Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra asked protesters to clear the streets and announced she would agree to a snap election before scheduled elections in February. The decision comes after weeks of street rallies and protests which seem to have taken its toll on her, according to Reuters.
Shinawatra, 46, was elected in 2011 after her brother Thaksin Shinawatra was removed from power. She has no previous political experience, according to Reuters. A large amount of votes from the countryside, where her brother Thaksin is rumored to have a large devoted following due to promises to help the poor, facilitated her win.
During a conference on Tuesday held in an army club, Shinawatra is seen close to tears as she pleads for a democratic solution, but protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban said she needs to step down within 24 hours in a speech he delivered late Monday night, Reuters reported.
Protesters are dismissing her request for a snap election and are asking instead for her replacement by an "unelected people's council," in a sign that Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy might be moving away from the democratic process, according to Reuters. Shinawatra said she would not step down from her role as Prime Minister until she is voted out in the next election on Feb.2.
"We want the government to step aside and create a power vacuum in order to create a people's council," said Akanat Promphan, a spokesman for the protest group, said during the rally, according to Reuters.
"Now that the government has dissolved parliament, I ask that you stop protesting and that all sides work towards elections," Shinawatra told reporters as she went into the meeting on Tuesday. "I have backed down to the point where I don't know how to back down any further."
The protestors are a mix of Bangkok's royalist elite who want Shinawatra out and bring back her brother's influence who was the former premier and currently lives in exile rather than pay his sentence in jail for abuse of power, Reuters reported.
According to Reuters, Thaksin is seen as the power behind Shinawatra's government, allegedly holding webcam meetings with the cabinet. Only 6,000 protesters were present on Tuesday around the Government House in Banhkok where Shinawatra's office is located, a small amount compared to the 160,000 who compiled there on Monday.
