Book excerpt: Thailand - Das neue Siam

I bought the antiquarian book "Thailand - Das neue Siam" by Wilhelm Friedrich Gordon some time ago as I had found it listed as a reference in another book, and it wasn't much expensive. This German language book was written in 1942, so the special writing style at the height of the Nazi regime in Germany makes it an interesting and sometimes odd read, lots of racial and militaristic language. The book is just a relatively short description of the country, its history, culture, geography, economy, foreign relations and so on, altogether only 150 pages. Fitting to the topic of this blog is the following section describing the administrative subdivision and the thesaphiban reforms under King Chulalongkorn.

... Thailand war bis dahin in muang (Provinzen) aufgeteilt. An deren Spitze standen erbliche Fürsten, frühere verdienstvolle Offiziere oder Beamte. Diese waren in ihren Maßnahmen, in der Handhabung der Steuererhebung wie der Rechtsprechung, fast selbständig, d.h. sie waren praktisch von der Regierungsgewalt unabhängig und die eigentlichen Herren der ihnen unterstellten muang. Um die Willkürherrschaft dieser Provinzleiter, chao muang genannt, zu brechen und sie unter die Kontrolle der Regierungsgewalt zu bekommen, wurden als oberste Verwaltungseinheit die monton (Kreise) geschaffen. Jeder monton umfaßte mehrere changvat (Provinzen). An die Spitze eines monton wurde eine dem könglichen Hause nahestehende Persönlichkeit gestellt, meist ein Prinz, dem sich die Leiter der betreffenden changvat zu fügen hatten. Die changvat zerfielen in mehrere ampör (Bezirke), an deren Spitze ein ebenfalls von der Regierung bestellter nai ampör (Bezirksvorsteher) gestellt wurde. Jeder ampör besteht aus mehreren tambun (Gemeinden), an deren Spitze der kamman (Gemeindevorsteher) steht. Der tambun setzte sich wiederum aus mehreren muban (Dörfern) zusammen, die von puyaiban (Dorfvorstehern) verwaltet wurden. In diesen kleinsten Verwaltungseinheiten wurde das Selbstverwaltungsrecht insofern schon verwirklicht, als die puyaiban in allgemeiner Wahl von allen über 20 Jahre alten Männer und Frauen, die in dem betreffenden muban wohnten, gewählt wurden und diese wiederum den kamman wählten.

If you cannot understand the German text, don't worry, it is nothing else but describing the hierarchy monthon, changwat, amphoe, tambon, muban, introducing the administrators of these levels and mention the elections of the phu yai ban and kamnan. Only thing odd is the romanization used, never seen it spelled Ampör so far.

Municipal decisions from February 8 2008

In the meeting number 12 on February 8 the creation of five subdistrict municipalities was decided. All of them I already mentioned as Royal Gazette drafts.

• TAO U Thong (อู่ทอง), U Thong district, Suphanburi province will be renamed to Thao U Thong and made a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลท้าวอู่ทอง) on July 24 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 32 km², 11 villages and has 15,502 citizen.
• TAO Tha Sop Sao, Mae Tha district, Lamphun province was renamed to Tha Sop Chai and made a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลทาสบชัย) on February 28 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 176 km², 11 villages and has 5,227 citizen.
• The TAO Makok Nuea (มะกอกเหนือ), Khuan Khanun
  district, Phatthalung province, will be renamed to Ban Suan and made a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านสวน) on June 24 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 35.84 km², 9 villages and has 5,318 citizen.
• The subdistrict municipality Khao Wong (เทศบาลตำบลเขาวง), Ban Ta Khun district, Surat Thani, will be renamed to Ban Ta Khun (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านตาขุน) at a not yet specified date this year. The municipality was created in 1999, when the sanitary district Khao Wong was upgraded. It covers an area of 7.8 km² and has 3,514 citizen.

For each of the new municipalities there is a second municipality in the same district, so to avoid both municipalities having the same name the newly created one has to get a new name.

Ban Ta Khun district office

Ban Ta Khun (บ้านตาขุน) is the largest district areawise of Surat Thani province, but also the one with the lowest population density, as most of the district area is covered by the Khao Sok National Park. The district was established in 1973 as a minor district, and became a full district in 1976.



