedy recovery

Sep 21, 2009, 6:04 GMT

   Bangkok - Hundreds of Thais queued up Monday at Bangkok's Siriraj Hospital to wish a swift recovery for King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 81, who was admitted to the hospital over the weekend.

   The hospital, founded by Bhumibol's late father Prince Mahidol, set up 12 tables to receive get-well wishes from the public between 7 am and 8 pm.

   Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was the first to sign the get-well book Sunday night, before he flew to New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

   King Bhumibol, who has reigned as Thailand's monarch for the past 63 years, was admitted to Sririraj Hospirtal Saturday suffering from fatigue and a fever, according to the Royal Household Bureau.

   He has been was receiving nutrition and antibiotics via an intravenous drip, a statement said.

   Bhumibol, who will turn 82 on December 5, has been hospitalized on several occasions over the past decade to receive treatment for heart ailments and fever.

   The king has been a unifying and stabilizing force in Thailand over its past six decades, striving for a working democracy under a constitutional monarchy.

   The king's latest illness comes at a time when the country is reeling from a deep political divide, with the established political elite trying to come to terms with new forces of populist politics and an empowered rural poor whose hero is ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

   On Saturday an estimated 30,000 pro-Thaksin supporters gathered in Bangkok to protests against the September 19, 2006 coup that ended his six-year premiership.

   Thaksin, who faces a two-year jail term in Thailand on an abuse-of-power charge, has been living in self-exile since August 2008.

    A billionaire businessman, Thaksin was the first to introduce populism to Thailand's well-established system of money-politics, winning himself a huge following among the country's rural and urban poor and other segments of Thai society bent on changing the status quo.