Protesters besiege Bangkok's Government House, oppose caretaker government

BANGKOK, December 9 (TNA) - Anti-government protesters have surrounded Bangkok's Government House, announcing their initial victory and opposition to the Yingluck Shinawatra government's caretaker roles. The protesters are led by the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), whose core leaders mainly include former Democrat Party MPs; while police, who do not have tear gas or any vehicle with loudspeakers or any high-pressure water gun as they did previously, remain in their positions and do not block protesters from approaching the Government House. After Yingluck announced the dissolution of the House of Representaives on Monday morning, PDRC leaders said on their stages that the House dissolution was their initial victory and their protest would continue to stop her government from playing its caretaker roles, claiming that Thailand's present Constitution allows the formation of a people’s government. Dr. Suphan Srithamma, Director-General of the Department of Medical Services, under the Thai Ministry of Public Health, told reporters, in the meantime, that his ministry's Emergency Medical Institute of Thailand (EMC) agreed to, however, dispatch volunteer medical units to provide first-aid services to the protesters, and that his ministry has also prepared mobile medical units to serve patients at protest sites or nearby hospitals in case of any emergency. The red-clad United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), aligned with Yingluck's Pheu Thai Party, canceled its rally planned in the central Ayutthaya Province on December 10 after the House dissolution. Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisal confirmed, meanwhile, that the caretaker roles of the government are constitutional to allow people to shape their own future through a democratic election. Pongsak acknowledged that the caretaker Yingluck government's term is limited at no more than 80 days after the House dissolution, during which bureaucratic tasks, including those of his ministry, will be continued but policymaking is to be wait for the new government.(TNA)