Directly next to the district office is also the office of the subdistrict municipality (thesaban tambon) Khao Wong (เทศบาลตำบลเขาวง). This was created in 1977 as a sanitary district, which like all sanitary district was upgraded to a municipality in 1999. The municipality only covers parts of the subdistrict Khao Wong around the main settlement, the remainder of the subdistrict is administrated by the TAO Khao Wong (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลเขาวง). The subdistrict municipality Khao Wong will be renamed to Ban Ta Khun later this year, maybe to be able to upgrade the TAO Khao Wong to a municipality later as well without having conflicting names.

Municipal decisions from February 1 2008

Meeting number 10 from February 1 2008 with six TAO upgraded to subdistrict municipalities.

• Khong Chai Phatthana (เทศบาลตำบลฆ้องชัยพัฒนา), Khong Chai district, Kalasin province, effective February 28 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 29.52 km², 11 villages and has a population of 6,812.
• Lam Khlong (เทศบาลตำบลลำคลอง), Mueang Kalasin district, Kalasin province, effective February 29 2008. The TAO was created in 1998, covers 31.30 km², 7 villages and has 4,204 citizen.
• Phu Sing (เทศบาลตำบลภูสิงห์), Sahatsakhan district, Kalasin province, effective March 1 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 35.10 km², 9 villages and 2,759 citizen.
• Saphang Thong (เทศบาลตำบลสระพังทอง), Khao Wong district, Kalasin province, effective February 28. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 18.62 km², 7 villages and 3,129 citizen.
• Non Nam Kliang (เทศบาลตำบลโนนน้ำเกลี้ยง), Sahatsakhan district, Kalasin province, effective March 1 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 24 km², 8 villages and 3,405 citizen.
• Champa Khan (เทศบาลตำบลจำปาขัน), Suwannaphum district, Roi Et province, effective February 29 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 31.10 km², 12 villages and 6,824 citizen.
  

Amphoe.com hacked again

Again the website amphoe.com has been hacked, now while the site loads it redirects to another website claiming that your computer is infected with troyan and virus - and to make it worse at least in FireFox it's impossible to get out of the message boxes and to use the browser again have kill the process in the taskmanager. But of course it is not your computer which is infected, it is the website which has been defaced to lure innocent users to buy that overpriced anti-virus product. So be very careful when trying to use amphoe.com for information right now, or switch off JavaScript completely. In the bottom of the HTML source code one can find the culprit

iframe src="http://x*tuff.biz/tdsko-xyz/index.php?out=1205612518" width=1 height=1 frameborder=0

Unlike last time, now the main.php was attacked, so everyone will gets to this bad website.

Also when using Google, quite often Thai websites show that extra warning Google now adds in case it can find malware in the website. Another thing I notice quite regularly are the websites with forums, where the forum is full of spam posts and nothing else, and no admin takes care if it for months. I don't know if Thai websites are hacked more often the target than others, or if they stay unfixed for longer than usual, but these hacks are really getting annoying.

Moving the capital

Thailand/Siam has seen three capital cities already - Ayutthaya was destroyed by the Burmese in 1767, after reunited the country King Taksin established the new capital in Thonburi, and King Rama I finally moved it to Krung Thep (better known by the western name Bangkok), where as the first auspicious building he inaugurated the city pillar shrine (Lak Mueang, photo) on April 21 1782.

During World War II there were proposals to move the capital away from the busy overcrowded city. All happened during the first regime of Phibun Songkhram, at first in May 1942 the government decided to move the capital to Saraburi, the hometown of Phibun. I just read about this proposal for the first time in the 1942 book "Thailand - das neue Siam" (Thailand, the new Siam). As it is only mentioned with one sentence I have no idea what happened with that proposal, as it was obviously not become effective. Much better known is the second proposal of Phibun in 1944, when he planned to move the capital to Phetchabun and build a "buddhist city" at Saraburi. After he laid the foundation for a new city pillar in Phetchabun, the parliament failed to back his proposal and he resigned, but he returned to power after some years.

