BANGKOK (AP) – Thailand's Election Commission ruled Monday that the ruling party be dissolved for alleged misuse of poll donations, in a potential victory for anti-government protesters who paraded slain comrades through Bangkok to press the prime minister to resign.

The ruling, which would require Constitutional Court endorsement to take effect, came soon after Thailand's influential army chief appeared to back a key demand of the protesters, saying Parliament might need to be dissolved to resolve the country's violent political standoff.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who has remained defiant about not resigning, now faces unprecedented pressure, after the deadliest political clashes in nearly two decades on Saturday.
Vejjajiva’s control of security forces has increasingly been called into question over the past month as red-shirted protesters — supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra — repeatedly marched through the capital. On Saturday, soldiers and police failed to dislodge demonstrators, setting off clashes that killed 21.
The Red Shirt protesters accused Abhisit's government of coming to power illegally with the help of the military after Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup amid allegations of massive corruption.
In its ruling Monday, the Election Commission found the Democrat Party — Thailand's oldest — guilty of misusing campaign donations. No date was set for the Constitutional Court to hear the case.
The commission was ruling on a complaint filed by the Red Shirts that the Democrat Party received more than 258 million baht ($8 million) in donations from a private cement company, TPI Polene, without declaring it, as required by law and using it for election campaigning. The party was also accused of misusing 29 million baht ($800,000) from a political fund.
If the party is dissolved, new elections would have to be called, and the prime minister and all the top executives of the party would be barred from politics for five years.
Unconfirmed reports in local newspapers have also said that Abhisit's coalition partners in the government want him to compromise with the protesters by dissolving Parliament in the next six months instead of by year's end, as he had earlier proposed. He must call elections by the end of 2011.
With possible rifts opening in the government, the Red Shirts, named for their garb, struck a defiant tone Monday, parading coffins through the capital and saying they would not back down.
“Our position is clear. We want the Parliament dissolved now. The only way to solve this political impasse is for Parliament to be dissolve and new elections called,” said Weng Tojirakarn, a Red Shirt leader.
On Saturday, four soldiers and 17 civilians, including a Thomson Reuters cameraman, died in the clashes. Many of them were shot with live ammunition but it remains unclear who did the shooting. Each side accuses the other.
Autopsies on 11 bodies found that five were shot in the head, three in the chest and stomach and one in the chest, said Dr. Jongjet Aowjenpong at the Police General Hospital.
The unrest has shaken the country's economy, and stocks closed 3.6 percent down on Monday.
Photo: Anti-government 'Red shirt” demonstrators lead a procession with flag draped coffins through the streets of Bangkok in protest April 12, 2010. (Photo: Reuters)