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Bangkok: Thai protesters prepared to end their three-month occupation of the Prime Minister's office on Monday and consolidate their grip on the main airport ahead of a court verdict that could dissolve the elected government.
Leaders of the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) said they would invite neutral observers into the Government House compound, which they overran in late August, prior to a hoped-for handover later on Tuesday.
"We want to show the authorities that the damage wasn't 100 million to 200 million baht (Dh20.16 million) as claimed by the government," PAD spokesman Suriyasai Katasila said. "If everybody is happy, we may hold a returning ceremony tomorrow."
PAD supporters streamed from the central Bangkok site to Suvarnabhumi airport, the move suggested the party is merely shifting its focus rather than giving up. Government House site was hit by several grenades in the past two weeks, killing one and wounding dozens.
The yellow-shirted demonstrators are trying to topple Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, whom they accuse of being a pawn for his brother-in-law, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup and is now in exile.
Somchai insisted again he would not go.
"I will not quit and I will not dissolve parliament," he told reporters in the northern city of Chiang Mai.
Forecasts for the economy, which is already suffering from the global financial crisis, are grim.
Finance minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech told Reuters yesterday that the economy would grow by just 1 to 2 per cent, after earlier growth forecasts of between 4 to 5 per cent.
The director of Thailand's Board of Trade said the cost of the airport closures was "incalculable", but a senior board member told the Nation newspaper their daily losses were around 3 billion baht (Dh314.5 million).
Rating agency S&P cut Thailand's outlook to negative from stable, saying there was a very real possibility of widespread violence.
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