Vacation time

I will travel to Thailand end of this week, and will be underway for four weeks and won't be online often then. But this does not mean the blog will be quiet for one month, I have prepared some postings which will get published automatically during my absence. Just eventual announcements of new Royal Gazette publications will probably have to wait till my return, just hope there won't do that many. Also the news from the board meeting transcripts will have to wait till my return, but I have prepared several summaries of those from the past months which were not included in the fiscal year 2549 list, which will also get automatically published during my absence. And of course I will try to collect new material for new postings, especially browsing through the book stores.

Coincidentally during my vacation the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will held the press conference announcing details on their Wikimission. At first the press conference was planned on a date when I will not be in Bangkok, but they just sent me an invitation for the 31st of March, so I will now be able to join as well. Additionally, I will meet with the company doing the internet presentation of TAT, who also supervise this Wikimission. It will definitely be something worth reporting here, so stay tuned.

I also plan to visit some of the district museums in Bangkok, and will also try to get more photos of district offices or other administrative buildings to present here. Maybe even some more city pillar shrines. But don't know yet, there are no real fixed travel plans yet, I only know I will stay in Bangkok and Surat Thani for some time each. But I am quite sure I will find some new places to put in my travel blog at least.

Cancelled new provinces - Nakhon Suvarnabhumi

In 2005 the plans to create a new province around the new Bangkok International Airport (Suvarnabhumi Airport) were made public by the Thaksin administration. The new province - or actually it was supposed to become a special administrative area with an elected governor - was to be named Nakhon Suvarnabhumi (นครสุวรรณภูมิ). Two district from Bangkok, Lat Krabang and Prawet, and two districts from Samut Prakan, Bang Sao Thong and Bang Phli, were to become this new province. The airport, which was opened in 2006, is located in Bang Phli district, was supposed to be the center of the new province, with a whole new town developed around it.

The plan did get quite some opposition, not only by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) led by the Democratic party. Among the point criticized was the location of the airport within low lands needed for flood control of Bangkok, and with the rising sea levels due to global warming building a new city on such flood prone land would be ridiculous. The development around the airport would also hinder eventual extensions of the airport, and would of course also get most of the noise from the planes starting and landing - nowadays most new airports are located well out of the city they serve for exactly these reasons. Also stripping of about half of Samut Prakan province would reduce the tax income of that province considerably.

In the months after the initial announcement the political crisis got more and more worse, so the cabinet delayed the final bill on the creation of this province until a correctly elected parliament could approve it. But it did not come to this anymore, as the military staged a coup d'état on September 19 2006 ousting the Thaksin government. Half year later, on April 4, the last newspaper article on the planned province was printed in the English press, suggesting that the province plans were to be axed completely soon. I also haven't heard anything about this plan now the new elected government came into office, restarting several of the projects halted or scrapped by the military government, so it seems this province plan is really dead now.

Municipal decisions from February 15 2008

In the meeting number 14 on February 15 the creation of five subdistrict municipalities was decided.

• TAO Yot, Song Khwae district, Nan province, has become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลยอด) on February 29. The TAO was created in 1999, covers an area of 105.20 km², 6 villages and has 2,833 citizen.
• TAO Bu Sung, Wang Hin district, Sisaket will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลบุสูง) on July 18 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 43.24 km², 22 villages and has 9,764 citizen.
• TAO Sa-nga Ban, Doi Saket district, Chiang Mai province became a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลสง่าบ้าน) on March 1 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers an area of 11.93 km², 11 villages and has 4,531 citizen.
• TAO Huai Yae, Nong Bua Rawe district, Chaiyaphum province will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลห้วยแย้) on July 19 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 198 km², 14 villages and has 7,114 citizen.
• TAO Niwet, Thawat Buri district, Roi Et province becomes a subdistrict municipality (ทศบาลตำบลนิเวศน์) on July 30 2008. The TAO covers the part of the subdistrict not yet covered by the subdistrict municipality Ban Niwet. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 27.82 km², 16 villages and has 6,404 citizen.

