Headman terms to be shortened?

In a kind of a deja-vu, there was an organized protest of village and subdistrict headmen in several provinces this week as the National Reform Steering Assembly has proposed to make an election every five year mandatory [The Nation, Bangkok Post]. The only difference this time is the agency which proposed the change, everything else sounds totally same as in 2012 when a similar proposal was under consideration by the Yingluck government - even the discussed compromise of allowing the currently elected headmen to stay in office till retirement age and only make the reelection mandatory for newly filled positions.

Yet one detail I haven't seen in any of the reports on the protests now - that the lifetime term was re-introduced in 2008, between 1999 and 2008 every headman had to stand reelection every five years. It remains to be seen if the current proposal is supported by the government, as it still needs to be approved by the cabinet and then parliament, before any such amendment to the Local Administration Act becomes effective.

"The Nation" gets it all wrong

On November 7, village and subdistrict headmen from all over the country plan to stage a protest at the Royal Plaza to protest against the amendment of the Local Administration Act, which is scheduled to be discussed in parliament that day. Now this won't be noteworthy as I already reported about similar protests earlier, but what is striking is the article published by "The Nation" on this topic.

Kamnan and village headmen nationwide will rally in Bangkok next month to demand that their terms end at the age of 60 rather than after five years in office, as is the case at present.

Apparently "The Nation" lives in a different time, as the current active law has the headmen end their term at 60, it is the amendment in the legislative process right now which would change that. That sentence would have been true between 1999 and 2008.

He said he expected a large gathering, as there are about 250,000 Kamnans and village headmen nationwide.

There are 74956 administrative villages in Thailand as of December 2011. Not all of these have a headman - Muban within a town or city municipality (until Amendment 12 of the Local Administration Act this was mandatory), thus there are definitely less than 75000 headmen. Subdistrict headmen are also village headmen, so there don't add to that number. Only if including the (non-elected) deputy headmen - every Muban has two deputies, not sure about the Kamnan - one could reach to the number of 250,000.

At present, each kaman and village headman works to a five-year term, replacing the previous rule that allowed each to stay in the position until reaching the age of 60.

As already stated, this is totally bogus.

Kunae said that they wanted to back to the previous rule, claiming that the present rule did not respond to continuity of work and caused widespread corruption.

It's interesting that every change is claimed to lead to corruption or electoral fraud, and of course every interest group claims that in their proposal it will have less of these evils. Since there were 10 years with short terms already, why has nobody thought about doing a survey if there was more or less corruption during these times than in the last 4 years.

In my humble opinion, how can one have more corruption if an office holder has to stand re-election every five years, and at that time has to explain his actions and performance or any wealth accumulation to the electorate. Even though such a check by the electorate isn't working well in Thailand yet, it is still better than to hope for the superiors to remove bad headmen from their office. Besides, if an election is for twenty or thirty years instead of five years, then the stakes are much higher and thus also the temptation to use illegal ways to get elected.

But as mentioned in the last posting on this topic, as long as the transitory clause to keep those headmen currently in office till aged 60, the amendment is not worth much, and the current headmen don't need to worry about their investments into gaining their post.

Back to shorter headmen terms?

In 1999, the 10th amendment of the Local Administration Act of 1914 changed the terms of village and subdistrict headmen drastically. Until then, once a headman was elected he stayed in office until he (or she) reached the retirement age of 60, died or resigned, or did perform so badly in his job that the province governor removed him from his post. However starting in 1999, the headmen had to stand for re-election every five year, including those who were elected for a lifetime term before.

Amendment 11 in 2008 did revert this change and made the headmen again elected for a lifetime term. Interestingly, both these drastic changes were done by Democrat-led governments.

Now it seems Amendment 13 (Amendment 12 from 2009 kept headmen in office within town and city municipalities) is in the parliamentary process, and with that amendment the reversion will be reverted, thus five year terms will be re-introduced, and obviously creating fury among the headmen.

