Beer queen brews up a storm

“Thank you for all the encouragement,” she said at a news briefing at a Bangkok hotel yesterday, her voice breaking as she spoke. 

“However, I express my deepest sorrow for not being fortunate enough to work in the police bureau and being allowed to wear a police uniform as a protector of public peace,” she said. 

Chitpas became a topic of discussion last Sunday when she officially applied to become a member of the 191 Police Patrol and Special Operations Division.

But members of the public were not the only ones to question the appropriateness of her applying for the position, some police officers also protested by tying black ribbons to their radio equipment. After all, she had led People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) members and stormed into the Royal Thai Police headquarters. Both she and other PDRC leaders face sedition charges. 

Chitpas explained that she decided to withdraw her application to calm the controversy, adding that a photograph of her and an interview in English about rural people and democracy shared online had been doctored. She also said that she had never meant to disparage the police, but wanted them to become reliable for the public. 

Insisting that she had made all her decisions on her own, she said she would continue working for the people and the PDRC, which has now transformed to the People’s Demo-cratic Reform Foundation (PDRF). Chitpas, who is now the assistant secretary for the PDRF, added that she could not say whether she would enter the political arena in the future. 

This is not the first time the 30-year-old has surrounded herself in controversy. The eldest daughter of Chutinant and ML Piyapas Bhirombhakdi and heiress to the Boon Rawd Brewery business empire, Chitpas earned a bachelor’s in geology from King’s College London in 2009. 

Always enthusiastic about politics, she was persuaded to enter the arena by Nipon Promphan, the then-secretary-general of former premier Abhisit Vejjajiva.

In 2009, she became secretary to Panitan Wattayanagorn, then-deputy secretary-general of the PM. However, her career came to an abrupt halt in December of that year when she stepped down after “unintentionally” distributing raunchy calendars from Boon Rawd to people in Government House compound. 

The following year, she returned to work with the Information and Communications Technology Ministry, before becoming a candidate under the Democrat Party banner for the 2011 election. However, she didn’t win. 

Undeterred, the beer heiress became a deputy spokesperson for the Democrat Party and in 2012 she began hosting a show broadcast on the party’s Fah Won Mai channel.

She gained some prominence in 2013 by taking on a key role in the PDRC protests against the blanket amnesty bill proposed by the Pheu Thai Party. Apart from reporting PDRC-related news in English, she also created a “school under the trees” at Lumpini Park to occupy the children of the participants.

In her website, www.chitpas.com, she says she was called the “the angel of the great mass of people”. However, her interviews with foreign media during the rally raised the hackles of her opponents, who said she had insulted rural people and questioned their understanding of democracy. 

She then decided to drop her father’s surname, Bhirombhakdi, to take up her mother’s royally bestowed last name – Kridakorn. She said the change was to protect her family’s business from the collateral damage of her political activities. 

Once the PDRC rally was brought to an end by the May 2014 coup, she became a valedictorian at Chulalongkorn University, graduating with a master’s degree in public administration.

However, her being given this honour raised a widespread debate on social media, with many pointing out that she was involved in political cases and faced sedition charges. 

Also, several university professors refused to attend the graduation ceremony, even though she got to deliver her valedictorian speech. 

Meanwhile, a police source said all candidates who wish to withdraw their application must submit a letter to that effect, otherwise the Metropolitan Police Bureau would continue with the procedure. 

Chitpas was supposed to complete the application procedure by Tuesday, though so far she has only completed her physical check-up. She has not left her fingerprints, which allows the police bureau to check her criminal record. The police bureau should be able to make a decision on her ineligibility soon, the source added.