DHAKA: Thailand’s pro-government Red Shirts began massing on Saturday in Bangkok to challenge a bid by opposition protesters to install an unelected regime in power after the removal of the prime minister.

The dismissal of premier Yingluck Shinawatra and nine ministers by the Constitutional Court past week for the improper transfer of a top security official has plunged the restive kingdom deeper into crisis.

Officials said about 3,000 police officers were on stand-by for the pro-government rally on the western outskirts of Bangkok on Saturday, with turnout expected to peak in the evening.

‘We are ready to fight,’ senior Red Shirt Kwanchai Pripana told media ahead of the gathering, reports The Straits Times.

‘We will not use violence but we will use the power of the masses to fight for democracy.’

The Red Shirts have said they will keep up their protests for as long as necessary to defend the wounded administration.

Rival opposition demonstrators are gearing up to try to deliver a knock-out blow to the remnants of the government to enable an unelected leadership to take the reins of the south-east Asian nation.

Such a move would infuriate supporters of Yingluck and her elder brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed by royalist generals in a coup in 2006, an event that ushered in years of political turmoil.

Political violence has left at least 25 people dead and hundreds wounded in gun and grenade attacks by shadowy assailants in recent months, mostly targeting opposition demonstrators.

The fear is that armed elements on both sides of the political divide could seek to incite further unrest.

BDST: 1335 HRS, MAY 10, 2014