Some 400 kamnan and village headmen staged a brief rally at Parliament yesterday while lodging a petition calling for the legislature to drop a draft bill on local administration.
[...]
Coalition and opposition MPs agreed to initiate the bill after a public hearing, which showed that people wanted to elect their local chiefs, he said.
The draft provisions include a clause for local residents to elect their kamnan to serve a five-year term, he said, but there was no cap on terms served if re-elected.
Village headmen would also be elected officials, he added.
Under the draft, kamnan and village headmen would not be subject to mandatory retirement at the age of 60. In a transitional clause, incumbent kamnan and village headmen would be allowed to remain in office until retirement at 60 [Bolding added]. The draft would apply to their successors, who would have to be elected.
The Nation, Kamnan protest over Local Administration Bill, October 10 2012

While it is a return to the old system, the transitory clause makes this draft a sham - since the previous amendment almost all five year terms had expired and an election for a lifetime term was held already, thus it is certainly not what the people in the public hearing requested.

In my opinion, a lifetime term is an anachronism, which was justified in the past when it was difficult to organize local elections, but nowadays with easy travel and communication no reason remains why to stick to undemocratic lifetime terms. Especially since electoral fraud is still common in Thailand, a five year term give the local people the chance to correct their wrong decision influenced by money when the headman did not perform in office to their satisfaction. Right now, a headman has to buy his election into office just once, and then such needs to make sure any misdeeds in office aren't bad enough to get the governor's attention.

DOPA headmen magazine

Cover 10/1998

Some years ago, I posted about the Thesaphiban magazine published by the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) as its internal magazine to reach all the various offices in a less formal way. Now by some random googling I have noticed that there is a second similar magazine, also published by DOPA but targeted to the lower admninistrative levels - the village and subdistrict headmen.

This magazine, titled "กำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน" (Subdistrict headman, Village headman) is also a monthly magazine, first published on December 5 1949. Sadly, it seems it is only available in paper copies, I haven't been able to see any downloadable PDFs of it. All the online information on it is rather well hidden on the DOPA website, and very outdated - from the starting page on the magazine one can only find the covers and table of contents of the years 1998 and 2002. But the magazine is still in print, just few days before I discovered the magazine, the Public Relation Department issued a short advert with the details on how to subscribe. Thus the magazine costs 216 Baht for one year, but to subscribe or get any further details one has to call a number within DOPA - funnily at the extension number 404.

There is not much else to find about this magazine on the web, the only other interesting thing are some scans of a 1957 issue, which is apparently for sale. Though probably one could find more old issues at the Chutachak weekend market - haven't been there for long time, and never browsed through the book and magazine part of the market. Though I probably won't be able to read and understand much, I would certainly love to get one (current) issue of this magazine (and the Thesaphiban magazine)...

Village headmen term changed

Yesterday's Bangkok Post commentary "A delicious feudalistic dish" has a lot of interesting points on the local elections. I'll only focus on those around the village headmen election, as those made me notice a major change which happened in 2008 already.

But the position of village or district head _ lower in the steep vertical abyss that is the Thai political structure though it may be _ is secure and, if you play it right, very lucrative.
The village or district head is only elected once and his or her term lasts until the day he or she retires, at 60 years of age. It's pretty much a life-time job. Not to mention, they get better benefits and sometimes better pay.

Now as far as I knew, the headmen had their term changed to five years around the adoption of the 1997 constitution, so the life-time terms were a piece of the past.

Why and how have we come to this?
The particular law responsible came into effect on Dec 31, 2009, but it was passed in 2007.

But as the author claims that there was a recent change in the law, I had to look more close into it. The roles of the headmen are codified in the Local Administration Act (พระราชบัญญัติลักษณะปกครองท้องที่), originally from 1914 [Gazette] and amended 11 times since then. And the most recent amendment was announced December 30 2009 [Gazette], so it'd fit to the law referred to above. Alas, this only adds one sentence to the law

การยกเลิกตำแหน่งกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน แพทย์ประจำตำบล สารวัตรกำนัน และผู้ช่วยผู้ใหญ่บ้าน จะกระทำมิได้
Cancellation of the position of subdistrict headman, village headman, village doctor, district inspector and assistant headmen shall not be made.

