BANGKOK: Her eyes swelling with tears, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra pleaded for anti-government protesters to clear the streets after she called a snap election, but protests leaders said she should step down within 24 hours.
After weeks of sometimes violent street rallies, protesters dismissed her call on Monday for a general election and said she should be replaced by an unelected ‘people’s council’, which has stoked concern that Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy may abandon the democratic process.
Yingluck insisted she would not step down and said she would continue her duties as caretaker prime minister until the election, which is set for February 2.
“Now that the government has dissolved parliament, I ask that you stop protesting and that all sides work towards elections,” Yingluck told reporters as she went into a cabinet meeting held at an army club. “I have backed down to the point where I don’t know how to back down any further.”
Tears briefly formed in her eyes as she spoke, before she quickly composed herself - perhaps a glimpse of the emotional toll of weeks of protests.
Aligned with Bangkok’s royalist elite, the protesters want to oust Yingluck and erase the influence of her brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra,
Thaksin was convicted in absentia of graft in 2008 but he dismissed the charges as politically motivated. He is widely seen as the power behind Yingluck’s government, sometimes holding meetings with the cabinet by webcam.
Yingluck had no political experience before entering a 2011 election she won by a landslide thanks to votes from the countryside, where Thaksin built up a devoted following with policies to help the poor.
Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban gave Yingluck 24 hours to step down. “We want the government to step aside to create a power vacuum in order to create a people’s council,” said Akanat Promphan, a spokesman for the protest group.
Reuters
