Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators gathered in the Thai capital Bangkok Sunday calling for Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to step down.

Yingluck called for the snap elections to be held in February in an effort to quell mass demonstrations that have been going on for weeks.

But protesters say the elections wouldn't allow enough time to implement reforms- reforms apparently intended to weaken Yingluck and her brother, former Prime Minster Thaksin Shinawatra, who critics say still runs the party.

Opposition leaders have said they will boycott the elections.

Yingluck and her brother Thaksin remain hugely popular in the north and northeast.

Thaksin's mainly working-class supporters see him as a benevolent billionaire committed to raising their living standards, but his enemies call him an authoritarian crony capitalist who exploited the poor and abused his power by helping wealthy business friends and family.