Bangkok tense as 100,000 protesters rally against Yingluck Shinawatra's administration

Updated

About 100,000 anti-government protesters have gathered in Bangkok, as Thailand faces its most significant political street action since bloody protests in 2010.

The protests, led by the opposition Democrat Party, recall those in April and May, 2010, when ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's red-shirted supporters paralysed Bangkok to try to remove a Democrat-led government.

As the protests gained momentum on Sunday, about 40,000 pro-government Red Shirts rallied nearby in a show of support for current prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's sister.

Both groups are expected to march to Parliament and Government House on Monday.

"We will not use force and we will try to avoid any casualties," police spokesman Piya Utayo said.

The Thai capital has already faced weeks of opposition-backed rallies, sparked by an amnesty bill that could have allowed the return of former prime minister Thaksin from self-imposed exile, and pardoned those responsible for the deadly military crackdown on his Red Shirt supporters in 2010.

The bill was kicked out by the Thai senate, but anti-government protesters have remained on the streets and are now seeking to topple the government, which they say acts as a stooge for Thaksin.

Red Shirts vow to avoid confrontation

Addressing a large anti-government rally at the capital's Democracy Monument on Sunday, protest leader Satit Wongnongtaey hailed the strong turnout for so-called People's Day.

"How can this government survive? How can the Thaksin system survive?," he said to applause from the crowd.

In addition to the amnesty defeat, Yingluck's ruling Puea Thai party was battered by a Constitutional Court ruling last week that blocked plans for a fully elected senate.

We will not use force and we will try to avoid any casualties. Police spokesman Piya Utayo

At the moment, 77 of the 150 senators are elected directly, while the remaining are chosen by members of a Senators Selection Committee.

Yingluck, amid calls to resign, faces a no-confidence debate this week.

But government-supporting Red Shirts have vowed to bolster Yingluck's embattled administration.

"Red Shirts also have to show our strength to protect democracy," the group's leader, Thida Thavornseth, said in a televised address on Saturday.

"We will hold a peaceful rally and we do not want confrontation, so if there is violence it will not be ignited by Red Shirts."

Class struggle a factor in turbulent past

Thailand, which has seen 18 actual or attempted coups since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, has appeared irreconcilably polarised over Thaksin.

The telecoms tycoon-turned-politician draws ardent support from many of the country's rural and urban working class, but is loathed among the elite and middle classes, who accuse him of corruption.

In 2001, he became the first leader in Thai history to win a parliamentary majority on its own and formed the first elected government to serve a full term, after which it was re-elected.

The 2006 coup that ousted him plunged Thailand into four years of sometimes-violent political turbulence.

In 2008, Thaksin was sentenced to two-years' imprisonment in absentia for corruption.

AFP/Reuters

Topics: world-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, thailand, asia

First posted