For San Francisco readers keeping up-to-date on world news, we are pleased to present this story from The BBC.

Thailand’s new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva has had to delay his opening speech to parliament due to anti-government protests.

Hundreds of protesters loyal to deposed leader Thaksin Shinawatra surrounded parliament on Monday, after tens of thousands had gathered on Sunday.

The demonstrators say Mr Abhisit has no mandate to lead and should resign.

He was elected in a parliamentary vote two weeks ago, after a court dissolved the former pro-Thaksin government.

Mr Abhisit is Thailand’s third prime minister in four months.

He now faces crowds of red-clad opponents on the streets who say they object to his route to power.

Delay

Satit Wongnongtaey, a minister in charge of relations with the media, said the delivery of the policy statement would probably be delayed for three to four hours if the gates to parliament remained blocked.

“We are still trying to negotiate with the protesters so that we can deliver the policy speech,” he said.

Under the constitution, a new Thai government cannot start work officially until it delivers its policy statement to a joint sitting of the House of Representatives and Senate.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugusban said the government was negotiating with protesters to allow cars past the blockade and into parliament.

“We will not allow government MPs to walk into parliament. It’s too dangerous,” he said.

Organisers of the protests said they would not prevent parliamentarians from entering the building, but dared them to leave their cars and walk between lines of protesters.

No mandate

Mr Abhisit was elected by parliament after a court required the dissolution of parties in the ruling coalition.

He has tried to distance himself from an earlier wave of protests against the previous Thaksin-backed government which had forced the closure of the country’s airports for eight days.

But members of his new government, including the foreign minister, took part in those protests.

Those protesters, yellow-clad, were called the Peoples’ Alliance for Democracy or PAD.

The new wave of protests, led by Thaksin loyalists and red-clad, are called the Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship.

Slogans on banners included “Abhisit get out, this is a prostitute’s government”, “We are ready to protect Thaksin”, “Give us back real democracy” and “Government of treason”.

Mr Thaksin was ousted from the prime minister’s job in a military coup in 2006, but elections in December 2007 under a new constitution returned his loyalists to power.

Several governments led by his supporters collapsed under the weight of court rulings against them, PAD protests and a defection within parliament by a formerly pro-Thaksin faction.

Now his supporters are on the streets in moves to blockade parliament reminiscent of the protests mounted against them when they were in power.

Mr Abhisist had promised a government of reconciliation and economic recovery.

New Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said last week that the country’s export-driven economy would shrink in the fourth quarter and barely grow in 2009.

Mr Korn, an Oxford-trained former investment banker, projected 2009 growth at between zero and 2 percent, the worst in a decade

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation

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