government stuck

BANGKOK— Thailand’s government stuck to a plan for a February election on Wednesday despite mounting pressure from protesters who have brought parts of Bangkok to a near-standstill, and said it believed support for the leader of the agitation was waning.
Some hardline protesters threatened to blockade the stock exchange and an air traffic control facility if Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra had not stepped down by a deadline media said was set for 8 p.m. (1300 GMT).
There was no apparent movement as the deadline came and went.
The unrest, which flared in early November and escalated this week when demonstrators occupied main intersections of the capital, is the latest chapter in an eight-year conflict.
The political fault line pits the Bangkok-based middle class and royalist establishment against the mostly poorer, rural supporters of Yingluck and her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former premier ousted by the military in 2006 who is seen as the power behind her government.
Yingluck invited protest leaders and political parties to discuss a proposal to delay the general election, which she has called for Feb. 2, but her opponents snubbed her invitation.