Reuters, Bangkok :
Thailand’s army will increase the number of troops in the capital ahead of Sunday’s election, it said on Thursday, as the government warned it might not be able to contain violence if anti-government protesters try to stop people voting.
The protesters, members of the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), say they will disrupt the ballot as part of their campaign to overthrow Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The government’s decision to press ahead with the election has inflamed tension in the capital, Bangkok, where the protesters have blockaded main intersections and forced many ministries to close their doors this month.
“In addition to the 5,000 soldiers we have already deployed in and around Bangkok to help monitor security, we will be increasing troops around protest sites as there are people trying to instigate violence,” army spokesman Winthai Suvaree told Reuters.
About 10,000 police would be responsible for Bangkok security on Sunday and the troops would be on standby.
Labour Minister Chalerm Yoombamrung, in charge of a state of emergency imposed last week, urged the protesters not to disrupt the vote.
“If the PDRC do that, people will beat each other to a pulp and nobody can control a situation like that,” he told reporters. “The police and
soldiers don’t have enough manpower to take care of (security) at every polling station.”
Demonstrators took to the streets in November in the latest chapter of an eight-year political conflict that pits Bangkok’s middle class and southern Thais against the mostly poor, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by the army in 2006.
The protesters accuse Yingluck of being a puppet of former telecoms tycoon Thaksin, a man they say is a corrupt crony capitalist who has bought elections over the past decade with costly populist giveaways.
Thaksin went into self-exile in 2008, shortly before he was sentenced to jail on graft charges he says were politically motivated. Ten people have died and at least 577 have been wounded in politically related violence since November 30 according to the Erawan Medical Center, which monitors Bangkok hospitals.
A protest leader was killed and about a dozen people were injured in a clash near a polling station during advance voting on Sunday in Bangkok. The protesters prevented early voting in many parts of the capital and the south.
The violence is the worst since 2010 when current protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, at the time a deputy prime minister, sent in troops to end demonstrations by pro-Thaksin activists.
Suthep faces murder charges related to his role in that crackdown, when more than 90 people were killed, and for insurrection in leading the latest protests which are also taking their toll on Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy.
