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Thaksin followers begin 3-day protest

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-28 21:55

He said if the rally veered toward violence, its organizers must disperse the crowds while police would avoid any clash with the protesters.

Warong Dechgitvigrom, a spokesman for the ruling Democrat Party, said party representatives would go together to Parliament on Monday morning and if it was blocked they would return to party headquarters. He said the government did not plan to force its way into the building.

Supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra wave a Thai flag and hold a banner during a protest against the government in Bangkok December 28, 2008. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Sunday that police would not use force against demonstrators who have closed a road at Parliament and begun to attack his coalition government which assumed power less than a week ago, local Thai newspapers reported. [Agencies]

An Oxford-educated, 44-year-old politician, Abhisit was formally named prime minister December 17 in what many hoped would be the end of months of turbulent, sometimes violent, protests that had their roots in a 2006 military coup that toppled Thaksin.

Abhisit, the nation's third prime minister in four months, vowed in his inaugural address to reunite the deeply divided nation and to restore Thailand's tourist-friendly image. The eight-day airport shutdown battered the country's essential tourism industry and stranded more than 300,000 travelers.

Abhisit's Democrat Party had been in opposition since 2001, when Thaksin, a former telecommunications tycoon, first came to power in a landslide election.

Military leaders ousted Thaksin in September 2006, accusing him of corruption, keeping him in exile and controlling the country for an interim period until new elections in December 2007 brought Thaksin's allies back into power.

He returned to Thailand in February 2008 to face corruption charges but later fled into exile again and was convicted in absentia.

Thailand's recent political convulsions began in August when anti-Thaksin protesters took over the seat of government to demand that Thaksin's allies resign. Since then, a series of court rulings resulted in the ouster of two Thaksin-allied prime ministers.

In October, street clashes with police outside Parliament left two people dead and hundreds injured.

Thaksin and his supporters retain strong support in rural areas where they built up a political base, but are disliked by many of the educated elite who viewed his six years in power as deeply corrupt and a threat to their interests.

Supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra hold a banner during a protest against the government in Bangkok December 28, 2008. Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Sunday that police would not use force against demonstrators who have closed a road at Parliament and begun to attack his coalition government which assumed power less than a week ago, local Thai newspapers reported. [Agencies]

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