BANGKOK: Thousands of anti-government protesters marched through the Thai capital yesterday, a prelude to a broader action next week when they say they will shut down Bangkok in their bid to scuttle a February election and topple Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The protesters, who accuse Yingluck of being the puppet of her self-exiled brother and former premier, Thaksin Shinawatra, want an appointed “people’s council” to oversee a vague reform platform, which includes electoral reform, decentralising power, and a volunteer police force, over a 12-month period before any future election. Yingluck, her brother and their support base among the rural poor in the populous north and northeast are pitted against protesters who draw support from Bangkok’s conservative, royalist elite and middle classes and the south.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a fiery former deputy premier from the main opposition Democrat Party, said marches would be held on Tuesday and Thursday, leading up the January 13 “shutdown”. “We will keep walking, we won’t stop,” Suthep said on the march. “We will walk until we win and we won’t give up.” AFP
