Red-clad protesters waved signs saying "We love Thaksin" at a central Bangkok parade ground, while a separate group halted traffic outside parliament. Abhisit is due to deliver his first policy speech to MPs today.

The demonstrations bring Thai politics full circle after a year of turmoil, with Thaksin loyalists now using the same tactics that helped their rivals to bring down a government led by the fugitive tycoon's allies earlier this month.

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"Our demand is for Abhisit to dissolve parliament because he has no legitimacy," said Jatuporn Prompan, a core leader of the pro-Thaksin movement.

Police said 20,000 protesters, many of them dancing, had gathered at the parade ground, while organizers said the figure was 50,000.

More than 3,000 unarmed riot police were on duty, handing out leaflets urging peaceful protests.

The protesters say they plan to move on to parliament. There were early tensions when another 1,000 protesters blocked the road outside parliament's main gate and set up another stage. One speaker told the crowd: "If the government does not dissolve the house, we will stay here."

Thaksin was toppled in a military coup in 2006 and remains in exile to avoid a jail sentence for corruption.

Oxford-educated Abhisit, the head of the Democrat Party, won a parliamentary vote to become prime minister on December 15, less than two weeks after a court dissolved the former ruling People Power Party that was loyal to Thaksin. The verdict followed months of protests by the royalist People's Alliance for Democracy, a yellow-clad, Thaksin-hating group that blockaded Bangkok's airports earlier this month, causing huge damage to the economy.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE