BANGKOK: A gunman opened fire at an opposition rally in Thailand Saturday in a deadly attack that inflamed tensions in the politically divided kingdom, where anti-government protesters wreaked fresh havoc in election preparations.

The shooting, which killed one demonstrator and wounded several others, follows weeks of mass street protests seeking to oust Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and curb her billionaire family’s political dominance.

Yingluck has called February elections in the hope of bringing an end to the rallies, which have drawn tens of thousands of people calling on her to step down.

But the protesters have vowed to block the Feb. 2 vote, saying it will only return the Shinawatra clan to power.

Anti-government demonstrators besieged a number of candidate registration venues in Thailand’s opposition-dominated south on Saturday, forcing officials to suspend the process in seven provinces.

By the end of the day 377 candidates had registered in 343 constituencies, while 32 constituencies still had no candidates, an election commission official told AFP.

A first round of registrations for party-list candidates was completed on Friday after several tense days during which protesters tried to block the process.

Thailand has been periodically convulsed by political bloodshed since Yingluck’s older brother Thaksin Shinawatra was overthrown by royalist generals in a coup seven years ago.

The protesters, a mix of southerners, middle class Thais and urban elite, accuse the billionaire tycoon-turned-politician of corruption and say he controls his sister’s government from his self-exile in Dubai.

They want an unelected “people’s council” to run the country to oversee loosely-defined reforms — such as an end to alleged “vote buying” — before new elections are held in around a year to 18 months.