Anti-government protesters blockaded key intersections in Bangkok Monday, aiming to paralyse Thailand’s capital and increase mounting pressure on Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to resign.

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Police and soldiers kept watch as the city of some 12 million people ground to a halt, but there were no signs that the government was preparing to resist the protesters with force.

The upheaval is the latest chapter in a long-running crisis pitting Bangkok’s middle class and royalist establishment against the mostly poorer, rural supporters of Yingluck and her self-exiled brother, billionaire former premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin was ousted by the military in 2006 and sentenced to jail in absentia for abuse of power in 2008, but he still looms large over Thai politics and is the dominant force behind his sister’s administration from his home in Dubai.

Eight people, including two police officers, have been killed and scores wounded in violence between protesters, police and government supporters since the campaign against Yingluck’s government started in November.

Third drive-by shooting

Overnight, an unidentified gunman opened fire on protesters camped near a vast government complex, shooting one man in the neck who was admitted to a nearby hospital, according to the city’s emergency medical services. The drive-by was the third of its kind since January 6.

In a separate incident early Monday, shootings were also reported at the headquarters of the opposition Democrat Party, which has thrown in its lot with the protest movement. There were no casualties, though several windows were shattered, police said.



The protesters have set up permanent barricades and encampments at seven big intersections, but others are being blocked, too.

At one, near the American and Japanese embassies, around 100 protesters sat on the road to halt traffic. Som Rodpai, 64, said they would leave after nightfall, amid fears their citywide protest could spark a violent reaction.

National security chief Paradorn Pattanathabutr said around 20,000 protesters had joined a march from what has been the movement’s main camp at Democracy Monument in the old quarter.

Opposition rejects snap election

In a bid to end the campaign, Yingluck, who has a commanding majority in parliament, has called a snap election for February 2. But her Puea Thai Party would probably win again.

Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuba has rejected the poll.

His stated goal is to eradicate the influence of the Shinawatra family on Thai politics.

Suthep however said he would call off the protests if, as some fear, violence escalates into civil war.

“If it becomes a civil war, I will give up. People’s life is precious for me,” he told the Sunday Nation newspaper.

Pro-Thaksin groups started rallies in several provincial regions on Sunday but are steering clear of Bangkok for now.

The government has deployed 10,000 police to maintain law and order, along with 8,000 soldiers at government offices.

“We don’t want confrontation with the protesters ... In some places we will let them into government buildings,” Foreign Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul said on Sunday.

Army stays neutral

Although rumours of a coup are rife, the military, which has staged or attempted 18 coups in 81 years of on-off democracy, has tried to stay neutral this time and army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha has publicly refused to take sides.

But some fear extremists or agents provocateurs could instigate violence to provoke military intervention, leading to a repeat of 2010 when more than 90 people, many of them Thaksin supporters, were killed in an army operation to put down a rally that had closed parts of central Bangkok for weeks.

“The government will let Suthep play the hero tomorrow ... It will be his show,” Labour Minister Chalerm Yoobamrung said on Sunday. “There won’t be a repeat of 2010 because the government will not use that strategy. There are no plans to use force.”

The latest protests took off in November, when the government tried to push through a political amnesty that would have let Thaksin return home without serving jail time for corruption. The bill was ultimately withdrawn but the protests gathered pace.

Thaksin, a former telecommunications tycoon who redrew Thailand’s political map by courting rural voters to win back-to-back elections in 2001 and 2005, gained an unassailable mandate that he then used to advance the interests of major companies, including his own.

He is opposed by the elite and establishment, who feel threatened by his rise, and regard his sister as a puppet. Thaksin’s opponents include unions and academics who saw him as a corrupt rights abuser, and the urban middle-class who resented, as they saw it, their taxes being used as his political war chest.

Nevertheless, Yingluck’s party would probably win the February poll thanks to support from voters in the north and northeast.

But a smooth election looks increasingly unlikely, with the protesters determined to install an appointed “people’s council” to change the electoral system and bring in other reforms to weaken Thaksin’s sway.

Airport remains open

The unrest has hurt tourism and further delayed huge infrastructure projects that had been expected to support the economy this year at a time when exports remain weak. Consumer confidence is at a two-year low.

City officials told 140 schools to close on Monday and universities near the protest sites have suspended classes.

Protest leaders want to stop ministries functioning but say they will not shut down public transport or the city’s airports. Anti-Thaksin protesters shut the airports for several days in late 2008, causing chaos for tourists and exporters.

(FRANCE 24 with REUTERS, AP)

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