Thai Leader Puts Bangkok Under Tighter Control

Updated Nov. 25, 2013 12:16 p.m. ET

Thai antigovernment protesters gathered at a rally occupying the main roads near Government House in Bangkok on Monday. European Pressphoto Agency

BANGKOK—Thailand expanded special security laws to cover the entire capital after protesters forced their way into government offices in a bid to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Crowds poured into government ministries in Bangkok on Monday, escalating their monthlong antigovernment campaign and raising fears that the country could return to the unrest that followed the ouster in 2006 of Ms. Yingluck’s brother, Thaksin Shinawatra.

Hundreds of Thai protesters took over the country’s Finance Ministry building, escalating a month-long effort to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Via The Foreign Bureau, WSJ’s global news update. Photo: AP

Ms. Yingluck said on television Monday evening that her government is placing the entire capital under tighter control by employing the Thai Internal Security Act, which gives security forces broad power to impose curfews, block roads and stop vehicles, and restrict access to areas or buildings. The law has often been imposed to curb and deter prolonged street rallies in recent years, most effectively to prevent protesters from entering key government offices.
Thousands of protesters swarmed into the Finance Ministry compound Monday afternoon, following a march in the capital to pressure Ms. Yingluck to resign and dissolve the House of Representatives. The protesters accuse Ms. Yingluck of acting as a proxy for Mr. Thaksin, who held office from 2001 to 2006 before he was toppled by the military.
Demonstrators cut off the power and water supplies to the ministry’s Budget Bureau, a symbolic gesture intended to indicate a cutting of the government’s ability to finance its projects. Hours later, several hundred antigovernment protesters burst into the nearby Foreign Ministry and occupied its compound.
“We have prevented the Finance Ministry and the Budget Bureau from being exploited by the Thaksin regime,” Suthep Thaugsuban, leader of the protest, told reporters at the Finance Ministry.

Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra Monday invoked the Internal Security Act. European Pressphoto Agency

Mr. Suthep—a former lawmaker of the main opposition Democrat Party who resigned to lead the street protests—told protesters not to vandalize ministry property but urged them to occupy other government offices nationwide, prompting officials at the government’s headquarters to leave work early.
Street tensions built up on Sunday evening when more than 100,000 people joined Mr. Suthep in the capital. On Monday morning, tens of thousands marched to 13 locations in Bangkok—including military and police headquarters, government offices and television stations—to urge government officials to refuse to serve the government and take their side in overthrowing Ms. Yingluck’s administration.
The antigovernment movement started building last month after the lower house, which was dominated by Ms. Yingluck’s ruling Pheu Thai Party, rushed to pass a contentious law that would absolve Mr. Thaksin and others of a wide-ranging politically related offenses. The Senate killed the bill, and Ms. Yingluck’s party backed off. But the retreat failed to calm public outrage.
“The amnesty reinforced a perspective that Ms. Yingluck’s administration and Mr. Thaksin are inseparable, and that has provided a cause for the anti-Thaksin elements to regroup and restart the protest,” said Yuttaporn Issarachai, a political scientist at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University.
Analysts said Ms. Yingluck’s administration is walking a tightrope as it faces threats on the streets and inside parliament. The political opposition in the House of Representatives plans to launch a no-confidence debate against Ms. Yingluck and her key ministers starting Tuesday. The criticism will focus on Ms. Yingluck’s multibillion-dollar rice subsidy program, which has left the government with at least $4.3 billion in losses and millions of tons of unsold rice.
Ms. Yingluck responded to the occupation in a televised address Monday night.
“The government has to use the laws to maintain the administration of the country and to protect the government properties,” Ms. Yingluck said. “However, I insist that the government will not use violence against the people.”
The special security laws, which give additional power to Thai authorities in dealing with a matter of national security, were already in place since early October in three districts in Bangkok.
Government Red Shirt supporters on Sunday scrambled to mobilize people at a stadium on the other side of Bangkok to show support for the government. Red Shirt leaders said they have no plan to prompt government supporters to confront the antigovernment groups, but said they would stay put until the antigovernment group call off its rally.
The antigovernment demonstrations Monday were the biggest since 2010, when pro-Thaksin supporters occupied downtown Bangkok and demanded then-Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva call a fresh election. That nine-week-long occupation ended in bloodshed when the military cracked down on protesters, leaving more than 90 people dead and scores injured.
Thamrongsak Petchlertanan, political science lecturer at Rangsit University, said the government’s options now are limited, with choices of calling a fresh election to ease the tensions or dispersing the protests at a risk of instigating violence.

Protesters rally in Bangkok, escalating their campaign to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Reuters

“The government’s stability is barely there now,” Mr. Thamrongsak said. “The current circumstances are forcing the government to seek its righteousness through general elections.”
Mr. Thamrongsak, the political scientist, predicts the anti-Thaksin sentiment will continue. “There may have been peace in Thailand during the past few years, but many people have never really accepted the Shinawatras as their leaders,” he said.
Mr. Thaksin has been living in self-imposed exile over the past five years to avoid a two-year imprisonment for a corruption conviction that he says was politically motivated.
—Wilawan Watcharasakwet and Nopparat Chaichalearmmongkol contributed to this article.

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