Bangkok - Thai shares climbed 2.96 per cent Thursday on the back of a robust overnight performance by Wall Street and a shiver of optimism over the global financial crisis although prices remained dogged by local political worries, analysts said.

The Stock Exchange of Thailand index ended at 422.96, up 12.87 points.

"The buoyant overnight performance by Wall Street cheered investors up, and the mood was 'Perhaps things won't be so bad after all,'" Atkison Securities stock analyst Mongkol Phuangpetra said. "If people were not also still worried about the political standoff in Thailand, share prices would have been even higher. No doubts about that."

Anti-government protestors called Red Shirts have been laying siege to Government House, the seat of the Thai government, in Bangkok since March 27, demanding the administration resign.

"The Red Shirts seem determined to cause as much trouble as possible," Mongkol said. "It is difficult to see how they can bring down the government, but on the other hand, they do not seem prepared to go away. All this weighs on the minds of investors."

The Red Shirts have been spurred on by phone-ins most nights from fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin, a populist premier who was ousted by a coup in September 2006 and has been living in self-imposed exile since August 2008 after being sentenced to two years in jail on an abuse-of-power charge, has been rallying his supporters to bring down the current government and call for a new election.

His phone-in offensive, launched from an undisclosed location abroad, comes as the Thai judicial system is gearing up to decide on what to do with 2 billion dollars in cash belonging to Thaksin's family that has been frozen in Thai banks accounts since the coup.

If the courts decide the money was gained corruptly while Thaksin was prime minister from 2001 to 2006, the family stands to lose their fortune and Thaksin much of his political clout. (dpa)