This refers to the cancellation of these positions when the subdistrict gets elevated to a municipality, where these officials were originally considered obsolete. This amendment might have been added due to the protest of the outgoing headmen on Ko Samui, when the island was upgraded to a town in 2008. But this change does not say anything about the term of the headmen.

So I had to check into the older amendments as well, not that easy since I could not copy-and-paste the text from the Royal Gazette announcements directly, but had to find them in text on a website to be able to check them with Google translate. But finally I could find that amendment 9 issued in 1992 [Gazette] introduced the five year term by added one sentence the article 13 of the law.

ผู้ใหญ่บ้านอยู่ในตำแหน่งคราวละห้าปี นับแต่วันที่ราษฎรเลือก
The term of the village headman is five years, starting from the day of the election.

And now amendment 11, issued in 2008 and therefore legislated by the coup group of 2006, changed this article 13 completely again, so now a village headmen leaves office only due to the reasons stated in article 14, most notable item 1

มีอายุครบหกสิบปี
When aged 60.

I haven't looked up the same item for the subdistrict headmen yet, but as the commentator claims these are also now effective life-time positions I have no reason to disbelief him.

It's odd I totally missed this big change with the 2008 amendment, even though I was already following the English press for news on these things. Thus the headmen elections happening now - like the one observed by fellow blogger Mike in Prachuap - will be the last regular ones for quite some time, once all the headmen elected for a five year term before 2008 finished their term these election will happen only when the headman retires, dies or gets removed by higher authorities.

And if anyone interested, the complete text of the current version of the Local Administration Act can be found here.

Elected village leaders

Yesterday, a very interesting article was published in The Nation, basically a rant of a spokesman from the provincial administration bureaucracy on the suggested changes by the National Reform Council. As the whole piece is worth reading, it wasn't easy to pick few main parts to quote

Any attempt by a future government to abolish the system of the Interior Ministry appointing village representatives up to provincial level - and replacing it with the election of local leaders - will be vehemently opposed, the influential Governing Officer Association of Thailand (GOAT) said yesterday.
[...]
Surasak warned that Thailand would disintegrate and be replaced by "many pockets of small states" if governors were elected along with others like village headmen.
The Nation, 2011-06-16, Elected village leaders could lead to 'disintegration of the country'

It is basically the same thinking as shown in the proposal of a half-appointed parliament by the PAD and their New Politics Party - the citizen are too stupid to choose their right representatives, so any decentralization and democratization at local levels will bound to fail. Better stay with the well-known and claimed-to-be successful bureaucratic polity, the system already described by Fred W. Riggs in his 1967 book "Thailand: The Modernization Of A Bureaucratic Polity".

It is of course not surprising to read such a conservative statement by someone from within the provincial administration bureaucracy, it would be interesting to see if the winner of the forthcoming election will dare to change anything in this system, implementing some or all of the proposals of the National Reform Council. Too bad I haven't yet found a good English description on what the actually propose for the provincial and local administration. It already took me quite some time to find the Thai name of this association with the strange acronym - สมาคมนักปกครองแห่งประเทศไทย.

But there is one thing I real wonder about in the article, and especially the headline. The article suggests that right now all of the administrators - from provincial governor, district head officer, subdistrict headman and down to the village headman are officials sent from the Ministry of Interior. While this is true for the two higher levels, the headmen are and always were a thing in the middle. The Ministry has to approve them, and they are under strong control of the Ministry and the higher administrative levels, but they are and as far as I know always were elected by the local population. And since 1997 every five years, and not for life (till retirement age actually) as in the past. I can only guess that the article was written by a Bangkokian, who never lived in any village outside the town and thus never experienced the election of a village headman.

Government officials in deep south

Widely ignored by the international press, and also only rarely found in any of the English newspapers in Bangkok, the insurgency in the three southernmost provinces does continue unabated. One of the common victims of drive-by shootings or bomb attacks are government officials, especially those on the lower levels who get far less police protection than the province governors or district officers. In order to remember the victims, below is a incomplete list of case which I had noticed in the press in the last year.

