Bangkok - Anti-government protestors are to march on the Finance Ministry Thursday to demonstrate against borrowing foreign money to bolster the shrinking Thai economy, protest leaders said.

The move appeared designed to crank up tension in Bangkok before Songkran, the Thai New Year, which begins April 13, a time when most Thais leave the city to visit their families.

Fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinwatra called in a video message last week for his supporters to bring down the government, which he described as "incompetent and illegal," before Songkran.

Natthawut Saikua, a leader of the pro-Thaksin National United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, also known as the Red Shirts, said Thursday's protest was designed to highlight the inability of the government to solve an economic crisis that is expected to cost 2 million Thais their jobs, the Thai News Agency reported Wednesday.

The government cancelled a cabinet meeting in Government House this week rather than brave the Red Shirts surrounding the building.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban offered Wednesday to talk to Thaksin to defuse the protests, but the offer was quickly rejected by the Red Shirts, who said it was "too little, too late." Suthep's offer did not include an amnesty for Thaksin or the return of nearly 2 billion dollars of his assets seized by the authorities, they said.

The Red Shirts support Thaksin because they said his populist economic policies could lift Thais out of poverty and propel the country toward a more modern future.

Thaksin fled Thailand last year after a court sentenced him to two years in prison on abuse-of-power charges.

The political party he backed was dissolved by a court for electoral violations, allowing the current Democrat Party government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to take power.

The Red Shirts also plan to surround the house of royal adviser Prem Tinsulanonda April 8 because they blame him for orchestrating the military coup that overthrew Thaksin in September 2006, Natthawut said.

"Thaksin appears eager to create turmoil," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "The demands, the insults from the protest platforms are getting stronger and stronger, but it is not clear how this government can be brought down when it has the backing of the military."

"Thaksin seems to think he has nothing to lose by lifting the tension," Thitinan added. (dpa)