Mae Sot administration act approved by cabinet

In the cabinet meeting on February 22, the draft of the Mae Sot special administrative area was discussed. The main extract from the meeting transcript is

คณะรัฐมนตรีเห็นชอบร่างพระราชบัญญัติระเบียบบริหารราชการนครแม่สอด พ.ศ. .... ที่สำนักงานคณะกรรมการกฤษฎีกาตรวจพิจารณาแล้ว ตามที่สำนักงานปลัดสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรีเสนอ และให้ส่งคณะกรรมการประสานงานสภาผู้แทนราษฎรพิจารณา ก่อนเสนอสภาผู้แทนราษฎรพิจารณาต่อไป

The cabinet approved the draft of the Mae Sot administration act. It was already checked at the Council of State. The office of the permanent secretary proposes to send it to the coordination committee of the House of Representatives before submitting it to the House of Representatives for consideration.

I had found the full words of the draft act at the website of Mae Sot municipality already, though I am not sure if it is exactly the same version as the one now approved by the cabinet. It seems the act is closely resembling the Pattaya administration act of 1999, though due to its length I haven't been able to check this thoroughly.

And it seems also the second change for the Mae Sot area is still on track, as in January already the Mae Sot special economic area was mentioned in a news report by the Public Relations Department. And even the creation of new province around Mae Sot isn't shelved it, as there are still lots of mentions of "จังหวัดที่ 78" or "จังหวัดแม่สอด" lately, like this one reporting that the mayor of Mae Sot paid homage at a local King Naresuan shrine to speed up the creation of all these three administrative changes.

Special zone Mae Sot still on track

Today "The Nation" had an article with an update on the creation of the special administrative zone in Mae Sot, started by the previous government but not yet finally approved in the legislation process. But according to the article, chances are quite good that the new government will also support the change and it will become reality in the not too far future.

Municipal bureaucrats expect implementation of a special administration zone at Mae Sot to help restructure taxes so they contribute more to public services and oversight of migrant workers.
They hope the change - backed by major political parties in the capital but yet to be approved - will boost the business revenue in the area from Bt2030 billion to Bt100 billion, and help turn Mae Sot into a model city.
[...]
"Currently, government policies are uncoordinated and not unified," the mayor [Teardkiat Shinsoranan of Mae Sot] said.
"Municipal and provincial officials all think and act on their own, with their limited budget," he complained.
As a result, no one was able to handle bigger problems that required bigger budgets and regional coordination.
[...]
Technically, two special zones are proposed - a Special Local Administrative Zone and a Special Economic Zone.
[...]
Mae Sot municipality's website notes that the House of Representatives last met on April 4, to read and correct details in a draft law in create these bodies. Involved parties are now waiting for the new government to finalise the bill.
"Both Thaksin and Abhisit's governments agreed to this project," said Chaiwat, who hoped that Yingluck's administration would also support it.
Next economic boom site?, The Nation, 2011-08-15

Administrative Reform through Decentralization and Community Empowerment

On the Inside Thailand news feed from the Public Relations Department of the Thai government, an article with the lengthy title Administrative Reform through Decentralization and Community Empowerment was posted yesterday. Though it does not have much hard facts in it, some parts are still worth quoting.

The Government is pushing for issuance of laws to promote decentralization of administrative power and empower the community. The administrative reform will enable local organizations to play a greater role in the management of local affairs.
[..]
He [Prime Ministrer] cited the move to upgrade Mae Sot district in Tak province into a special administrative zone as an example of decentralization of administrative power. The Cabinet has already given the green light to the legislation on the Mae Sot special administrative zone. The legislation is pending consideration by Parliament. Once approved by Parliament, Mae Sot will be granted new powers and responsibilities, and laws and regulations introduced by the special zone should override those of the central administration. It will become a model for other towns planning to enjoy true decentralization of power.

This confirms the status I knew about this project, and since now parliament is busy with the preparations of house dissolution and the laws necessary for the election under the amended constitution, it's unlikely this law will be considered in parliament in this term anymore.

Dr. Prawase Wasi, Chairman of the National Reform Assembly, also called for decentralization and community empowerment in his keynote address on Thailand Reform in early March 2011. He said that centralization of power would lead to dire consequences. For instance, it weakens communities, making them unable to handle local affairs. Centralization also leads to conflicts between local culture and central administration, weakens bureaucracy, paves the way for rampant corruption and a substandard political system, and makes it easier to stage a coup d’état. Decentralization of administrative power will make it difficult for any group to seize administrative power.
[...]