• On May 6, Musor Daeworsanung (มูซอ แดวอสะนุง), village headman of Mu 6, Yaha subdistrict, Yaha district, Yala province, was shot on his return way from a meeting in the district office.
• On April 14, Salae Jae-useng (สาและ เจ๊ะอูเซ็ง), village headman of Mu 5, Talo Kapo subdistrict, Yaring district, Pattani province, was injured when being shot at while fishing together with his son.
• On November 6, Sakulsak Mada-oh (สกุลศักดิ์ มะดาโอ๊ะ), chairman of the TAO Pasemat (website currently unsafe!), Su-ngai Kolok district, Narathiwat province, was seriously injured in a drive-by shooting.

Educating Headmen

The Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) has put a series of lectures on their websites, which are intended to give the village and subdistrict headmen additional training on their jobs. Most of the texts, which are all available as Winword files, are written by professors at the school of administration (วิทยาลัยการปกครอง). Below is the complete list with the rough translated lecture titles - so far I have looked inside only three of documents, and only with Google Translate to get a quick overview, as most of the topics don't sound that interesting to me.

• Lecure to undergraduate student headmen (คำกล่าวให้โอวาทแก่นักศึกษาหลักสูตรปริญญาตรีกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน) by Mongkhon Surasatcha (นายมงคล สุระสัจจะ), director of the Department of Provincial Administration
• Resolving conflicts in the village (การแก้ไขปัญหาข้อขัดแย้งในหมู่บ้าน) by Chananwat Chitpiromsi (นายชนาญวัต จิตร์ภิรมย์ศรี), Vice Rector of the School of Administration
• Efficient housing management (การบริหารงานหมู่บ้านอย่างมีประสิทธิภาพ) by Chonsit Thanatna (นายชนสิทธิ์ ธนาสนะ), Vice Rector of the School of Administration
• Prevention of drug problems in the village (การป้องกันและแก้ไขปัญหายาเสพติดในหมู่บ้าน) by Suriya Wiriyasawat (นายสุริยะ วิริยะสวัสดิ์), Vice Rector of the School of Administration
• Keeping peace in the village (การรักษาความสงบในหมู่บ้าน by Sanchay Khachonwehat (นายสัญชัย ขจรเวหาศน์), Vice Rector of the School of Administration
• Strong community support (การส่งเสริมชุมชนเข้มแข็ง by Anurat Haitrong (นายอนุรัฐ ไทยตรง), Vice Rector of the School of Administration
• Help to unlock informal debts (ช่วยกันปลดหนี้นอกระบบ) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Prepare for draught year 2010 (เตรียมรับภัยแล้งปี 2553) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Direction of development for headmen (ทิศทางการพัฒนากำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน) by Sanchay Khachonwehat
• Promoting economic sufficiency (นักปกครองกับการส่งเสริมเศรษฐกิจแบบพอเพียง) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Role of headman as fair administrator (บทบาทกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้านในการอำนวยความเป็นธรรม) Thewit Boriraksabtikun (เทวุษย์ บริรักษ์สันติกุล), head of Department of administrative functions (ภาควิชางานในหน้าที่ของงานปกครอง)
• Role of headmen (บทบาทหน้าที่ของกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน) by Sanchay Khachonwehat
• Role of heamen in a changing Thai society (บทบาทกำนันผู้ใหญ่บ้านท่ามกลางสังคมไทยที่กำลังเปลี่ยนแปลงปัจจุบัน by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Institutions to preserve peace in the village (ปกป้องสถาบันเพื่อหมู่บ้านปรองดอง) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Perspective of leaders in a modern administration (กระบวนทรรศน์ผู้นำการบริหารการปกครองยุคใหม่) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Earthquake - taken seriously, but not panic (แผ่นดินไหว........ควรคำนึงแต่ไม่ต้องวิตก) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Creating peace in the district (การสร้างความสมานฉันท์ในอำเภอ) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Education Development Center: School's philosophy of life (ศูนย์ศึกษาการพัฒนา : โรงเรียนชีวิตปรัชญาเศรษฐกิจพอเพียง) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Creative economy in the village (เศรษฐกิจสร้างสรรค์ในหมู่บ้าน) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• The headman institution: past, present and future (สถาบันกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน : อดีต ปัจจุบันและอนาคต) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Creating a peaceful reconciliation in the district (การสร้างความสมานฉันท์อย่างสันติในอำเภอ) by Suriya Wiriyasawat
• Flooding (อุทกภัย...............) by Suriya Wiriyasawat

