Thai Anti-Government Protests Swell as Yingluck Calls for Unity

Thai Anti-Government Protests Swell as Yingluck Calls for Unity

Thai anti-government groups pledged to spread their protest to military bases, government offices and television stations today after more than 100,000 people joined rallies to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. “We will not stop even if she dissolves parliament or resigns,” Suthep Thaugsuban, a former member of the largest opposition party who resigned this month to lead the protests, told supporters at Bangkok’s Democracy Monument. “We will create a real democracy with the king as the head of state.”Government opponents started street rallies in Bangkok last month to oppose legislative efforts that they said would benefit Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted as premier in a 2006 coup and has lived in self-imposed exile overseas since fleeing graft charges in 2008. Yingluck yesterday called for “unity, reconciliation, peace and respect in the rule of law,” and said her administration was willing to listen to dissenting voices.

“The government has instructed police and all security officers to handle the situation gently, based on international practices, so the demonstration won’t be used as a tool by people who want to make changes in a non-democratic way,” Yingluck said on her official Facebook page, remarks that were confirmed by her office.

Yingluck’s administration has struggled to contain weeks of protests against both a bill that would have provided amnesty for most political offenses stretching back to the 2006 coup and a separate move to make the senate fully elected. The purpose of the demonstrations has switched in the past week from opposing those legislative efforts to ending “suffering under the rule of Thaksin and his people,” Suthep said.

Fund Outflows

The unrest threatens to increase instability that prompted overseas investors to pull $1.5 billion from Thai stocks this month. The baht has weakened 2.2 percent against the dollar in the past month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, on concern political clashes may become violent and as the U.S. Federal Reserve prepares to end its bond-buying program.

The battle is the latest between allies of Thaksin who have won the past five elections, and royalists who backed his ouster and claim that parties linked to him govern with a “tyranny of the majority.” Since the military putsch, courts have voided an election won by Thaksin’s party, disbanded two parties linked to him, disqualified about 200 of his allies from politics, sentenced him to jail and seized 46 billion baht ($1.4 billion) of his wealth.

Rural Votes

In 2008, protesters pushing for a mostly appointed parliament seized government offices and Bangkok’s airports in a bid to oust Thaksin’s allies, and an army crackdown on a protest by Thaksin supporters in 2010 left more than 90 people dead.

The political upheaval has revealed rifts in Thai society, particularly between the traditional elite and the increasingly vocal rural majority from which Thaksin’s allies pull their electoral mandate. Yingluck’s Pheu Thai party and its coalition partners command a majority in parliament.

The government raised minimum wages last year and introduced a program in 2011 to buy rice at above-market prices to boost rural incomes. Thailand’s skillful macroeconomic management, strong fundamentals, high international reserves, and moderate public debt levels have blunted the impact of recent shocks and are underpinning a recovery, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund said Nov. 12.

Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy expanded 1.3 percent in the third quarter, and the government’s economic forecaster Nov. 18 cut its forecast for full-year growth to 3 percent from a range of 3.8 percent to 4.3 percent. The Bank of Thailand has held the benchmark interest rate at 2.5 percent in the last three meetings and is due to meet next on Nov. 27, when it will probably leave the rate unchanged, according to a Bloomberg survey.

Monday Protests

Police chief Adul Sangsingkeo said 80,000 people joined yesterday’s rallies, while tens of thousands of pro-government supporters staged a counter-protest at a Bangkok sports stadium.

Suthep, a former deputy prime minister who oversaw the deadly 2010 crackdown on Thaksin’s supporters, said protesters would split into 13 groups today and march to the headquarters of the military supreme command, the army, airforce, navy and police. Other groups will demonstrate outside the office of the Bangkok administration, the interior ministry and Thailand’s major television stations.

“We will walk to those state officials to ask them who they will serve, the illegitimate government or the public,” Suthep told supporters. “If those state officials refuse to serve the government, the government will crumble.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Anuchit Nguyen in Bangkok at anguyen@bloomberg.net; Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at suttinee1@bloomberg.net