Asean, the 10-member regional body, must never become elitist but become people-centred instead, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said today.

According to Bernama , he said that this required adequate provisions for greater participation by the civil society in the Asean processes.

"It is important to take Asean back to where it really belongs, that is, with the peoples of Asean," he said..

"We must erase the perception that Asean is all about meetings between political leaders or government officials or that it is of particular interest only to the business community," he said in his keynote address at the National Colloquium on Asean in Shah Alam.

The prime minister said there was definitely a need for the people of Asean to have better knowledge about each other, particularly in terms of societal norms and national cultures.

He said that to keep Asean with the people, the regional community needs to present itself in images and symbols that were identifiably Asean in character.

About Asean community

Some possibilities include an Asean common time zone, Asean common travel document and more ambitiously, an Asean common currency, he added.

"These would make it clear to people that the Asean community is actually about them."

Abdullah said Asean's challenge was to find a formula where the larger interest of the community should never become subordinate to the interest of one or a few members.

Although consensus-based decision-making is essential in ensuring that national interests are not undermined, it was still possible for the procedure to be exploited to effect a veto.

He suggested that Asean members seriously consider a qualified voting system and to have a capacity for enforcing community decisions.

"If an audit is conducted to account for the list of Asean decisions that have actually been incorporated into national legislation, the result would turn out to be quite disappointing," he said.

He said in some cases, national rules and regulations had not been amended to conform to Asean's decisions while other instances show that decisions were not transmitted to all levels of the national administration.

Abdullah said there must be adherence by Asean community members to a common set of values, some of which are universal while others distinctively Asean in character.

He said consensus could be found through open dialogue and greater willingness to share information including through national efforts for promoting human rights and good governance.

'Sui generis'

"These will help establish standards of good conduct among community members and consolidate and strengthen Asean solidarity, cohesiveness and harmony...thereby instilling the 'we feeling' among all members of the Asean community," he said.

The integration process within Asean, said Abdullah, would not require member states to forfeit their sovereign rights and competencies.

They would remain free to pursue their core national or bilateral interests with other members of the community or with the other countries outside the community, he added.

In fact, said Abdullah, the Asean community was expected to create an enabling environment for the individuality of member states to flourish while sharing certain common principles, practices and values.

"The Asean organisation is said to be 'sui generis', that is to say, altogether unique and that the Asean community will stand for unity in diversity will equally be 'sui generis'."