I have a posting on Prawase's keynote half-finished, but sadly still don't know what he actually suggests as measure to move to a more decentralized country. All I read so far was that he suggests to strengthen local administration in village councils and the TAO, not really unexpected for something named decentralization to mean giving more power to local administration.

Municipal elections in Mae Sot

The long-delayed municipal elections in Mae Sot finally took place on August 28. The term of the last council and mayor ended on January 28 already, and as it is usual in Thailand after the end of term new election are to be held within 60 days. But as the town was upgraded to a city at this occasion, this meant that new constituencies had to be defined as there are now three instead of two constituencies which each send 6 councilors into the assembly. The problems with the definition of the municipal borders further delayed the constituency definition, which were finally approved by the Election Commission on July 14 and published in the Royal Gazette on August 27 - coincidentally one day before the election day.

It is apparently not a really big problem to extend the term of an elected body, or more correctly keep it in office as the acting local government after its end of term. In this case it were 212 days till the new election took place instead of the 60 day allowed by law. But if I am not mistaken, this isn't the longest time a local government stayed in office acting, as there are still some of the TAO upgraded in last year where no constituencies has been announced in the Royal Gazette by now.

Though I doubt any of my readers will know any of the local politicians in Mae Sot, I nevertheless present the full results here, which I found in the online news site ryt9. They show very clearly that the local politics is quite different from the national one, as well as from the local politics in Bangkok. As seen in the results of the Bangkok district elections, these elections are dominated by party politics, especially nowadays the two largest parties Phuea Thai and Democratic Party. However in most local elections, these parties pay no role at all, almost all winning candidates belong to a local party named City Development Group (กลุ่มพัฒนานครแม่สอด), only three independent candidates could win a seat.

First the mayor (นายกเทศมนตรี), where the incumbent Thoetkiat Chinsaranan (เทอดเกียรติ ชินสรนันท์) was the only candidate, and was elected with 8179 votes. In total, the voter turnout was almost 60%, the total number of eligible voters was 17,214, of which 10,321 did cast their vote. The 24 elected councilors are, hopefully correctly transcribed

• Constituency 1
  Mr. Kun Khrueawira (นายกุล เครือวีระ), Mr. Sawai Mingoen (นายไสว มีเงิน), Mrs. Chan Chanta (นางจันทร์ จันตา), Mr. Chanthip Samutla (นายจันทร์ทิพย์ สมุทรหล้า), Banchong Madong (นายบรรจง มาคง), and independent candidate Mr. Phrasoet Howichit (นายประเสริฐ หอวิจิตร)
• Constituency 2
  Mr. Anurak Tanta (นายอนุรักษ์ ตันตา), Mr. Pan Montip (นายปาน มนติ๊บ), Mr. Songkran Rueanchaidi (นายสงกรานต์ เรือนใจดี), Mr. Wasuthon Bunmak (นายวสุธร บุญมาก), Sakun Mekmok (นายสกุล เมฆหมอก), Mrs. Suwanna Khongkhanoi (นางสุวรรณา คงคาน้อย)
• Constituency 3
  Mr. Ingkhrat Tantiphongsanti (นายอิงครัตน์ ตันติพงษ์ศานติ), Mr. Banchoet Lawanrattanakun (นายบรรเจิด ลาวัลย์รัตนากุล), Mr. Rankrit Kopraphakit (นายรณกฤต ก่อประภากิจ), Mr. Natthaphong Suthonwong (นายณัฐพงศ์ สุทรวงษ์), Mr. Napha Chokaewot (นางนภา ใจแก้วทิ) and independent Police Senior Sergeant Major (ด.ต.) Phrathip Sila (ประทีป สีลา)
• Constituency 4
  Mr. Somchai Yakhamna (นายสมชัย ยะคำนะ), Mr. Yongyut Chatui (นายยงยุทธ จาตุย), Mr. Supphakon Saengrat (นายศุภกร แสงราช), Mr. Chumphon Chokhrua (นายชุมพล ใจครัว), Atsawin Phinitwong (นายอัศวิน พินิจวงษ์), and independent Mr. Suchetna Phetchaprani (นายสุเจตนา เพชรปราณี)

Election poster of Manop Siphuegng,
courtesy 2bangkok

A second local election took place last Sunday, the by-election of the president of the provincial administrative organization (PAO) of Nakhon Sawan. All of the PAO are currently around mid-term, so the next election should be in 2012, however on July 12 the PAO president Amnat Sirichai (นายอำนาจ ศิริชัย) was assassinated and therefore the post was vacant. Four candidates run for the post, according to the still inofficial results candidate number 1 Manop Siphueng (นายมานพ ศรีผึ้ง) did win by quite a big margin.

