On Tuesday afternoon Sand’s rallying cry of “Prayuth get out! Prayuth get out!” was interrupted by bursts from water cannon and charges by police to clear the demonstrators.

Protesters, some armed with paint bombs – the more hardcore among them, sling-shots and glass bottles – retreated then returned, a daily dance on Bangkok’s streets which is now threatening to spill out of control.

Protests now almost inevitably end in tear gas, broken bottles and rubber bullets.

But still the youth – some as young as 12 – keep coming, many taking on unplanned cameos as rabble-rousers, graffiti-bombers and stone-throwers.

“No one in power has heard us, no one listens to us, they only intimidate and suppress,” Sand said, requesting her identity be withheld. “So we will keep coming back.”

On Tuesday through her microphone, Sand berated Prayuth’s government for everything from a slow vaccination roll-out to deepening inequality in a country where a tight-knit establishment of tycoons, military and monarchy dominate the economy and politics.

“Inequality comes from these structural issues, everything is tied up here by monopolies of business and power,” she said, offering a diagnosis of Thailand’s problems that is commonly shared among the kingdom’s ‘Generation Z’.

“Even our education system treats us like products: we’re being made to fit a system rather than prepare us for the real world.”

As Prayuth’s Thailand teeters, is an election, coup or bitter stalemate next?

New political breed

With Prayuth and his arch-conservative establishment backers clinging tighter than ever to power, the room for compromise had vanished, said political scientist Kanokrat Lertchoosakul.

An economic crunch that is killing jobs for the young has added to the sense of a crisis going unaddressed by those in power.

Government forecasters this week downgraded Thailand’s expected GDP increase to between 0.7 per cent and 1.2 per cent for this year, down from between 1.5 per cent and 2.5 per cent. Last year the Thai economy suffered its worst full year performance since 1997, with a 6.1 per cent contraction.

“The older generation grew up with the prospect of an economic boom in Thailand … they never grew up with this struggle,” Kanokrat said.

“This generation are a totally different species of political, active citizens that we have never seen before in Thailand,” Kanokrat said.

“They are a generation with mass awareness of their political rights and have superior analytical skills to their elders.”

The youth-led protest movement started more than a year ago, peacefully crowding Bangkok’s streets as they made unprecedented calls for reform of the monarchy and for former army chief Prayuth to step down.

Authorities have gone after protesters with royal defamation charges, punishable by up to 15 years in jail, while accusing them of vandalism and rioting.

But the protests refuse to fizzle out. Instead new groups have emerged with new leaders.

And the violence is mounting.

A young man is in critical condition after being shot with live rounds during clashes on Monday night, while a 14-year-old was hit in the shoulder. It is unclear who pulled the trigger but police deny it was the riot officers who they say are armed only with rubber bullets.

Thailand is on a precipice, experts say, its politics once more a tinderbox of anger. The pandemic killed a record 312 people on Wednesday while Thailand’s vaccination drive has been fraught with delays and fears over the efficacy of the Chinese-made Sinovac vaccine which Prayuth’s government has put its faith in.

Thailand’s street protests return, taking aim at Prayuth’s handling of Covid-19

Equally, the prime minister is giving no ground. Experts say he is buying time with the possible dissolution of parliament, while a serious escalation of violence on the street could see the army deployed and even martial law.

In a divided society, youth angst falls on deaf ears among royalist conservatives.

“You think everyone is stupid, but you guys are the fools,” Haruethai Muangboonsri, an ultraroyalist singer posted on Facebook.

“You have already lost because you can’t unite the Thai people with your childish words. You’ll never win if you make yourself the enemy of millions of Thais.”

For Aorn, a 19-year-old student from Khon Kean who masks herself as she spray paints protest slogans in Bangkok, the intransigence of those in power is nothing new.

“This is a long fight, but we are out of options, we’re trapped and the government has failed to provide anything for us,” she said as she sprayed three short columns – representing the Hunger Games salute – on a wall.

“No one is going to do this for us.”