All of these I already mentioned yesterday as the Royal Gazette drafts, so I guess I will skip that drafts section while working myself through these meeting transcripts. Besides, unlike the Gazette drafts, the initial decisions include additional information on the subjects to be decided about - the part I can read and thus report here is just the few number data from the first paragraph, but in total it's two or three pages for each subject. For example this is the first paragraph for Yot.

ผู้แทนกรมส่งเสริมการปกครองท้องถิ่น ชี้แจงว่า จังหวัดน่านรายงานขอจัดตั้งองค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลยอด อำเภอสองแคว จังหวัดน่าน เป็นเทศบาลตำบลยอด โดยองค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลยอด จัดตั้งตามประกาศกระทรวงมหาดไทย ปี 2542 มีพื้นที่ 105.20 ตารางกิโลเมตร จำนวน 6 หมู่บ้าน ประชากร
2,833 คน รายได้จริงไม่รวมเงินอุดหนุน 6.36 ล้านบาท รายจ่ายประจำ 3.02 ล้านบาท สมาชิกสภาองค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลยอดจะครบวาระในวันที่ 28 กุมภาพันธ์ 2551 และประสงค์จะจัดตั้งเป็นเทศบาลตำบลยอด ตั้งแต่วันที่ 29 กุมภาพันธ์ 2551 เป็นต้นไป

Municipal decisions from February 22 2008

I am starting to systematically check through the meeting reports from the Ministry of Interior, where I did find the decisions of creating new municipalities or upgrading existing ones. Until now I always did it the other way round - once I found an edit in the Thai Wikipedia suggesting a municipality change I started Google and usually found the WinWord document from the meeting where it was decided. So I now tried my luck to find the list of these reports, and found it at the site of Legal Affairs Bureau.

I only checked the latest one online, number 15 from February 22 2008, and it contains lots of decisions on municipalities:

• Subdistrict municipality Kut Chum Phanna (เทศบาลตำบลกุดชุมพัฒนา), Kut Chum district, Yasothon province, will get its area changed
• TAO Chamrak, Mueang Trat district, Trat province, will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลชำราก) on August 1 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, it covers an area of 65 km², 5 villages and has 2,633 citizen.
• TAO Khok Lo, Mueang Trang district, Trang province, will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลโคกหล่อ) on April 17 2008. The TAO was created in 1997, covers an area of 20 km², 12 villages and has 11,168 citizen.
• TAO Krawan, Khun Han district, Sisaket province, will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลกระหวัน) on July 18 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 30.38 km², 12 villages and has 8,890 citizen.
• TAO Pho Krasang, Khun Han district, Sisaket province, will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลโพธิ์กระสังข์) on July 18 2008. The TAO was created in 1996, covers an area of 49.15 km², 14 villages and has 9,069 citizen.
• TAO Nikhom, Sahatsakhan district, Kalasin, was made a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลนิคม) effective March 11 2008. The TAO was created in 1999, covers 16.8 km², 7 villages and has 3,101 citizens.

The transcript continues with the drafts of the Royal Gazette announcements for earlier decisions:

• TAO Niwet, Thawat Buri district, Roi Et province becomes a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลนิเวศน์) on July 30 2008. The TAO covers the part of the subdistrict not yet covered by the subdistrict municipality Ban Niwet.
• TAO Yot, Song Khwae district, Nan province, has become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลยอด) on February 29 2008.
• TAO Bu Sung, Wang Hin district, Sisaket will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลบุสูง) on July 18 2008.
• TAO Sa-nga Ban, Doi Saket district, Chiang Mai province became a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลสง่าบ้าน) On March 1 2008.
• TAO Huai Yae, Nong Bua Rawe district, Chaiyaphum province will become a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลห้วยแย้) on July 19 2008.
• The TAO Makok Nuea (มะกอกเหนือ) will be renamed to Ban Suan and made a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านสวน) on June 24 2008.
• TAO U Thong (อู่ทอง), U Thong district, Suphanburi province will be renamed to Thao U Thong and made a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลท้าวอู่ทอง) on July 24 2008.
• TAO Tha Sop Sao, Mae Tha district, Lamphun province was renamed to Tha Sop Chai and made a subdistrict municipality (เทศบาลตำบลทาสบชัย) on February 28 2008.
• The subdistrict municipality Khao Wong (เทศบาลตำบลเขาวง), Ban Ta Khun district, Surat Thani, will be renamed to Ban Ta Khun (เทศบาลตำบลบ้านตาขุน) at a not yet specified date this year.