Village headman elections in Prachuap Khiri Khan

Issueing the ballot paper

Last week, in Muban 2 of Khlong Wan, Mueang Prachuap Khiri Khan district, Prachuap Khiri Khan province the village headman was about to be elected. Now there are more than 70,000 Muban in Thailand, and the term of a village headman is 5 years, so this in average on every day there are about 40 such elections, way too many to cover them on here at all. But since the above mentioned Muban is the home of expat blogger Mike from thailand-blogs.com, and thus could write a first-hand experience of this most local part of the Thai democracy, first covering the campaigning and the headman tasks and then also the actual voting process. The photos on this posting are also courtesy of Mike - for more of his photos see the daily posting on his photo blog.

The election took place in the village hall on July 29, between 8 am and 3 pm. There were two candidates, the incumbent village headman had the ballot number one and his contender the number two. The polling station was manned - well, as the photos show it were actually mostly women - by officers from the subdistrict administration Khlong Wan, as well as overseen by one police officer and the returning officer from the provincial election commission. A total of 1005 citizen were eligible to vote, and the voting process did not look any different from what I am used to from here - first the identity check, then the marking of the ballot paper in the ballot booth, and finally dropping it into the ballot box. Those undemocratic ways I wrote about once seem to be only a matter of the past by now, at least for the actual voting process even for this very local election everything is done by the same standard as it is for a nation-wide election.

• Candidate 1: Yothin Yuangboribun (นายโยธิน ยวงบริบูรณ์) received 330 votes or 58%
• Candidate 2: Sutthisan Thasanthakdi (นายศุทธิสาร ทัศนภักดี) received 236 votes or 42%

Therefore, the incumbent village headman was confirmed in his post for another five year term.

Candidate 1, Yothin Yuangboribun

Candidate 2, Sutthisan Thasanthakdi

In the past, the post of a village headman had changed from a very unpopular to a rather popular one, since among the village headmen the subdistrict headman is elected, and that one had a lot of access to funds via the subdistrict council. An example of the dirty elections which were the result is described in the book by Daniel Arghiros. But since the introduction of the Tambon administrative organizations with their elected councils in the second half of the 1990s, the village headman returned back to mostly work and status and no access to funds. But not sure if the introduction of the village funds by Thaksin and though modified still continued till today turned the wheel in the other direction again. The salary of 8000 Baht a month, only recently raised, can't be such a big attraction to start illegal practices like vote-buying. But a deeper analysis goes beyond what a blogger can do, for such one has to delve into the scientific publications of the sociology and politics departments of the universities.

Village headmen tasks

Anthropologist Michael Moerman spent 1959-61 in the village Ban Ping, Chiang Kham district, Chiang Rai province to do anthropology fieldwork. One of the publications based on this research is the 1969 paper A Thai village headman as a synaptic leader, which I found in the book Modern Thai politics. Though probably quite outdated, the paper gives a lot of interesting facts on the work of a village headman 50 years ago. One of the most interesting sections is the following, and I would be surprised if the described behavior wouldn't still be found today.

Keeping records, like keeping the peace, is a major duty which the government requires of the headman who obediently maintains a census of animals and issues animal registration forms; enters marriages, births and deaths; notes the amount of rice which villagers claim to have planted, lost and harvested; witnesses claims of virgin land; and records contributions pf labor, supplies, and money to village projects. He also maintains a list of landholdings which is used by village and regional leaders. The headman of Ban Ping is proud of his ability to keep these records legibly, but ignores discrepancies (so that calves are born to those who have no cows). He permits villagers to falsify information when it benefits them, as by under-reporting landholdings in order to avoid taxes. He advises them about how to misreport (e.g., Should the amount of rice lost to floods be exaggerated in the hope of tax concessions or minimized to avoid the possibility that the government will restrict rice sales and thereby lower rice price?) He boasts about incorrect reports (as of the number of young men or oxcarts available for corvée that help the village. The headman's manipulation of records and information for the benefit of his constituents is a striking role activity.

