Despite growing pressure from protesters who have brought parts of Bangkok to a near-standstill, Thailand’s government on Wednesday stuck to a plan for a February election and said it believed support for the leader of the agitation was vanishing.
“We believe the election will bring the situation back to normal,” Deputy Prime Minister Pongthep Thepkanchana told reporters. “We can see that the support of Mr Suthep is declining. When he is doing something against the law, most people do not support that.”
Some hardline protesters have threatened to blockade the stock exchange and an air traffic control facility if Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra does not step down by a deadline media said had been set for 8 p.m.
The unrest, which flared in early November and escalated this week when demonstrators occupied main intersections of the capital, is the latest chapter in an eight-year conflict.
The country’s political fault line pits the Bangkok-based middle class and royalist establishment against the mostly poorer, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former premier ousted by the military in 2006 who is seen as the power behind her government.
Yingluck invited protest leaders and political parties to discuss a proposal to delay the general election, which she has called for February 2, but her opponents snubbed her invitation.
After the meeting, the government said the poll would go ahead as scheduled.