Thai PM Yingluck Shinawatra rules out snap polls

Zee Media Bureau

Bangkok: Yingluck Shinawatra, the prime minister of protests-marred Thailand, on Friday said she would not call snap elections despite pressure on her to do so. Speaking to the BBC, Shinawatra said the situation in the country was not calm enough to hold early elections. The remarks came after six days of opposition protests calling on her government to step down. Shinawatra defeated a no-confidence motion in Parliament after the protests broke out. The PM said her government would not order any crackdown on protesters who have been occupying government ministries. Today, they even forced their way into the Army headquarters and Shinawatra’s party office in Bangkok. Boisterous demonstrators have targeted key government buildings in Bangkok in the biggest street protests since mass rallies in 2010 degenerated into the kingdom`s worst civil strife in decades. The protesters -- a mix of royalists, southerners and the urban middle class sometimes numbering in their tens of thousands -- are united by their loathing of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The controversial former telecoms tycoon was ousted in a coup in 2006 and lives in self-imposed exile, but he is widely believed to be the real power behind the embattled government of his younger sister Yingluck. Protesters are demanding the end of the "Thaksin regime" and want to replace the government with an unelected "people`s council".