Thai protests target government ministries A security guard stands behind a gate as Thai anti-government protesters wave national flags outside the customs department during ongoing protests in Bangkok on January 14 Thai opposition protesters marched on government ministries around Bangkok on Tuesday, as their leader threatened to detain the prime minister in a campaign to derail elections and suspend parliamentary rule in southeast Asia's second-largest economy. Protest leaders have said the attempted Bangkok shutdown is targeted at the government in Thailand and not the people. The impact is localised and the BTS SkyTrain urban rail network remains open - not least because it is what many protesters use to get around. Both the baht and the benchmark SET share index firmed on Tuesday, after the first day of the demonstrations passed off peacefully. Thailand's central bank said on Tuesday that 135 banks in Bangkok - many of them in government office complexes - were shut or planned to close early. Demonstrators blocking main road junctions thinned in numbers as their attempted shutdown of the capital moved into its second day, with groups of activists peeling off to advance on the labour department and other targets to choke Yingluck Shinawatra's administration. Analysts warn confrontation ahead of elections due on February 2 is becoming increasingly likely, as opposition protesters test the government's policy of restraint and Ms Yingluck's supporters mount counter demonstrations in their strongholds outside the capital. "As anti-government protesters intensify actions, the risk of violence across wide swaths of the country is growing and significant," said the Brussels-based International Crisis Group in a new report. A deal to postpone the election could buy time for negotiation, but would be only a stopgap without a comprehensive, broadly accepted agreement on the future political order. Anti-government activists marched on up to six ministries after their leader Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister and career MP turned warrior against political graft, called for every government office to be closed within two or three days. "If we cannot, we will detain the prime minister and other ministers," Mr Suthep told supporters of the nine-week campaign by his People's Democratic Reform Committee to oust the elected government and replace it with an appointed ruling council. We will start by cutting water and electricity [to] their homes. I suggest they evacuate their children. A PDRC spokesman said Mr Suthep was not suggesting he would personally detain Ms Yingluck, but that one day the people might decide to capture her if she did not heed their voices. Ms Yingluck's self-exiled older brother and predecessor as prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, is at the centre of the power struggle gripping Thailand. Mr Suthep, whose vow to rid the country of the "Thaksin regime" has won support from the educated elite and his southern heartlands, had previously pledged to "keep chasing" Ms Yingluck "until she is dead or until she leaves." A negotiated solution to a power struggle that has blighted Thailand since Mr Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 military coup seems as far away as ever, after Mr Suthep and other leading opposition figures refused an offer of talks proposed by the government on postponing the election due on February 2 by three months. The main opposition Democrats, who have lost every election in the past two decades, are boycotting the February polls because of alleged vote-buying by the government - although their critics say they are sitting out because they know Ms Yingluck will win, thanks to the popularity in rural areas of subsidy schemes ranging from healthcare to rice farming. Some offices and schools reopened in Bangkok on Tuesday and traffic volumes increased, although some main business district intersections remained blockaded by demonstrators manning metal barriers. Police again stayed in the background as part of a policy of non-confrontation by the government, which fears any escalation might trigger another army intervention in favour of an opposition with historically close ties to the military and the wealthy urban elite.