Thai PM says peaceful protest can go on, markets worry
By Arada Therdthammakun
BANGKOK, April 9 (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Thursday that a big anti-government rally would be allowed to continue so long as it remained peaceful, while the risk of a turn to violence weighed on financial markets.
"My standpoint remains the same: the rally can continue as long as they act within the framework of the law," Abhisit said in an interview on Channel 9 television.
He added that the protests posed no security risk to an Asian summit in Thailand.
As many as 100,000 red-shirted supporters of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra have assembled in the area around Abhisit's office, demanding he resign.
Thaksin was toppled in a coup in 2006 and is in self-imposed exile, but his absence has not healed the divisions between the royalist and business elite, who accused him of corruption, and the poor who benefited from his populist policies.
The rally was peaceful on Wednesday, when it started, and no violence was reported overnight.
However, television showed footage from early on Thursday of a woman wearing the yellow shirt of Thaksin's opponents driving a car into a group of demonstrators, apparently deliberately. One man was reported to have been injured. The woman drove away.
The prospect of renewed violence has added to the concerns of the stock market .SETI, which has fallen 1.4 percent this year while many Asian markets have started to recover.
"People are going to be worried about this mass rally rather than paying much attention to the rise on Wall Street," said Therdsak Taveetheeratham, an analyst at Asia Plus Securities, after U.S. shares rose overnight.
"The fact there has been no violence by the 'red shirts' does help ease the market mood, but in the long run, who knows?" he said.
Finance ministers from the 10-country Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet in Pattaya, a resort 150 km (90 miles) from Bangkok, on Thursday. A three-day summit of leaders from ASEAN and six other Asian countries starts on Friday.
Abhisit's car was attacked on Tuesday in Pattaya after a cabinet meeting held at the summit venue. The prime minister was unhurt but the incident raised security concerns.
"The political situation should not be a problem for the summit ... Yesterday's rally didn't turn to violence," Abhisit said in the television interview.
The summit had to be cancelled late last year because of political unrest when a pro-Thaksin government was in power, and Abhisit's administration has billed the rescheduled event as a sign Thailand was getting back to normal. [ID:nSP435860] (Additional reporting by Vithoon Amorn; Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Jerry Norton)
