Democrat Party dep-uty secretary-general Korn Chatikavanij will meet villagers and grass-roots activists in Ubon Ratchathani tomorrow and on Monday to collect first-hand information about the area's current economic problems.

Korn yesterday told an audience at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand that the trip was essentially to determine whether the Democrats were on the right track when it came to their platform of economic policies.

He said data collected would be used to help formulate policies concerning household debt, income generation and alternative energy for rural areas.

Having broken down the source of villagers' debts and what kind of debts they are, the party will then attempt to plot a path for villagers to get themselves out of debt.

However, he would not be

drawn on specific details of his party's policies, saying only that they would be revealed next month if indeed the scheduled October 15 election was given the go-ahead.

The trip has been arranged by Chulalongkorn University's political-science faculty and lecturers and students of public administration at Ubon Ratchathani University, said Korn.

Ruangwit Ketsuwan, dean of the Public Administration College at Ubon Ratchathani University, said academics wanted to join hands and propose solutions to social problems.

He said anyone interested in helping, including politicians, was welcome to study the proposals emerging from this exercise.

"Staying there one or two nights is not enough to see all the problems, but at least we can gather first-hand data, and it is certainly better than not going at all," he said.

Korn said that luckily the areas did not include Democrat constituencies. That made him feel sure the information the villagers gave the group would be real, not tailored by political preferences or influenced by lobbyists.

Korn said the trip would be the first in a series. This month he also intends to travel to Maha Sarakham and next month to areas in the North.

Each area has different problems and strengths, he said, but solving debt is a big problem everywhere.

The Northeast is particularly riddled with debt, he said, but the Democrats also want to preserve the Isaan culture and way of life.

Kornchanok Raksaseri

The Nation