Incomplete geocodes list down to village level

Google helped me to find a collection of some text files containing several geocodes, however only for 14 of the 75 provinces. The thing makes these lists different from the ccaatt list from DOPA - they include the villages (muban) and also the municipalities (thesaban). The strange thing which differs it from the geocodes of the municipalities found previously is the fact they are here listed at subdistrict level, while in the other sources they are at district level. For example the city Surat Thani here has the geocode 840170, while normally it has 8499. I am a bit confused about the municipality geocodes now.

I haven't yet had the time and patience to actually go through the village codes to see if there any oddities, striking differences between the lists I found earlier, but of course I have saved all the files locally to be sure they are not lost if they remove it from the website.

The website is owned by the "Bureau of Community Enterprise Promotion", which seem to be somehow related with the One Tambon One Product (OTOP) project.

City pillar shrine of Saraburi

The last station of our family trip last year was Saraburi, where we stopped for lunch in a restaurant. As my brother in law lives and works in Saraburi I asked him whether he can get me to the city pillar as well, but he had to admit that he don't know the location. I hadn't seen it marked on any map either, just remembered that the province hall was not far from the train station. So when we drove through the city center around the area where I had the province hall in my mental map, I noticed something which look like the city pillar shrine, so after lunch I asked to stop there quickly. And I spotted correctly, it was the city pillar shrine, right next to the province hall, so I could take photos of both.



It's just sad I did not have a good city map with me then, because both the district office of the Mueang district as well as the municipal office of the town are located very close to the province hall. But with the family waiting in car for their crazy farang to take photos of boring places, I did not walked around more than necessary, so I missed these two buildings. For the next time I have now made a small Google map with the location of all four places. Just sad the still there are now hires satellite data for this area.







View Larger Map



The city pillar shrine was apparently built quite recently, according to the only English resource I found on the web so far it was built in 1977, and renovated and altered in 2001. The reason why the province did not have an older city pillar might be because it was just moved to its present location in 1896. Originally the province center was in modern-day Sao Hai district, and was moved when the railway was built to a place with railway station. Sao Hai itself has a special pillar by itself. The name Sao Hai (เสาไห้) means "crying pillar", which according to the local legend is a pillar from the province which was selected to become the city pillar of Bangkok. It was a nearly perfect pillar, but it arrived too late and the official pillar was already chose, and it only became a secondary pillar. This made the pillar sad, it returned home and sunk in the Pa Sak river. The local people heard the crying and built a shrine for it, the Chao Mae Takhian Tong Shrine which is now in the temple Wat Sung, close to the district office of Sao Hai. That shrine is definitely on my list of places I need to visit.

Municipality upgrades

And even more municipality changes happening, this time I could find the upgrade of several subdistrict municipalities (thesaban tambon) to towns (thesaban mueang), again a word document from the Ministry of Interior, a protocol of a meeting from November 22 2007:

• Kaeng Khoi (เทศบาลเมืองแก่งคอย), Sara Buri province
• Sam Phran (เทศบาลเมืองสามพราน), Nakhon Pathom province
• Nong Sam Rong (เทศบาลเมืองหนองสำโรง), Udon Thani province
• Tak Bai (เทศบาลเมืองตากใบ), Narathiwat province

All of the upgrades are already effective, they all happened on February 1 2008, except Tak Bai, which already happened on January 31.

I really wish there'd be an authoritative website with all the latest decisions, I can only catch some with my random googleling to announce them here. Just hope I don't bore with too many municipality posts, but it seems it's the local administration which gets most focus currently.

