He has instructed the Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) - which lead an anti-communist fight during the Cold War and included death squads - to educate the public on the matter.

'I have assigned the ISOC to train civil servants from various ministries to have a good grasp of the concepts of the rights and duties of the perfect Thai.

'Then, these government officials will be mobilised to educate the people,' he said in an interview with Reuters.

In his view, good citizens have a duty to pay tax and vote for 'good' politicians, whom he defined as lawmakers who were patriotic and ethical.

He said he would order the Interior Ministry, which supervises all 76 provincial governors, to work with provincial ISOC teams on the campaign to educate leaders of Thailand's 80,000 villages. The village leaders will then have to pass on their learning.

'We want a free and fair election, and we want the people to vote for good people to run the country,' he said, in a clear dig at Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister he toppled.

General Sonthi also urged former opposition parties, led by the Democrats, to unite. Otherwise, infighting might allow the People's Power Party, made up of many former members of Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party, to sneak a win and cement a place in a coalition.

Many rural poor in the country of 65 million have 'little understanding' of democracy, said the general.

'People still have poor judgment in voting for a politician,' he said in his first foreign media interview since taking up a security role in the Cabinet after retiring as army chief last month.

'Many of them are influenced either by money or politicians' canvassers. That is what we need to correct.

'Poverty hinders the progress of democracy. We need to explain to the people what permanent prosperity is. Taking money from politicians is not a permanent solution to solve their poverty.'

As army chief, he led the coup against Thaksin in September last year, accusing him of presiding over rampant corruption and demeaning the royal family.

Gen Sonthi's appointment to the Cabinet, with a watching brief over both the interior and foreign ministries, has alarmed opponents of the coup, who fear he will be able skew the election towards the army and royalist establishment.

REUTERS