UpdateThailand's Yingluck calls for snap elections, but protesters vow 'judgment day'

Desperate to defuse Thailand's deepening political crisis, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said she was dissolving the lower house of parliament and called for early elections. But the moves did nothing to stem a growing tide of more than 150,000 protesters vowing to overthrow her.

Analysts said the steps came too late and were unlikely to satisfy opponents who want to rid Thailand of her powerful family's influence. The protesters are pushing for a non-elected "people's council" to replace her democratically elected government.

Thailand has been plagued by major bouts of upheaval since Yingluck's brother Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 army coup that laid bare a deeper conflict between the elite and the educated middle-class and Thaksin's power base in the countryside, which benefited from populist policies designed to win over the rural poor.

An attempt by Yingluck's party last month to pass a bill through parliament that would have granted amnesty to Thaksin and others triggered the latest round of unrest.

"After listening to opinions from all sides, I have decided to request a royal decree to dissolve parliament," said Yingluck, her voice shaking as she spoke in a nationally televised address yesterday that broke into regular programming. "There will be new elections according to the democratic system."

Yingluck's ruling party won the last vote two years ago in a landslide and is likely to come out victorious in any new ballot.

Watch: Watch: Thai PM calls elections as 140,000 join protest