Thai-Cambodian boundary

The old issue on the exact demarcation of the Thai-Cambodian boundary is becoming back into focus now, especially the issue of the Prasat Preah Vihear temple. Actually the boundary between the two countries is rather straight-forward as it follows the watershed of the Dângrêk mountain range - but for the area around this temple the French deviated from the main ridge of the mountains when they demarcated the boundary in 1907, and put the temple to the Cambodian side even though it is located north of the mountain ridge. While the Thai governments in the following years tried to get the boundary adjusted, it was finalized in 1962 by the ruling of the International Court of Justice.

But even though the issue was legally finally settled, the temple continued to ignite tension between both countries, including just lately when Cambodia decided to submit the temple to UNESCO for consideration as a World Heritage site after talks of doing this jointly failed. But while that one has cooled down a little bit, now another unclear part of the boundary came into the news.

The reignited tensions even had one Thai nationalist vandalizing the Khmer Wikipedia and sister sites several times, claiming to continue to destroy it until Cambodia returns the temple. As if trying to destroy an educational website would make the Cambodian government do anything, I doubt they'd ever hear about it. Now quite some range of Thai IPs are blocked from editing the Khmer Wikipedia to prevent the vandal to come back.

I just hope the whole situation does not get out of control again like in 2003 when rioting Cambodians burned down the Thai embassy in Phnom Phen, and the mob at the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok could barely be stopped by a speech of HM King Bhumipol calling them to be calm. And the riots then started from a misunderstood statement of a Thai actress in a soap opera, showing how much tension there is between the two countries.

Even more new municipalities

The Interior Ministry creates a lot of municipalities lately - just discovered one, creating the following four subdistrict municipalities:

• That Na Weng (เทศบาลตำบลธาตุนาเวง), Mueang Sakon Nakhon district, Sakon Nakhon province, effective January 30 2008
• Non Tan (เทศบาลตำบลโนนตาล), Mueang Roi Et district, Roi Et province, effective December 4 2007
• Pho Chai (เทศบาลตำบลโพธิ์ชัย), Phanom Phrai district, Roi Et province, effective April 1 2008
• Pho Chai (เทศบาลตำบลโพธิ์ไชย), Khok Pho Chai district, Khon Kaen province, effective July 17 2008

and a second one with 7 new municipalities as follows:

1. Suan Luang (เทศบาลตำบลสวนหลวง), Krathum Baen district, Samut Sakon province, effective August 24 2007
2. Na Di (เทศบาลตำบลนาดี), Mueang Samut Sakhon district, Samut Sakhon province, effective August 23 2007
3. Bang Ta Then (เทศบาลตำบลบางตาเถร), Song Phi Nong district, Suphanburi province, effective August 29 2007
4. Ta Sit (เทศบาลตำบลตาสิทธิ์), Pluak Daeng district, Rayong province, effective August 24 2007
5. Thi Wang (เทศบาลตำบลที่วัง), effective August 30 2007
6. Mueang Kao (เทศบาลตำบลเมืองเก่า), Mueang Khon Kaen district, Khon Kaen province, effective August 30 2007
7. Bang Krathuek (เทศบาลตำบลบางกระทึก), Sam Phran district, Nakhon Pathom province, effective August 23 2007

Of these only Thi Wang was already listed in files I mentioned earlier.

Ko Samui city - update

After I blogged yesterday on the forthcoming creation of Samui city, I searched a little bit more and also posted at the ThaiVisa forum. From there I now got hinted that the local English newspaper Samui Express had an article about it quite recently - too bad they don't put the date of the article on the website, but according to ThaiVisa it was written on March 1.

According to that article, the upgrade of the subdistrict municipality to a city will be sent to the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) soon and they expect approval within this month.

“I think we will become city by early March. We want the Suratthani governor to approve this as soon as possible and send the proposal to the Department Of Provincial Administration,” Varakorn said in an interview with Samui Express.

The only problem which was left was the objection of some of the subdistrict and village leaders, as these posts will get abolished within a city. The population already approved the change in a referendum earlier.

Besides Samui passing all three requirements to become a city, its residents also overwhelmingly approved cityhood for the resort island in a referendum.

