PM hoses down poll demands

POLITICS

A general election will be held only after the constitution is amended with a new set of electoral regulations, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva says. Mr Abhisit's statement brushes aside calls by the red shirt movement for a dissolution of the House to clear the way for a general election.

Abhisit: ‘The new rules are not ready’

The red shirts held a rally on Saturday night at Sanam Luang led by the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD).

The UDD has pledged to hold more rallies in Bangkok to put pressure on the government to dissolve the House and call a general election.

Mr Abhisit yesterday said the UDD leaders kept repeating themselves when they called for a House dissolution.

He said the government needed to concentrate its energies on dealing with more pressing matters, particularly the economic crisis.

He said the government should be given the chance to nurse the economy back to health and create jobs to help the unemployed.

The prime minister said holding an election was not a solution as long as there remained tension and conflict among opposing political camps.

Politicians from both sides of the chamber as well as from the Senate were now working on the rewriting of the constitution and were trying to devise ways to end the political conflict, he said.

The calls by the UDD leaders were ill-timed.

''The new rules are not ready,'' Mr Abhisit said. ''The economy is in bad shape and now there are threats to incite violence.

''This does not help the cause of democracy. If you [UDD leaders] want to call for democracy, you'd better choose the right timing.''

The prime minister also took the opportunity of his Sunday talk show yesterday to touch on the drugs issue. He said dealing with the drugs problem had been a government priority.

A tough crackdown on drugs was necessary, although using extreme action was not the best way to cope with the problem, he said.

''Over the past five years, the drug suppression sometimes went too far. There were so-called extra-judicial killings and human rights violations involved.''

More than 2,000 people suspected of involvement in drug trafficking were killed under Thaksin Shinawatra's ''war on drugs'' and it was later found many of them were victims of extra-judicial killings by state authorities.

Mr Abhisit said preventive measures must be put into effect to combat drugs. He said the measures must include efforts to strengthen society at all levels.