Protesters Occupy Bangkok’s Central Business District

International New York Times | 13 Jan. 2014

BANGKOK — Bangkok’s central commercial district was swarmed by antigovernment protesters on Monday as part of a so-called shutdown of the city, a largely peaceful demonstration that cut off most traffic to Thailand’s costliest real estate and most prestigious addresses.

The protest was the boldest move in two months of protests against the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

Protesters frustrated with what they say is a dysfunctional political system have issued some of the most radical political demands seen in Asia in recent years: the scrapping of elections scheduled for February, a hiatus for democracy and the formation of an alternative form of government involving an unelected “people’s council” that would replace Parliament.

“We need to shut the capital to tell people that this government has lost its legitimacy,” said Uracha Trairat, a businessman who flew from the southern island of Phuket to join the protests. “The government is now destroying itself.”

Launch media viewer

Antigovernment protesters occupied a downtown intersection in Bangkok on Monday. Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

The protest had echoes of a protracted demonstration several years ago that closed off some of the same areas of Bangkok and ended with a military crackdown that left dozens of people dead.

There were no reports of violence from the protest areas by late Monday afternoon, and some observers said the demonstration resembled a car-free festival more than a serious threat to the government.

But a radical and aggressive faction of the protesters threatened to take over the country’s stock exchange and air traffic control system if Ms. Yingluck’s government did not step down by Wednesday.

In making that threat, one of the leaders of the faction, Nitithorn Lamlua, said that protest leaders had already been charged by the government with rebellion, so they “could not lose.”

“We will fight until we win,” he said.

The International Crisis Group, a research organization, said on Monday that the “scope for peaceful resolution is narrowing,” and that the campaign to stop elections “raises prospects of widespread political violence” and could provoke a military coup.

“Competing Thai elites — with mass backing — disagree fundamentally about how political power should be acquired and exercised,” the group said.

During two months of demonstrations on Bangkok’s streets, protesters have raided the Finance Ministry and other key government offices, temporarily cut power to Police Headquarters and blocked the registration of candidates for the election.

Chadchart Sittipunt, the transport minister, asked protesters to “think of the country” and urged them not to shut down the air traffic control office.

“This is going beyond the expression of opinion in a democratic way,” he said.

Launch media viewer

A barricade in central Bangkok on Monday. Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

Ms. Yingluck, who, with her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister and business tycoon living in self-imposed exile, is the target of the protests, has insisted for weeks that there is no legal avenue for postponing the elections scheduled for Feb. 2.

Highlighting the split in Thailand between Bangkok and the northern parts of the country, government supporters in many provincial capitals held demonstrations on Monday in favor of the elections, holding up signs reading “Respect My Vote.”

What are you talking about? This group can vote in an election, yet they want to reject Democracy and instill an unelected...

Yet one of Ms. Yingluck’s aides, Suranand Vejjajiva, was quoted on Monday by the Thai news media as saying that the government would invite “various groups,” including the protest leaders, to discuss a plea by the Election Commission to delay the voting. He called it a “sincere invitation.”

Many areas of the vast capital were unaffected by the protests. But many schools, universities, offices and shops selling gold were closed on Monday.

And in the Ratchaprasong neighborhood, which during normal times is among the most popular areas for visitors, bewildered tourists were seen trying to navigate the barriers erected by protesters.

In an apparent attempt to reassure tourists during the country’s high season, the Tourism Authority of Thailand issued a statement on Monday saying that it was “business as usual in Thailand,” and pointed out that hotels, restaurants, spas, shopping malls and hospitals, among other places, were “operating as per normal,” with only “some changes in the opening hours.”

On what was a clear and unusually crisp day, protesters cheered, blew whistles and marched down streets largely devoid of vehicles. Among the most popular pictures posted on social media sites on Monday were images of empty boulevards that on a normal day would be choked with traffic.

Among the protesters Monday was Krit Satta, a computer saleswoman and cycling enthusiast who toured the business district on her bicycle.

“Bangkok has never been so empty,” she said. “Normally, you have to wait until midnight to ride free of traffic jams.”

She compared the protests on Monday to the shutdown of the United States government last year.

“We are just freezing the government from functioning,” she said. “I would like to tell the world that there’s no violence here — it’s more like a festival.”