Govt to unveil populist policies

The Abhisit government will try to win grassroots support by injecting state funds into rural villages and populist schemes.

Jurin Laksanawisit, chairman of the policy-drafting committee and education minister, said yesterday that new projects would also be initiated to improve villagers' living standards.

These include sufficiency development funds, old-age allowances and subsidies for farmers whose fields were flooded.

Jurin chaired a policy-drafting meeting, as the |government is scheduled |to deliver its policy state-|ment before Parliament on December 29-30.

Jurin, a veteran Democratic politician, said no plan to amend the Constitution would be included in the policy statement at the request of the Friends of Newin group, whose 23 MPs switched camps to join the Democrat-led coalition government.

He said his panel was working on a set of draft policies to be forwarded to the Cabinet for approval tomorrow.

The draft will only mention |political and democratic developments in general, but will contain no specific statement on charter revisions, he said.

"We'll have to see if there will be any move to amend the charter later on," he said.

Besides the economic |problems confronting the |new government, solutions to the prolonged Southern violence are another urgent priority and will figure prominently in the policy statement, he said.

As a means to resolve the southern unrest, the government will propose setting up a permanent state agency to take charge of southern problems via new legislation.

The government will attempt to tackle the root causes that led to years of |violence in the restive re-|gion while pushing for |new development efforts in |the provinces bordering Malaysia.

Overall, the government will inform Parliament of its plans to lead the country out of the political and economic crises.

Urgent policies will be identified and must be carried out in one year, according to Jurin, while less pressing measures will be implemented over the rest of the government's term.

The House speaker would decide whether to hold the policy debate at Parliament House or move it somewhere else in order to avoid protests by supporters of the previous government, he said.

The so-called red-shirt group has threatened to lay siege to Parliament House in |a bid to prevent the government from declaring its policies and running the country.

"We have lessons from the previous government and we hope such a problem will not recur,'' he said.

A group of non-governmental organisations, led by Somchai Homla-or, Metha Mas-khao and Worapat Weerapattanakoop, called on the new government to focus on helping the poor to achieve their long-term development goals.

"If the government aims at increasing GDP only, it will fail as evidenced by past examples," Somchai said.

"One of the policies should be a redistribution of wealth via tax reform so that more progressive income tax rates and inheritance taxes are adopted.

"These measures will help narrow the gap between rich and poor," he said.