EVERY TIME the issue has come up over the past few weeks, Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva has made it a point to stress that dissolving the House to call a new election isn't necessarily a bad or strange thing in a parliamentary system.

Is that an indication that a new poll is just around the corner?

No. In fact, judging from all relevant clues, you can forget about an election until the end of the year.

Take note of the exchange between the premier and Withya Buranasiri in the House on Monday:

Withya: "The premier told me he was considering dissolving the House to call a new election. But we have yet to rewrite the constitution to make for a fairer set of rules and regulations."

PM: "I don't know where you got that from. I never said that to you or anybody else. In fact, it's your party [the opposition] that has been calling for a new election. I am confused now as to what the opposition really wants. Now you say the current constitution is bad. And you want to have it amended. Now you want an election first. I am not sure what it is that you want exactly."

On the same day, the premier spoke to a "Political Development" class in a speech organised by the National Election Commission. Again, the same issue came up - and he wasted no time in expounding where he stands on the controversy.

Abhisit speaks to a "Political Development" class in a speech organised by the National Election Commission.

He cited three pre-conditions for his decision to take that big plunge:

1. First, let the government's package to improve the country's economy show some positive results. When will that be? Abhisit said the period between December this year and February next year should provide the first concrete signs that his set of economic measures will have some positive effects.

2. Are all the parties concerned happy with the current ground rules governing the next election? And if the new poll was to be held under the current constitution, would it stir up more conflict?

3. If the election were to be held now, would all parties be able to campaign in all parts of the country without incident?

He then concluded with a very revealing statement: "If we can't first resolve these questions, then there won't be any benefit from dissolving the House to hold a new election."

No matter how you look at it, it's clear that Premier Abhisit isn't in a hurry to go on the campaign trail so soon after he took office. After all, the 2010 budget has just been approved in the House and, with the authority to spend and gain votes, no government in its right mind would want to deprive itself of the opportunity to gain an upper hand over all its political rivals.

But is the opposition Pheu Thai Party really ready for a showdown on the campaign trail? The signals from Pheu Thai's big boss Thaksin Shinawatra have been confusing.

On the one hand, he wants an early election because he is confident his party can win a majority hands down. But then, Thaksin has been wavering because he now realises that even if Pheu Thai wins big, that doesn't mean the new government could push through a clemency law to allow him back home as a free man. And that could complicate things further.

The recent open split within the ranks of the red shirts, most notably between Jakrapob Penkair's "Daeng Siam" faction and the Veera-Chatuporn-Nattawut "Red Trio" has put him in a dilemma. And if the constitution isn't amended to suit him, the future political path will be strewn with all sorts of landmines.

That's why Abhisit seems confident he can wait it out and meanwhile continue to build up his own political base until the time that it is to his advantage to call a snap election.

But then, that doesn't mean Abhisit is in full control of the situation either. Any number of potentially disastrous political time bombs could explode in his face, forcing him to "go back to the people" to seek a new mandate.

That explains why he keeps saying that a House dissolution isn't an abnormal thing.

He was probably going to add: "But I have my own reasons for doing normal things at the time of my choosing."