The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Bangkok

More than 3,000 Thai police moved into position Sunday to prevent a replay of mass demonstrations that virtually paralyzed the government for months and climaxed with an eight-day seizure of the capital's airports, local media said.

This time, it was supporters of exiled ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra - instead of his opponents - who planned to take to the streets.

Thaksin's followers were planning to marshal enough demonstrators to block the new government from delivering its policy statement at Parliament early next week. The protest was scheduled to begin Sunday.

Police units were being dispatched to cordon off the Parliament building and a nearby field where the pro-Thaksin Democratic Alliance against Dictatorship was to gather, the Web site of The Nation newspaper said.

On Saturday, the alliance vowed to stage demonstrations nationwide unless the new prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, dissolves Parliament and holds new elections. The group - dubbed the "red shirts" for their favored protest attire - says Abhisit's Democrat Party came to power this month through a virtual coup d'etat.

Warong Dechgitvigrom, a spokesman for the Democrat Party, said party representatives would go together to Parliament on Monday morning and if it was blocked they would return to party headquarters.

He said the government did not plan to force its way into the building if the demonstrators manage to block the area.

An Oxford-educated, 44-year-old politician, Abhisit was formally named prime minister Dec. 17 in what many hoped would be the end of months of turbulent, sometimes violent, protests that had their roots in a 2006 military coup that toppled Thaksin.