A photograph shows the explosion of a roadside bomb that detonated as Yala security officials approached a corpse on a motorcycle sidecar. It injured 12, including journalists.

Many university lecturers from across the country plan to shun the new draft constitution today and call on voters to reject the charter in the September referendum.

In a statement leaked yesterday, they said they would "unconditionally reject the junta-sponsored charter in every shape or form".

They also issued a two-point demand - that the general election be held within 60 days based on the 1997 Constitution, and that the newly elected Parliament must launch the process to amend the charter.

"This is the only way to restore peace and normalcy to Thai society and salvage the country's dignity tarnished by the coup," the statement says, pushing for charter amendments through the electoral process instead of military intervention.

The co-sponsors of the statement include prominent academics like Nidhi Aoseewong, Chanwit Kasetsiri, Rangsan Thanapornpan and Ubonrat Siriyuwasak.

The lecturers are from Tham-masat, Chulalongkorn, Chiang Mai, Phayap, Midnight, Mahidol, Ubon Ratchathani, Mahasara-kham, Rajabhat Thonburi and Silapakorn universities.

They condemned the September coup as a destruction of democratic rule. They also argued that the junta-sponsored charter would represent a regression of the political system.

In attacking the constitution draft, they said political reform could materialise only if pushed by society and transparent politics, and not by the military intervention, which had no mass support.

The statement reminded the public that the draft, if passed by the referendum, would deprive the people of their right to have a say about independent organisations that will be under the control of the bureaucracy.

Draft provisions are being designed to "weaken the elected representatives" of the people, resulting in utter confusion about the dispensing of power, they said in the statement.

Meanwhile, Constitution Draft-ing Committee chairman Prasong Soonsiri said yesterday that the writing of a new charter should not be affected if political parties are dissolved next week.

However, he expressed concern that political disturbances may affect the national referendum to approve a new constitution.

The Constitution Tribunal is due to hand down its verdict on electoral fraud cases next Wednesday and political observers suspect two major parties - Thai Rak Thai and Democrat - may be dissolved if found guil-ty, which could cause political turmoil in the short-term.

Prasong, however, believed the party dissolution cases would not affect the drafting procedure.

He said work on the new charter would continue until it was ready before the general election at the end of year.

"We hope that state officials will control the situation," he said.

However, Prasong said he feared political developments might affect the referendum on the draft. "If the political situation does not improve, the national referendum may fail," he said.

He said he was ready to make a decision on some controversial issues, if there is only marginal support for some proposed clauses. "The committee welcomes all recommendations and we will seek to resolution for controversial issues in our meeting," he said.

But Prasong said he would be disappointed if the draft was not passed via the referendum. "It would be a pity if the draft cannot be passed because the charter committee has sought to help the country. So, we want the voters to consider the overall draft - not to select or consider one or the other [articles they don't like]," he said.