Thailand Protest Leader Sets Dec. 9 Deadline

Rallies will end if they fail to oust prime minister

The leader of Thailand's anti-government protests called for a nationwide demonstration on Monday, Dec. 9, and said marches would end that day if they failed to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

"We will win by drawing a huge crowd," protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban told supporters in Bangkok late yesterday. Two previous calls for for civil servants to join the rallies failed to draw significant support.

Suthep, a former member of the opposition Democrat party, is seeking to replace Thailand's democratic system with a council consisting of "good people" from a cross-section of society as part of a strategy to dismantle the political network of Yingluck's brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, whose allies have won every election in the country since Thaksin was deposed in a 2006 coup.