Critics yesterday lambasted Election Commission chairman Vasana Puemlarp for his remarks that he and other EC commissioners were being made a scapegoat in a "nasty power battle", and accused the EC of being the root of the problem.

"If the EC is truly independent, things cannot go as badly wrong," said Suriyasai Katasila, coordinator of the People's Alliance for Democracy.

The EC had earlier welcomed caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's call to dissolve the House on February 24 and set a snap election on April 2, he said.

Suriyasai said Vasana knew the EC was not ready to manage a snap poll at such short notice [38 days]. The poll date should have been extended to a date [60 days as required by law] that would make it fair to other parties, he added.

Suriyasai said he believed the EC had other choices to handle and relieve the growing political tension, but it had rejected all of them.

"The EC has been working as if it is serving the government," he said.

Senator Kaewsan Atibhodhi said the EC was wrong in its handling of several controversial cases.

"The EC should have been concerned about conducting the election fairly for all parties," he said. "But it has instead followed the government's proposals."

Kaewsan accused the EC of having a "dictatorial mindset" as it has refused to accept criticism over the holding of an "unfair election".

"The EC assumes it has full authority to manage the election," he said. "It does not because every agency should be under scrutiny in some way."

Vasana should have introspected the mistakes the EC had made instead of seeking public sympathy, Kaewsan said.

On Thursday, Vasana told reporters that the big four parties - TRT, Democrat, Chat Thai and Mahachon - had been locked in a power struggle with no sense of responsibility towards the country, which had finally misled the public into blaming the EC for "unfairly" holding the election.

Meanwhile, the Democrat Party is planning to file a defamation lawsuit against Vasana after he referred to a "big and old" political party hiring small parties not to run the April 2 election, a source close to the party said.

Vasana said on Thursday that a small party's leader had confessed to him that he had been approached by the "big and old party" not to field candidates so that the election could be cancelled.

The Democrat legal team would discuss the issue this week as the party believes Vasana's remarks had defamed it, the source said.

"The interview caused a misunderstanding about the Democrat Party," the source said.

Vasana's remarks on Thursday contradicted an earlier report by an EC sub-committee, the source claimed. The report had concluded that some leaders of the Thai Rak Thai Party had hired leaders of Pattana Chart Thai Party and the Thai Ground Party to field candidates in the April 2 election to ensure Thai Rak Thai candidates would not be the sole contestants in some constituencies, the source added.

The EC dissolved Pattana

Chart Thai and Thai Ground Parties last month on charges that they had been hired to contest the polls.

Meanwhile, Vasana dismissed an allegation that he, the other three commissioners and the EC secretary-general had been involved in embezzlement concerning a Bt30 million fund granted by the Government Lottery Office.