Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont rejected a military demand for emergency powers to halt growing anti-government protests Thursday and said a general election would be held in December.

"There will be no imposition of the emergency decree for now because the situation does not warrant it," Surayud told reporters after meeting the generals who ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra last year.

"I don't want to see confrontations and clashes among people who are all Thais. So we will try our utmost to keep the situation from reaching that stage," Surayud said ahead of a planned anti-coup rally today.

Led by army chief General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, who worried the protests would get out of hand and derail elections now planned for December 16 or 22, the decree request had unnerved investors and outraged democracy activists.

The decree, first issued by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra three years ago to contain a separatist insurgency in the Muslim deep south, would have allowed detention without charge for 30 days, phone taps, intercepting e-mails and press censorship.

Martial law imposed after the September coup was in name only and rarely enforced on the streets of Bangkok. But political parties have bristled at a ban on their activities.

Surayud apparently agreed with him, but Sonthi had wanted more police and soldiers at today's anti-coup rally because of the danger of things getting out of hand.

But police and Bangkok city officials appeared to find a way out by restricting access to the protest venue, Sanam Luang square near the glittering Grand Palace, until April 5.

(China Daily via agencies March 30, 2007)