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"It's too cruel [to wipe out the parties]," Chokchai Suttawet, leader of the Sangkomdhibadaya Party and president of the Confederation of Thai Political Parties, said yesterday.

"The state cannot deny citizens' democratic intent," he said.

His organisation has 15 small, little-heard parties as members.

Chokchai, whose party espouses social democracy and wants to recruit only involved, active members, managed to gather only 700 of them since registering last November 9.

The party won only 1,213 votes for its proportional representatives last December, leaving it with no MPs.

Last month, Chokchai, on behalf of the confederation, asked the Constitution Court to review the election law for contradicting Article 65 of the Constitution, which states that citizens have the right to form political parties.

He criticised the idea of disbanding political parties if they failed to achieve 5,000 members and open four party offices in four regions of the country, saying that the requirements were undemocratic and not conducive to the development of electoral democracy. He argued that many big parties have inactive members unlike these small, ideology-driven parties.

The German-educated Chokchai said he would like to see a compromise where, if parties failed to attain the minimum requirements for membership and branches, they would become ineligible for financial support and participation in elections.

This would help reduce the possibility of dubious personalities appointing themselves as party head or too many small parties getting listed on ballots.

The EC is expected to look into the matter next week. The three other parties that filed a petition to the Constitution Court last month were the Ratsadorn Rak Thai Party, the Sangkhom Thai Party the and Naew Sangkhom Prachathipatai Party - each with fewer than 1,000 members.

Yesterday the EC decided to propose the winding down of ten small parties for failing to report their political activities as required by Article 42 of the Political Party Act. One of the ten parties is the Su Phue Thai (Fight for Thai) Party, led by Chuwit Kamolvisit.