Monday, November 29, 1999

Thai protesters hold ground on Bangkok`s streets

News posted by www.newsinfoline.com

Anti-government protesters in Thailand held their ground on the streets of Bangkok on Wednesday and said they would stay there until Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva sets a date for dissolving parliament.Protest leaders, who had demanded an immediate poll, have agreed to enter into a reconciliation process proposed by Abhisit but have taken issue with his offer for a general election on Nov. 14 and said they were not ready to leave their fortified encampment in central Bangkok.Early on Wednesday, thousands of protesters remained encamped in the city, sleeping under hundreds of tents in a district of high-end department stores and luxury hotels, many of which have been shut for weeks.Their numbers, however, appear to be steadily dropping.Their leaders said Abhisit did not have authority to set an election date and urged him instead to propose a timetable for dissolving parliament -- a technicality analysts said could give the protesters an opportunity to seek a better offer.The timing of elections is the most contentious issue in the plan floated by Abhisit on Monday to end a standoff in which 27 people were killed last month and nearly 1,000 wounded."We have agreed unanimously to enter the reconciliation process. We don't want any more loss of lives," said Veera Musikapong, chairman of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, known as the "red shirts", said late on Tuesday."We are suspicious about the timeframe, which is within the power of the election commission and not the prime minister," he told thousands of supporters at the barricaded site they have occupied since April 3 in Bangkok's main commercial district.STOCKS MAY RISE"We want Abhisit to come back to us with a clear parliamentary dissolution date instead of an election date and we will meet and consider it again," another protest leader, Jatuporn Prompan, told Reuters.Thailand's financial markets were closed for a royal holiday on Wednesday.On Tuesday, before the red shirts objected to the proposed election date, Thailand's benchmark stock index jumped 4.4 percent as investors focused on a possible end to a stalemate that has shattered tourism and hurt foreign investment in one of Southeast Asia's most promising emerging markets.An end to the impasse could re-ignite a rally in Thai stocks, which jumped 15 percent on a $1.8 billion wave of foreign buying from mid-February to April 9, a day before a gunbattle in the heart of old Bangkok that killed 25 people and led to a reversal in stock prices as Thailand's tourism industry withered.The red shirts broadly back former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist multimillionaire who lives in self-imposed exile after his ouster in a 2006 military coup and subsequent conviction for graft.The timing of when Abhisit dissolves parliament and holds an election is critical. Analysts say both sides want to be in power in September for a reshuffle of the powerful military and police forces, and the passing of the national budget.If Thaksin's camp prevails and is governing at the time of the military reshuffle, analysts expect big changes including the ousting of generals allied with Thailand's royalist elite, a prospect royalists fear could diminish the power of the monarchy.The protesters say Abhisit, who is backed by the royalist establishment, lacks a popular mandate after coming to power in a parliamentary vote 17 months ago heading a coalition cobbled together with military help.(Writing by Jason Szep; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

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