|
 Yingluck's government appears increasingly hemmed in by opponents
and the judicial system, lacking the fiscal powers to fund key
policies and warned by a court on Wednesday that it cannot use a
state of emergency to disperse protesters.
Four protesters and a police officer were killed on Tuesday, in the
deadliest clashes since the unrest began in November, when police
attempted to reclaim sites near government buildings that have been
occupied for weeks.
The protesters are seeking to unseat Yingluck and stamp out what
they see as the malign influence of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra,
a self-exiled former premier regarded by many as the real power
behind the government.
About 500 protesters gathered outside the Bangkok offices of SC
Asset Corp, a property developer controlled by the Shinawatra
family, waving Thai flags and blowing whistles.
"We will hamper all Shinawatra businesses," protest leader Suthep
Thaugsuban told supporters at a rally on Wednesday night. "If you
love your country, stop using Shinawatra products and do everything
you can so that their business fails."
Yingluck was executive chairwoman of the company before being swept
to power in a landslide election victory in 2011.
Shares in SC Asset fell 4.3 percent on Thursday, following a similar
fall the previous day. Shares in M-Link Asia Corp, a mobile handset
distributor with links to the Shinawatras, have also lost almost 10
percent over the past two days.
Anusorn Iamsa-ard, deputy spokesman for Yingluck's Puea Thai Party,
said the building the protesters targeted had nothing to do with
her.
"The prime minister has no shares in SC Asset," he said.
"The thing that will worry her is the impact of the protest today,
and the fact employees of the office tower had to leave, on the Thai
economy overall. But the campaign against Shinawatra businesses will
not weaken her resolve to see Thailand through this crisis."
Other stocks affected include telecoms group Shin Corp, founded by
Thaksin before he entered politics, and its mobile affiliate
Advanced Info Service Pcl (AIS). Shin Corp said it no longer has any
connection with the Shinawatra family.
"We should change our service provider and stop using AIS ... it's
easy to change SIM cards these days," said a post on the "No
Thaksin" Facebook page.
"I ask the people to stop using the tyrant Thaksin's products. Stop
using AIS ... so we can teach Thaksin a lesson ... and so he can
know that hell really exists," a user posted in response.
Yingluck has headed a caretaker government with limited spending
powers since calling a snap election in December. Voting on February
2 was disrupted by her opponents, and it could be months before a
new government can be installed.
An anti-corruption agency this week filed charges against her over a
soured rice subsidy scheme that has stoked middle-class anger and
left hundreds of thousands of farmers, her natural backers, unpaid.
More than 1,000 farmers, many riding in farm trucks, were travelling
in convoy towards Bangkok from the rice-growing central plains and
were due to reach the city overnight or on Friday.
Chada Thaiseth, a former member of parliament, said he would lead
farmers on Friday to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, blockaded for
eight days by royalist, anti-Thaksin "yellow shirts" in 2008.
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"We are not sure where we will set up camp, but we will not leave
the capital until we are paid for every grain of rice sold," Chada
told Reuters.
"LET THEM COME"
Yingluck's "red shirt" supporters plan a rally in Nakhon Ratchasima,
northeast of the capital, on Sunday, when they will decide what to
do next.
"We are not saying that we want to come out and fight, but it seems
that Suthep is challenging us red shirts to come out and face off,"
spokesman Thanawut Wichaidit said.
"Let them come," Suthep said in a midday speech to protesters in
Bangkok. "Do they dare?"
The protests are the biggest since deadly political unrest in 2010,
when Thaksin's red shirt supporters paralyzed Bangkok in an attempt
to remove a government led by the Democrat Party, now the
opposition.
More than 90 people were killed and 2,000 wounded when Suthep, at
the time a deputy prime minister, sent in troops.
The protests are the latest installment of an eight-year political
battle broadly pitting the Bangkok middle class and royalist
establishment against the mostly rural supporters of Yingluck and
Thaksin.
Demonstrators accuse Thaksin of nepotism and corruption and say
that, prior to being toppled by the army in a 2006 coup, he used
taxpayers' money for populist subsidies and easy loans that bought
him the loyalty of millions in the country's populous north and
northeast.
Yingluck has continued her brother's policies, but the rice scheme,
which paid farmers way above the market rate, has proved ruinously
expensive and has run into funding problems.
Thai rice prices fell 15 percent this week as the government rushed
to sell some of its record stockpiles to prop up the scheme. An
Indonesian trade official said there were "indications" Thai
suppliers were dumping the grain in Indonesia.
Thailand's anti-corruption body began an investigation last month
into the rice scheme and said on Tuesday it was filing charges
against Yingluck. She was summoned to hear the charges on February
27.
Police have made no further moves against the protesters, whose
barricades and encampments are still blocking several big
intersections in central Bangkok, since gun battles erupted during a
security operation on Tuesday.
(Additional reporting by Aukkarapon Niyomyat;
writing by Alex
Richardson; editing by Nick Macfie and Robert Birsel)
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