BANGKOK, Dec 10: Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said on Tuesday she would not resign ahead of national elections set for Feb 2, her voice filling with emotion as she discussed her family’s role in Thai politics.

Yingluck spoke one day after she announced elections – and one day after the main opposition leader ended a massive protest rally of 150,000 people by insisting his movement had now assumed broad political power.

The streets of Bangkok were quiet, a national holiday, after weeks of sometimes violent political turmoil as protesters demand Yingluck give up power to an unelected “people’s council.’’

The protesters accuse Yingluck of serving as a proxy for her billionaire brother, former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who lives in self-imposed exile to avoid jail time for a corruption conviction but still wields immense influence in the country.

She became choked up when reporters asked, as they often do, about her family’s position in Thailand’s political scene.

“I’m not without emotion,” she said, her voice quavering.

“I’m also Thai. Do you not want me to set foot on Thai soil anymore? “I have retreated as far as I can. So I ask to be treated fairly,” she said, turning and walking quickly away from the podium.—AP