Songkhla: Prachachart Party secretary-general Tawee Sodsong promised to incorporate the principles of "multiculturalism" to resolve the insurgency in the deep South during a visit to the southern province on Monday.
Pol Col Tawee said the principles, which places people of all ethnicity and religion at the centre of the solution to the problem, will help with the situation in the restive region, where militant hardliners often resort to violence in their effort to separate the Muslim-dominated regions in the South from Thailand.
About 500 people from Buddhist and Muslim communities in the region attended Pol Col Tawee's visit, which began in Ban Sira in Songkhla's Saba Yoi district.
The district is known to be one of four in the province that has been struggling to deal with the violence that has plagued the deep South since 2004.
The government's efforts to end the insurgency through peace negotiations with guerrilla groups is not enough, said Pol Col Tawee.
"We can't leave the matter of security to warring sides," said Pol Col Tawee, a former chief of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre who previously worked on non-military approaches to resolving the insurgency.
"We've got to have the courage to include the people in the solution."
Pol Col Tawee said that people should be given more say on the situation, as they are the ones who bear the brunt of the clashes between authorities and insurgents.
Meanwhile, Phoek Loetwangphong, a member of the Prachachart Party's strategy committee, touched on low rubber prices and said that "registering all rubber trees in Thailand" will help raise prices.