So it seem I have misread that Siam Rat article, maybe it was about sending the request to DOPA and not yet the approval. I'll take a closer look at the news section of DOPA's website, maybe I am able to spot it there - I still don't know where to find such announcements on time without waiting several months until it gets published in the Royal Gazette. Samui is a special case, thanks to the fact there are so many tourists there it has some English coverage of local news.

Ko Samui to become a city

The subdistrict municipality Ko Samui (เทศบาลตำบลเกาะสมุย) wants to become a city soon. It already has passed the population threshold needed to become a city (thesaban nakhon) instead of a town (thesaban mueang) of 50,000, although just barely. The necessary tax income to perform the duties of a city should be no problem thanks to the many tourists coming to the island. However I wonder what is about the third precondition for both town and city - a population density of at least 3000 per square kilometer. Since 1981 the whole island was covered by the sanitary district (sukhaphiban), the precursor of the subdistrict municipality created in 1999. But with a total area of 228.7 km² and 50,880 people as of December 2007 the population density would be just 222/km². The Thai article titled "Ko Samui ready to become a city" seems not to mention it at all.

And if I read this article from the Siam Rat newspaper the upgrade to city already happened on February 23, so for this one I would have noticed the upgrade on time, and not when it was finally published in the Royal Gazette months later. But it was really more fluke than anything else - I was browsing for blogs about Thai municipality, came across a posting in a German forum, and then just for fun tried a Google search for เทศบาลนครเกาะสมุย which surprising gave just one page of hits, and all relevant.

Gazette announcements and their date of being effective - the answer

Last month I had wondered about what date some of the announcements in the Royal Gazette get effective, when the actual date is not mentioned. Now I found the answer by accident - I was looking at the Thai copyright act from 1994, and the second point in that English translation is as follows:

This Act shall come into force on the expiration of 90 days from the date of publication in the Government Gazette.

As my Thai reading is still so bad I did not try to read the complete announcements yet, I usually just looked for the names of the entities and the dates written explicitly. So, I rechecked the announcement of the previous post - the upgrade of minor districts in 1997. And voilà, it also contains a second point, which in Thai reads:

พระราชกฤษฎีกานี้ให้ใช้บังคับเมื่อพ้นกำหนดสิบห้าวันนับแต่วันประกาศในราชกิจจานุเบกษาเป็นต้นไป

This simply says that the announcement becomes effective 15 days after publication - to make it most difficult to spot for me they wrote the 15 in words (สิบห้า) instead of in Thai numerals (๑๕) like for all other numbers. And 15 days after the publication date of September 26 is exactly the October 11 which was listed in amphoe.com. At least one miracle solved...

Constituencies for the senatorial elections

Today is the election of the Senators for the upper house of the Thai parliament, the Senate (วุฒิสภา). The senate has mostly control functions, so it has to approve the bills (laws) issued from the House of Representatives, approve appointments of some independent organizations, and can also start impeachment procedures. The senators are elected for 6 year term.

In the past the senate consisted only of appointed senators, and it was the 1997 constitution which introduced the election of senators. The first senate election took place in 2000. The second one in 2006 was at the height of the political crisis, which culminated with the military coup in September. The military dissolved the senate even before it had its constitutive convention. The 2007 constitution partially changed back to an appointed senate, now 74 of the 150 senators are appointed, and another 76 is elected. As one can already guess from the number 76, the constituencies for the senatorial elections are simply the 76 provinces, every province regardless of its population is eligible of sending one senator.

In Thailand voting is compulsory, however the only punishment for voters who fail to show up for the ballot is the temporary loss of passive voting rights - they cannot become subdistrict or village headman, senator or member of the house of representatives, as well as losing the right to file any objection to an election. One regains there rights when voting at any election, regardless whether it is a local or a country-wide. Though the Public Relations Department (PRD) expects a voter turnout of 70%, I guess the final number will be much lower, given the fact that most voters don't know their candidates - the senatorial candidates are very limited in their election campaign.

I have found a nice article "Electoral Politics in Thailand" by Orathai Kokpol, which gives a nice overview on the history of elections in Thailand. It was published in 2002 as part of the book "Electoral politics in Southeast & East Asia", which is completely available online. Also, the New Mandala blog just presented two papers by Michael H. Nelson on the recent elections.