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BANGKOK, Thailand — Thailand’s embattled leader struggled to keep the peace and his grip on power after declaring a state of emergency that was openly flouted by thousands of anti-government protesters in the capital.

While Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej sought to tamp down newly violent unrest pitting largely prosperous urban forces against the country’s impoverished rural majority, he also was hit Tuesday by an electoral commission finding that could disband his party and bar him from politics.

Some anti-government groups also taunted authorities by threatening to switch off water and electricity at police stations and other government offices Wednesday.

Samak said he had no choice but to impose emergency rule in Bangkok after a week of political tensions exploded into rioting and street fighting early Tuesday between his supporters and opponents that left one person dead and dozens injured.

His decree gives the military the right to restore order, allows authorities to suspend civil liberties, bans public gatherings of more than five people and bars the media from reporting news that “causes panic.”

Samak and the army chief, Gen. Anupong Paochinda, both said authorities viewed emergency rule as a last resort and stressed they wanted to avoid violence.

“I did it to solve the problems of the country,” Samak said in a televised news conference at a military headquarters in Bangkok.

“I had no other choice. The softest means available was an emergency decree to end the situation using the law.”

At a separate news conference, Anupong said that if troops are ordered into Bangkok’s streets, they will be armed only with riot shields and batons.

Tensions remained high as thousands of protesters who are demanding Samak’s resignation defied the ban on assembly by staying camped out at the prime minister’s official compound, known as Government House, which they seized seven days earlier.

By nightfall, there was no sign of renewed clashes or any attempt to evict the protesters. But the festive atmosphere of recent days had evaporated. Families and children were mostly gone and helmet-clad protesters armed with sticks patrolled the grounds.

A labor federation for state employees said 200,000 of its members would go on strike Wednesday to support the protesters.

Their walkout could disrupt train, bus and air service and cut electricity and water to some government buildings, said Sawit Kaewwan, secretary-general of the State Enterprise Workers Relations Confederation, which comprises 43 unions for state employees.

Yet another challenge confronted Samak when the Election Commission recommended Tuesday that his People’s Power Party be disbanded for fraud during elections last year. Samak and other party leaders would be banned from politics for five years if judicial authorities upheld the ruling, though other members could form a new party and retain power by winning new elections.

Democracy in Thailand has a history of fragility, with the military staging 18 coups since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. Samak’s faceoff with anti-government protesters is only the latest conflict in two years of political tumult.

The group behind the anti-Samak protests, the People’s Alliance for Democracy, formed in 2006 to demand the resignation of then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, eventually paving the way for the bloodless coup that ousted him. Thaksin, a telecommunications tycoon, recently fled to Britain to escape corruption charges. (AP)

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