The Democrat Party boycotted the April 2 snap election to stop the government from betraying and stealing from the people "in the guise of democracy", Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva told a gathering of local and foreign journalists yesterday evening.

"We are protesting dictatorship and a new form of authoritarianism," the former opposition leader said at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

"We do not want to be part of a political laundry process," he said.

Abhisit said caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra had destroyed the spirit of the Constitution and insisted the boycott was constitutional. "We are exercising our constitutional right and the prime minister must make the decision," he said.

Thaksin has turned the Constitution into a licence to violate the people's rights and engage in corruption, Abhisit said.

Asked by The Nation whether citing Section 7 of the Constitution to make way for a new royally-appointed prime minister in the event of Thaksin's resignation was politically regressive, he said: "It is preferable to bloodshed. It is definitely preferable to complete corruption of democracy. If there has been any regression the person responsible for it is the prime minister."

A foreign journalist asked whether Abhisit was afraid of creating a Philippine-style catastrophe, with a confrontation between the anti-Thaksin protesters and pro-government forces, and a lack of choice in the snap election.

People should ask whether the situation under late Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos was the fault of the people on the street or Marcos himself, Abhisit replied.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation