Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was adamant he would remain in power yesterday as more than 1,000 protesters surrounded his offices for a third day after a speech by former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The prime minister rejected Thaksin’s call, made a night earlier in an angry video address to the rally, for the dissolution of the Lower House, and told reporters his priority was to end months of political turmoil in the kingdom.
“I’m not sure what Thaksin wants. Sometimes he says he wants constitutional amendments first, but this time he proposed House dissolution, which he has never mentioned before,” Abhisit said.
“I think stability is most crucial to our country ... I don’t think we can organize orderly and peaceful free and fair elections under these circumstances of serious conflict,” he said.
But the prime minister would not be drawn on Thaksin’s assertion that the revered king’s advisors were responsible for a coup against him in 2006.
The fugitive former prime minister told tens of thousands of his loyal supporters that ex-prime ministers General Prem Tinsulanonda and General Surayud Chulanont were behind the coup that unseated him and “led to all this mess.”
Prem led the country’s government during the 1980s, while Surayud was in charge of the military-led administration that ran the country following Thaksin’s ouster until elections in December 2007.
Both now act as key advisors to the country’s king.
“It’s all an old story,” Abhisit said. “All those who have been implicated must answer the claims themselves.”
Surayud was expected to address media at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport later yesterday.
Police said 3,200 officers and 6,000 soldiers were manning the rally site, but the situation was calm.
“There are around 1,300 protesters in front of Government House. The situation is peaceful,” police spokesman Major General Suporn Phansua said.
Spurred on by Thaksin’s address, protest leaders dressed in red to signal their loyalty to Thaksin vowed on Friday to remain on the street indefinitely.
“We will continue to stay here. Now the ‘red shirts’ have gained too much momentum to be stopped,” protest leader Nattawut Saikuar said.
The rally’s numbers have dwindled during the day since Thursday, but swelled to tens of thousands of people each evening for Thaksin’s speeches. Thaksin was due to speak to the crowd again late yesterday.
British-born Abhisit has said he will not seek the group’s dispersal by force.
Thaksin, currently living in exile to avoid a two-year jail sentence for corruption, is awaiting a further court hearing on US$2.2 billion of his frozen assets.
During his 75-minute video address, beamed via a giant screen on the rally’s stage, he called for fresh elections but promised he would not stand himself.
The populist politician still attracts widespread support among the rural poor, while the country’s elite accuse him of graft and authoritarianism.
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