Royalist demonstrators swarmed government buildings and a state television station in Bangkok today in an attempt to drive from office its democratically elected government for the second time in two years.

Hundreds of demonstrators, many of them carrying the yellow flags of the Thai monarchy, entered the official compound of Thailand’s prime minister, Samak Sundaravej, as police opened the gates and stood by. Another group stormed the National Broadcasting Services of Thailand (NBT), with masks, clubs and iron bars, and forced the station from the air for an hour until being rounded up by police.

As many as 30,000 people from the right wing People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) took part in the protests at five government buildings, demanding Mr Samak’s resignation and the replacement of Thailand’s democracy with an appointed parliament which would exclude the poor rural voters who have transformed Thailand’s politics in the past seven years. The demonstrations were the most dramatic since September 2006 when a peaceful military coup drove from power the country’s last democratically elected prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

“I will not resign, I will stay to protect this country,” Mr Samak said in a nationally broadcast television address, after being forced to hold a cabinet meeting in a military base. “Police will use all means to restore normality as soon as possible. Police will take decisive action against the protesters. … The government has given them a lot of time, and now government restraint is almost over.

“I ask all the protesters who have been blockading or occupying government offices that you still have a chance to withdraw and go back to your homes. The military will not allow them to take control of the country. However, it is not the time yet for military force.”

But Mr Samak’s show of magnanimous forbearance masks the damage that he has suffered as a result of the protests, which were launched in earnest three months ago. He was elected last December as leader of the People Power Party (PPP), and made no secret of his loyalty to Mr Thaksin, the most popular, but most divisive, prime minister in Thailand’s history.

Mr Thaksin’s enemies, mainly among the urban middle class, accused him of using his great wealth to compromise human rights, freedom of the press, and of undermining the constitutional checks and balances on his own power. But he was adored by rural Thais, who felt themselves to be unrepresented by Thailand’s mainstream political establishment.

He was deposed in a military coup in 2006 and went into exile in London, where he became proprietor of Manchester City Football Club. But he appeared to be heading back to power last December after a general election which was decisively won by Mr Samak and the PPP.

But Mr Thaksin faced criminal charges for alleged fraud perpetrated during his period in office. After his wife, Potjaman, was convicted by a Thai court, Mr Thaksin abandoned his attempts to return to power. This month he skipped bail and flew back to exile in London.

This development, and the decision by the Thai attorney general to attempt to extradite Mr Thaksin from London, took much of the pressure off Mr Samak, who could no longer be portrayed as a straightforward Thaksin toady. In some ways, today’s demonstrations represent a dramatic last hurrah by the PAD which has lost support among ordinary Thais for its confrontational tactics and the disruption which its demonstrations have brought to Bangkok’s already congested roads.

Even the opposition Democratic Party have spoken out in support of the government and against the PAD, which appears to have been hoping to provoke a violent, or even bloody, response form the government to galvanise still more outrage and opposition towards it.

“If we fail this time, we'll quit and surrender the country to them,” the PAD’s leader, Sondhi Limthongkul, said yesterday. “When people don't care about us, we won't have to care about them. Let others take over the country.”

The Bangkok stock fell 2.5 per cent on fears of violence or another coup, the latest slump since the PAD launched its campaign. But the head of the army, Gneneral Anupong Paochinda, ruled out the possibility of military intervention. “The army will not launch a coup,” he said. “The people can be assured. This is a task for the police."

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