• Candidate 1: Manop Siphueng (นายมานพ ศรีผึ้ง), 207,850 votes
• Candidate 2: Chamroen Padwai (ร.ต.ต.จำเริญ ปด้วย), 129,619 votes
• Candidate 3: 8,662 votes
• Candidate 4: 5,251 votes

Mae Sot municipal borders

When the municipaliy Mae Sot was upgraded earlier this year, the boundaries were changed a bit as well, if comparing the maps in the 2010 announcement with the in the previous upgraded from 2001.

But this wasn't the final word on the municipal boundaries, on August 18 another change of the boundaries was announced. While this announcement only gives the law text and as an appendix the description of the boundary and a map, a very lengthy text with all the background on this is in the meeting transcript of meeting 23/2010 of board 1 in April this year. Way to long for me to get it all, and with Google translate it sounds like some adjustments had to be done due to a court decision. This pending change of boundaries is probably also the reason why the constituencies for the municipal election were still not yet defined, even though the municipal upgrade was done with the end of term of the previous council and mayor. The election had been pushed back by 45 days several times since then, and the old council continue to be in office as the acting council.

I have tried to put all three boundaries into a Google map of Mae Sot, though at the time of writing I haven't yet finished it. But since this map is embedded, it will automatically be updated. I have also included the main administrative offices as far as I know them, too bad I could not yet localize the city pillar. If the map is a bit too full, try to click the larger map link, then you can switch off and on the various parts.

View Larger Map

And very soon the municipality Mae Sot will be completely abolished and its area included into the new special administrative area of Mae Sot, the corresponding bill was already approved by the cabinet. Once made a law, I have to update the map above once again.

Special administrative area Mae Sot approved by cabinet

Wondering if the new municipal council of Mae Sot has been finally been elected after the upgrade of the municipality in January, I found a news article which tells that the drawing of the constituency boundaries is still not finished, and therefore the election has been delayed for 45 days a fourth time already. The delay was partially due to the provincial Election Commission having to adjust the constituencies in Tak province for the next general election first.

However, the most interesting point comes at the end of the article. It states that although the special administrative area Mae Sot has been approved by cabinet already, the municipal election has to take place now and cannot wait until the law to established this new administrative unit has been approved by parliament and set into effect.

As there was apparently no mention of this in the English language press except an article of the Public Relations Department, I almost missed that this special administrative unit is already a draft law, unlike for Ko Samui where there was still discussion on the details last month. Via another news article I could then find the actual cabinet meeting transcript. The special administrative area (องค์กรปกครองส่วนท้องถิ่นรูปแบบพิเศษ) Mae Sot was point one of the agenda of the June 22 meeting, and the main points of the forthcoming law are listed in there.

The new entity is to be named Nakhon Mae Sot (นครแม่สอด), and will be created by merging the current city municipality Mae Sot (เทศบาลนครแม่สอด) and subdistrict municipality Tha Sai Luat (เทศบาลตำบลท่าสายลวด). Though there are no details, it seems to me that similar to the special administrative areas Bangkok and Pattaya the new entity will take over parts of the provincial administration as well, as well as receiving a higher amount of the tax revenue collected in the city. The administration will consist of an elected council and mayor, as well as an advisory board. The city will not be completely independent, but still is supervised by the Ministry of Interior, who has the power to ask the mayor to clarify issues on the city performance.

