He said the party wanted to help relieve political tension, strengthen the parliamentary system and ensure the election was acceptable to the people. The Democrats would offer policies, personnel and the means to solve problems such as inflation, corruption and the violence in the South, he said.

Hundreds of party executives and former MPs from around the country gathered at the party headquarters yesterday to discuss the political situation and the dissolution threat.

Although the attorneygeneral plans tomorrow to ask the Constitution Court to dissolve five political parties for alleged electoral fraud during the April 2 election, the atmosphere at the meeting was not serious.

The executives and former MPs greeted each other and posed for group photographs wearing yellow Tshirts. Some talked about the World Cup, while others joked that the photo opportunity might be a bad omen, as these could be the last pictures of them together as the Democrat Party. The pictures would be used during the election campaign.

Abhisit said the party was confident of proving its innocence. Its conduct during the election had been lawful, but the judicial cases involving the five parties were necessary to ensure transparency in national politics, he said.

He said the party had not discussed a substitute party for its MPs to join in the event of the Democrats being dissolved.

"I can assure you the Democrat Party won't become extinct in Thai politics, as our ideology is not centred around individuals," he said.

Party secretarygeneral Suthep Thaugsuban briefed the meeting about the role of the Thai Ground Party and the Pattana Chart Thai Party in the April 2 election. He said those smaller parties had contacted the Democrats for help after some of their members accepted an offer from Thai Rak Thai Party executives to contest the election.

In a counter manoeuvre, a Thai Rak Thai legal team sued the Democrat Party for hiring the Progressive Democratic Party to contest the election, laying the blame for this on former Democrat Party member Thaikorn Polsuwan. Thai Rak Thai claimed Thaikorn had hired the small party to frame Thai Rak Thai.

Suthep said Thai Rak Thai had planned and carried out this election fraud. The legal action by the ruling party was simply a cover, he said.

Witnesses from the small parties had changed their testimonies to escape charges of conspiracy, he said.

Suthep told the meeting's participants to study documents they received yesterday before explaining the true situation to people in their constituencies.

He said he would write a book clarifying what had happened.

by Kornchanok Raksaseri

The Nation