Local Administration Act, Amendment 12

Published on December 30 was the 12th amendment of the local administration act of 1914 (พระราชบัญญัติลักษณะปกครองท้องที่ พระพุทธศักราช ๒๔๕๗), which deals with the central administration at subdistrict (Tambon) and village (Muban) level.

If I understand the amendment correctly, it adds one sentence at paragraph 3, which previously only stated that all laws in contradiction with the act are nullified as of the date of announcement of this act. The new sentence is as follows

การยกเลิกตำแหน่งกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน แพทย์ประจำตำบล สารวัตรกำนันและผู้ช่วยผู้ใหญ่บ้าน จะกระทำมิได้
Cancellation of the positions of subdistrict headman, village headman, subdistrict doctor, deputy subdistrict headman and deputy village headman will not be done

Originally a longer sentence was planned, however after lobbying by the headman association (สมาคมกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้านแห่งประเทศไทย) the senate cut off the second part which stated that the Ministry of Interior can cancel these posts when the area has developed enough to take care itself without these officials. In Thai: "เว้นแต่ท้องที่ใดที่มีความเจริญ สามารถจัดการดูแลและปฏิบัติหน้าที่แทนกำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน แพทย์ประจำตำบล สารวัตรกำนัน และผู้ช่วยผู้ใหญ่บ้าน ให้รัฐมนตรีว่าการกระทรวงมหาดไทย ประกาศยกเลิกตำแหน่งดังกล่าว ทั้งนี้ให้เป็นไปตามหลักเกณฑ์และวิธีการที่กระทรวงมหาดไทยกำหนด โดยประกาศในราชกิจจานุเบกษา". Though I am not sure, but if I understand it correctly this means that now after a upgrade of a local administrative area to town or city status the headmen and other officials will no longer be abandoned, exactly what the headmen of Ko Samui demanded after the upgrade of the island.

I guess I should try my luck to translate the whole act, I could find the complete text including all amendments except the two latest ones as plain text, the original announcement in the Royal Gazette is only available as a scan. Maybe can find a lot of new information to expand the rudimentary Wikipedia articles on Kamnan and Phu Yai Ban.

Village headman life in the deep south

Yesterday I discovered the website deepsouthwatch featuring independent news on the three southernmost Muslim provinces troubled by the insurgency since 2004. Most welcome is of course the English section of the site. I only checked the captions yesterday however, so it was via Bangkok Pundit that I became aware of an interview with a village headman (Phu Yai Ban) showing the depressing situation these official are working in.

Dee, the leader of Ban Salo (บ้านสโลว์) village, Village 7 of Rueso subdistrict, Rueso district, Narathiwat province, became village headman in 2007 after insurgents killed his father, who was the headman before. Aged just 28 he is probably one of the youngest headmen in the whole country, but has to work under a continuous threat of loosing his life.

It is well-known that being a village head man is one of the riskiest positions. You do not have to have any statistics to prove this statement. For Leader Dee’s case, he was attacked 4 times and survived. If he were a Buddhist, he would have called it a miracle or, he might pray a thousand times to his Buddha amulet hanging around his neck. But as a Muslim, he believes that this is a test from “Allah”.

Not surprisingly he is shown in the photos wearing a bullted proof vest, and His place was surrounded by sandbags and the curtain trees; it was similar to the military camps in the three southernmost provinces. But despite the martial look, he is doing his best to return peace into his small realm.

“It’s a mess. We don’t know what’s going on. The people who are in the middle become victims of the group that intended to use violence for their own benefits.” He concluded.

Because of these reasons, after Leader Dee announced officially to fight as the village headman, he also announced that he will decrease the number of violence in this village and will protect the life of every soldier that camped in this area.

I can only recommend to read the interview completely, it gives the conflict a face which in the news reports is only numbers of dead people.

Village headman award

Published on October 6 was an announcement by the Department of provincial administration (DOPA) on an award for the subdistrict headmen, village headmen and assistant village headmen. A total of 58 officials from 20 provinces did get awarded for the month of September.

