BANGKOK - Anti-government protesters seeking to block next month’s elections took over major roads in Bangkok on Sunday as they began their campaign to shut down the city.
In this vast metropolis of more than 10 million people, the protesters were unlikely to paralyze all movement and commerce. But they vowed that by this morning they would close busy intersections, make major government offices inaccessible and besiege the homes of top officials in the administration of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, whose party is likely to win the general elections if they are held Feb. 2.
“We have to shut down Bangkok,” said Ratchanee Saengarun, a protester who stood in the middle of an intersection in the city. “This is our last resort.”
Most Thai and international schools in Bangkok were closed today, as were some major shopping malls. Many residents appeared to stay home, and traffic was light across much of the city.
The protests centered on seven major intersections, where demonstrators blocked roads with walls of sandbags or vans and organized lively sit-ins on mats beneath stages equipped with speaker systems.
At one crossroads in the heart of the capital’s financial district, huge Thai flags hung from an overhead walkway, and protesters wearing bandannas and sunglasses forced drivers to turn their cars around.
Overnight, an unidentified gunman opened fire on protesters camped near a vast government complex, shooting one man in the neck who was admitted to a nearby hospital, according to the city’s emergency medical services.
In a separate attack early today, a gunman fired about 10 shots at the headquarters of the opposition Democrat Party, shattering several windows but causing no casualties, said police Maj. Nartnarit Rattanaburi.
In addition to mobilizing thousands of riot police officers for what is widely called the “shutdown,” the government has called up 8,000 military personnel to guard against chaos.
“We are pretty sure that both the military personnel and the police can maintain law and order and peace [this] week,” said Phongthep Thepkanjana, a deputy prime minister.
Even in a city inured to protest in recent years, the attempt to block major sections of Bangkok was ambitious and controversial. Government supporters in the north and northeast lashed out at the protest and mobilized over the weekend to counter any takeover by the military, which has been ambivalent in its support for the government.
Business groups and tourist associations pleaded with the protesters to stand down. And some of the country’s leading scholars, who said Thailand was teetering on the edge of widespread violence, urged protesters to allow the elections to proceed unimpeded.
But the protest movement, a group largely led by the middle and upper classes in Bangkok and residents of southern Thailand, appeared to enjoy considerable support. Among those casting their lot with the protesters were the union representing Thai Airways, the national carrier; an association of rural doctors; the union representing employees of state-owned companies; and an association of university rectors.
Other institutions were as divided as the country itself. Many professors and students at one of Thailand’s most prestigious universities, Chulalongkorn, vowed to support the protest by blocking access to a central commercial district. But others at the university said they were angered that the protest sympathizers would claim to represent Chulalongkorn.
The protesters are driven by hatred of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire tycoon and former prime minister who is in self-exile overseas but wields great influence over the government. The protesters are passionately opposed to the family’s dominance in the country and believe that the elections will cement its hold on the political system. Disillusioned with electoral democracy, they want to replace parliament with a “people’s council.”
Yet Thaksin, who was ousted in a military coup in2006, and Yingluck are widely admired by voters in the north and northeast for their transformative policies, including universal health care.
The leader of the protests, Suthep Thaugsuban, was quoted as saying on Sunday in the English-language newspaper The Nation that he would chase Yingluck out of Thailand.
“You will no longer have a place to live,” Suthep said. “We’ll fight until the victory belongs to the people.”
Seeming to acknowledge the fears of his critics that the protests could kindle violence, he added that he would retreat if there were signs of “civil war.”
“If someone instigates a civil war, I will tell the people to go home,” Suthep said.
Information for this article was contributed by Thanyarat Doksone, Todd Pitman, Grant Peck and Jinda Wedel of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/13/2014