Thai police fired tear gas and water cannons yesterday to push back hundreds of protesters trying to force their way into a government compound, in the latest indication that ousting the premier will not solve the country’s tense political crisis.
Five people were reported injured at the Thai Center for the Administration of Peace and Order, the government’s security command center, where protesters tried to push down barbed wire-topped concrete barriers outside the compound.
The incident occurred as more than 10,000 protesters marched through the Thai capital to show that the ouster of former Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra by a court earlier this week was not enough. A protest leader warned they would retaliate if their demands for the government’s complete removal were not met within three days.
Photo: Reuters
Traffic was snarled around Bangkok as protesters marched to Government House — the Thai prime minister’s main office — then parliament, and surrounded several public TV stations. They have called on TV stations to stop broadcasting government news and to air the protesters’ announcements.
“We won’t interrupt regular programming, but whenever we need to speak to people all over the country, we’d like to you to broadcast it live,” protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban told a cheering crowd.
Yesterday’s marches came two days after Yingluck was removed by the Thai Constitutional Court on grounds that she had illegally transferred a civil servant to another post, which has emboldened antigovernment protesters, who are backed by the urban elite.
Suthep demanded that the Thai Supreme Court president, the Senate speaker and the Election Commission, along with other state agencies, jointly work to oust the current government.
“We want the change of government to be smooth. But if you cannot do it smoothly within three days, we the people will do it in our own way,” Suthep said.
Protesters want to install an appointed government to oversee reforms before new elections are held, a concept criticized by many as undemocratic. They oppose polls tentatively scheduled for July, which Yingluck’s allies would likely win.
The court rulings have angered Yingluck’s supporters, known as the Red Shirts, who have called for a huge rally today to show support for the government, which won a landslide victory in 2011 elections.
The competing rallies will be a test of the country’s political volatility. They will be held several kilometers apart, but have raised concerns of violence.
“Hand power back to the people,” Suthep told a crowd at Bangkok’s Lumpini Park earlier in the day, when he called on protesters to keep the rally peaceful, but also urged them to surround police cars.
Suthep called yesterday’s rally a “final offensive,” a declaration mocked by some Thai media, which said that this was the 11th time in six months he has summoned antigovernment supporters for a final protest.
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