Thai protesters force PM to delay speech

Thousands of protesters blockaded Thailand's parliament today, forcing new premier Abhisit Vejjajiva to delay his maiden policy speech twice and deepening the kingdom's drawn-out political crisis.

Red-shirted demonstrators loyal to former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 military coup, said they would seal off the entrances to parliament until British-born Abhisit calls new elections.

The siege brought a sense of deja vu for many Thais, with protesters copying tactics employed by rival yellow-shirted activists who helped to bring down a government led by Thaksin's allies in early December.

The pro-Thaksin protesters said they would allow Abhisit and his cabinet to walk into parliament but not come by car. Authorities said it was unsafe for legislators to do so because of the risk of violence.

"The government has informed me that they are coordinating with protesters and have asked me to delay," said house speaker Chai Chidchob, announcing that the speech - originally due to start at 9.30am (10.30am Malaysian time) - had been put back for a second time from 2pm to 5pm.

The speech could be further delayed until tomorrow or even into the new year, he said. The policy address to the upper and lower houses of parliament is a constitutional requirement before Abhisit's government can start work.

Police said around 9,000 "red-shirts" descended on parliament overnight after at least 20,000 Thaksin supporters had gathered on Sunday night at a city centre parade ground several kilometres away.

"We call for the government to dissolve the house and return power to the people," said Chalerm Yoobamrung, a core leader of the pro-Thaksin Puea Thai (For Thais) party.

Thailand's third PM in four months

Oxford-educated Abhisit won a parliamentary vote two weeks ago to become Thailand's third premier in four months, after a court dissolved the former ruling People Power Party (PPP) loyal to Thaksin on Dec 2.

Abhisit, the head of the Democrat Party, sealed the vote with the help of defectors from the PPP and coalition parties previously allied with it.

Supporters of Thaksin, who is living in self-imposed exile to avoid a jail sentence for corruption, said the verdict in a vote fraud case was a "disguised coup" against the former government.

That verdict followed months of protests by the royalist People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD), an anti-Thaksin group that blockaded Bangkok's airports earlier this month, causing huge damage to the economy.

Abhisit told AFP last week he had ordered police to avoid a repeat of clashes at parliament on Oct 7, when the PAD tried to stop then-premier Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law, delivering his policy speech.

The violence left two people dead and around 500 injured.

The 44-year-old Abhisit faces a raft of problems, ranging from Thailand's stuttering economy to the enormous divide between pro- and anti-Thaksin forces.

He has vowed a "grand plan of reconciliation" and a 300 billion baht (US$8.6 billion) economic stimulus package, but caused controversy by appointing a vocal supporter of the PAD's airport blockade as his foreign minister.

Twice-elected Thaksin is still loathed by the Bangkok-based elite in the military, palace and bureaucracy, who backed the PAD and see Thaksin as corrupt, authoritarian and a threat to their traditional power base.

But his populist policies won him huge support among the urban and rural poor, especially in his native north and northeast, where many of Sunday's protesters hailed from.

"I don't want the Democrat Party to form the government, and I don't want Abhisit Vejjajiva to be prime minister," company worker Saeng Arun said at the protest.