Red Shirts won't budge

"We haven’t done anything. We are unarmed, we’re not breaking anything. We’re only here to fight for democracy. I am not worried," one protester said as the opposition movement’s leaders promised the rallies would continue. They announced the biggest rally ever would take place on Friday.

Anticipating a further influx of protesters into the city, the government set up military checkpoints outside Bangkok in an attempt to prevent the crowds from swelling.

The protests have been going on for some four weeks now and Bangkok’s main intersections and shopping districts have been disrupted by tens of thousands of Red Shirts.

Opposition websites and TV channels blocked

As part of the state of emergency, TV channels and websites sympathetic to the red-shirted opposition have been blocked, on the grounds that they have been spreading "misinformation."

This has angered many supporters of the opposition and brought more out onto the streets. "The People’s Channel is the only television channel that reports the truth," said one man.

"The truth about our fight for democracy. The other channels are just lying about us. When I was watching the People’s Channel earlier on today it was suddenly switched off. That’s why I’m here."

A state of emergency for whom?

One of the movement’s leaders, Nattawut Saikua, said: "We are not worried. This is not a state of emergency for the Red Shirts. It is for the government. Regardless of how it is enforced, we will resist peacefully."

Abhisit is in a tough position: If he calls an election, he is very likely to lose. Moreover, if the Red Shirt camp were to win there could be a series of counter-protests by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s "yellow-shirted" opponents.

But if he cracks and resorts to the use of violence to disperse the protests, then he could just worsen the whole situation.

Most observers doubt that he will order a crackdown despite the resoluteness of the Red Shirts to not budge from around Bangkok’s luxury malls and hotels.

Pressure is mounting

However, the pressure is growing on Abhisit to make a decision that will end the ongoing protests that have paralyzed life in the Thai capital.

The Red Shirts have so far rejected certain conciliatory moves such as offering to dissolve parliament in December. The protesters want immediate elections.

Mainly supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the protesters dislike British-born, Oxford-educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and accuse him of representing an unelected elite that allows the military to intervene in politics with impunity.

Although on Thursday the stock market lost 2 percent – its biggest fall in over two months – and the baht fell, most investors are confident that even a violent resolution of the situation would not derail Southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy.

act/dpa/Reuters
Editor: Thomas Baertlein