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 The shooting came 48 hours after clashes between police and the
protesters, who are determined to disrupt a snap February 2 election
called by Yingluck, outside a voting registration center in which
two people were killed and scores wounded.
The violence is the latest in years of rivalry between Bangkok's
middle class and royalist establishment and the mostly poor, rural
supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a
populist former premier who was ousted in a military coup in 2006
and lives in self-imposed exile.
Petphong Kamjonkitkarn, director of the Erawan Emergency Centre in
the capital, Bangkok, told Reuters one man in his 30s had been shot
dead. Four suffered gunshot wounds.
The protesters have been rallying for weeks in their attempt to
topple Yingluck, who they see as a puppet of her brother, and they
have vowed to block an election that Yingluck would most likely win.
Yingluck, who draws her support from the rural north and northeast,
is determined to go ahead with the poll. On Friday, her government
asked the military for help to provide security for candidates and
voters.
However, the chief of the heavily politicized army declined to rule
out military intervention, responding that "the door was neither
open nor closed" when asked if a coup was possible.
Several hundred protesters are camped out in tents around the walls
of Yingluck's Government House offices, one of several rally sites
around the capital. Witnesses said they were sleeping when gunfire
rang out at about 3.30 a.m. (1530 GMT Friday).
"I was sleeping and then I heard several gunshots. I was surprised,"
said one 18-year-old protester, who identified himself by his
nickname "Boy".
Other witness said the shots could have come from a car as it drove
past the protest site. Reuters television pictures showed bullet
holes in a concrete barrier and a generator, as well as bloodstains
inside a tents.
Protesters showed several small-caliber slugs they found.
SOUTHERN CENTERS BLOCKED
Registration for the election was to continue on Saturday, although
the Election Commission (EC) has asked that the poll be delayed
after Thursday's violence until "mutual consent" from all sides was
achieved — a very unlikely scenario.
EC Secretary-General Puchong Nutrawong told Reuters the commission
had temporarily closed registration centers in six southern
provinces because the sites had been blocked by protesters and
candidates hoping to register could not enter.
Media reported that protesters had cut water and electricity to some
of the sites.
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The protesters draw much support from the south, as does the main
opposition and pro-establishment Democrat Party, Thailand's oldest
party. It has further muddied the waters by saying it will boycott
the poll.
With the street protests escalating, any delay to a poll that
Yingluck's Puea Thai Party would otherwise be expected to win would
leave her government open to legal challenges or military or
judicial intervention.
The military has staged or attempted 18 coups in 81 years of
democracy, making Friday's comments by General Prayuth Chan-ocha
more chilling for Yingluck and Thaksin.
The protesters draw strength from Bangkok's conservative middle
class, royalist bureaucracy and elite, many with ties to the
judiciary and military, who resent the rise of the billionaire
Shinawatra family and their political juggernaut.
They accuse former telecoms tycoon Thaksin of corruption and
manipulating a fragile democracy by effectively buying the support
of the rural poor with populist policies such as cheap healthcare,
easy credit and subsidies for rice farmers.
Instead of an election, the protesters want an appointed "people's
council" to oversee reforms before any future vote.
Thaksin's enemies also accused him of trying to undermine King
Bhumibol Adulyadej. Thaksin denied that.
The first two years of Yingluck's government had been relatively
smooth until a blunder by her party in November, when it tried to
push through an unpopular amnesty bill that would have exonerated
Thaksin from a 2008 graft conviction he says was politically
motivated. Thaksin fled into exile shortly before he was sentenced
to a two-year jail term.
(Additional reporting by Jutarat Skulpichetrat, Viparat
Jantraprapaweth and Kochakorn Boonlai; writing by Paul Tait; editing
by Robert Birsel)
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