DHAKA: The red-shirt supporters of Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on Wednesday they could take to the streets to protect the government from protesters who have forced her to call a snap election, setting the scene for a possible confrontation.

The warning by the ‘red shirts’ highlights the risks ahead as anti-government protesters keep pushing to eradicate the political influence of Yingluck’s brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, a hero in the rural north and northeast who was toppled by the military in 2006.

Protest leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister in the previous government that Yingluck’s ruling party beat by a landslide in 2011, has ignored her call for a snap election to be held on February 2, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1347 HRS, DEC 11, 2013