Mae Sot city upgrade

The upgrade of Mae Sot from town to city municipality status has been officially announced in the Royal Gazette yesterday, after it was approved in the board meeting on January 11th. In fact, there were two announcements:

• ประกาศกระทรวงมหาดไทย เรื่อง เปลี่ยนแปลงเขตเทศบาลเมืองแม่สอด อำเภอแม่สอด จังหวัดตาก - Announcement by the Ministry of Interior to change area of town municipality Mae Sot
• ประกาศกระทรวงมหาดไทย เรื่อง เปลี่ยนแปลงฐานะเทศบาลเมืองแม่สอด อำเภอแม่สอด จังหวัดตาก เป็นเทศบาลนครแม่สอด - Announcement by the Ministry of Interior to change status of town municipality Mae Sot to city municipality

The change of area was necessary because there were contradictory boundary definitions which place some area to belong to both Mae Sot town and TAO Mae Pa, see the board meeting of May 21 2009.

What is still missing is the announcement of the new constituencies, which have to be defined before the new municipal board can be elected. However these usually show up in the Royal Gazette well after the election date. I still don't know what date the municipal elections will take place, neither has the Election Commission of Tak province any current news on their website, nor has the website of municipality been reactivated yet. I only know that it was originally planned for March 14, but due to the necessary constituency redefinition a date in end of April was targeted instead, so the date must have been set by now.

Since I think I may need it again once the special administrative area of Mae Sot becomes reality, I have drawn a map out of the coordinates in the two announcements showing the outline of the city.

View Mae Sot in a larger map
If one checks the map and boundary definition in the announcements in detail, one will notice that the MGRS coordinates in the map are bogus - easting and northing exchanged, whereas in the text they are correct. Took me quite some minutes until I realized that my coordinate conversion algorithm isn't the one to blame.

Mae Sot upgraded to a city

Yesterday the first transcript of a 2010 meeting of the board to consider draft laws (คณะกรรมการพิจารณาร่างกฎหมาย) was uploaded, directly with an important municipal change.

Already effective January 28, the town Mae Sot (เทศบาลเมืองแม่สอด) at the border to Myanmar has been upgraded to a city municipality (thesaban nakhon, เทศบาลนครแม่สอด). The reason why the upgrade was done so quickly is the fact that on January 28 2010 the term of the municipal council ended and an election of the council is necessary within 60 days after the end of term. The end of the council term is the easiest opportunity to change the municipal status, as no shortening of an electoral term is necessary.

What make me a bit wonder about this upgrade is that actually it was planned to upgrade Mae Sot to a special administrative area (องค์กรปกครองท้องถิ่นรูปแบบพิเศษ), probably modeled after Pattaya, incorporating some of the neighboring municipalities and TAO into one metropolis. I don't know whether the upgrade to a city means that the plans for the special administrative area have been shelved already, or just are expected to take too long to deny the town the larger responsibilities and opportunities which come with the higher municipal status any longer.

Planned new provinces - Mae Sot

Out of the several provinces which are apparently planned, only Mae Sot make it into the English language press so far - even though The Irrawaddy in their article from June 2007 only mentions half of the plans for the Mae Sot, the upgraded municipality.

The plan, at least as of June 2007, is to create new province named Mae Sot covering the five districts of Tak province which border to Myanmar (Burma) - from north to south these are the districts Tha Song Yang, Mae Ramat, Mae Sot, Phop Phra and Umphang, as depicted in the map. For a better administration, also the creation of three minor districts has been suggested, Ruam Rat Khiri (กิ่งอำเภอรวมราษฎร์คีรี) from Phop Phra, Mongkhon Khiri (กิ่งอำเภอมงคลคีรี) from Mae Sot and Haeng Mai Laeo (กิ่งอำเภอแห่งใหม่แล้ว) from Tha Song Yang. But as all three minor districts aren't named after a subdistrict and the source does not mention it, I cannot say which part of the districts will be split off.

Additionally, the town Mae Sot as the main border crossing to Myanmar is supposed to become a metropolis (มหานคร), which is supposed to be a special administrative area similar to Bangkok and Pattaya, so outside the normal municipal (thesaban) system. But what the differences between this metropolis and a thesaban nakhon are suppose to be - I have no idea. Anyway, this metropolis is planned to cover the subdistricts Mae Sot, Mae Pa and Tha Sai Luat of Mae Sot district. The current town of Mae Sot (เทศบาลเมืองแม่สอด) covers only the subdistrict Mae Sot.

All the above is from an article in Thai newspaper The Manager from May 22 2007. Just one thing the article does not mention - when will that new province become reality?