As the the title of the announcement already suggests, this award is given out several times in the year, and I have found three further ones from this year - in February 35 officials from 14 provinces, in March/April 114 officials in 23 province, and in May 40 officials from 17 provinces.

The actual list of the awardees for this time is in a separate PDF file, and since it is a scan of a document I cannot copy and paste its contents easily. So I only list the provinces which have an awardee this time - Kanchanaburi, Chanthaburi, Chiang Rai, Tak, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Narathiwat, Nan, Phang Nga, Phetchaburi, Phrae, Roi Et, Ratchaburi, Rayong, Lopburi, Lamphun, Samut Songkhram, Sa Kaeo, Suphanburi, Surat Thani and Surin.

In order to get an idea what were the achievements which made these officials receive the award, I have tried to looked into the one official from Surat Thani. Phisan Klangrak (นายพิศาล กลางรักษ์), village headman of Ban Huai Rian (บ้านห้วยเรียน), village 6 of Sawait subdistrict, Tha Chang district was awarded with the following rationale

ร่วมกับเจ้าหน้าที่ตำรวจ สภ.เสรียด ได้นำหมายศาลไปขอตรวจค้นบ้านต้องสงสัยพบของกลาง ปืนลูกชองชี่งมีไว้ในครอบครองโดยผิดกฏหนาย

Together with police officer of Sawiat station brought search warrants to find illegal firearms

Not sure if I typed and translated it completely right, but the meaning should be clear.

Headmen salary increase now official

Back in February I reported on the planned salary increase for the subdistrict and village headmen, their assistants and the subdistrict doctor. I now discovered the publication in the Royal Gazette which officially announces the new salaries. It was published on September 10, and is titled "ระเบียบกระทรวงมหาดไทยว่าด้วยการเบิกจ่ายเงินตอบแทนตำแหน่ง และเงินอื่น ๆ ให้แก่กำนัน ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน แพทย์ประจำตำบล สารวัตรกำนัน ผู้ช่วยผู้ใหญ่บ้านฝ่ายปกครอง และผู้ช่วยผู้ใหญ่บ้านฝ่ายรักษาความสงบ (ฉบับที่ ๕) พ.ศ. ๒๕๕๒" (Ministry of Interior regulation on disclosure of payment for rank and other for subdistrict headmen, subdistrict doctor, assistant subdistrict headmen, village headmen, assistant village headmen - revision 5, B.E. 2552). The salary is increased in two steps, first on October 1 2009 and the second step on October 1 2010.

And since this announcement is revision 5, I also checked the older revisions and could use them to follow the salary for these posts since 2003. One can see the payment did rise quite significantly - more than a 100% rise in these 6 years. Compared with the inflation rate of around 4% annually this raise was way above inflation compensation.

Position	2003	2004	2006	2009	2010
Subdistrict headman	฿ 3,500	฿ 4,000	฿ 5,000	฿ 7,500	฿ 10,000
Village headman	฿ 2,500	฿ 3,000	฿ 4,000	฿ 6,000	฿ 8,000
Subdistrict doctor	฿ 1,800	฿ 2,000	฿ 2,500	฿ 3,750	฿ 5,000
Deputy subdistrict headman	฿ 1,800	฿ 2,000	฿ 2,500	฿ 3,750	฿ 5,000
Deputy village headman	฿ 1,800	฿ 2,000	฿ 2,500	฿ 3,750	฿ 5,000

The 2003 announcement refers to an older regulation dated from 1989 as being the being invalidated by that act, however I failed to find that one or any other similar older ones in the Royal Gazette archive.

Annual village and subdistrict headman day

Today is the village and subdistrict headman day (วันกำนันผู้ใหญ่บ้าน), celebrated every year to honor the works of these special officials, who are both elected by popular vote but are still paid officials under the Ministry of the Interior.

As found on the Panyathai wiki, the date August 10 was the date of the first election of a village headman. On this date in 1892, village and subdistrict headman in Bang Pa In district of modern-day Ayutthaya province were elected as a trial of the new thesaphiban administrative system. This system was officially introduced nation-wide with the local administration act of 1914. Sadly the text does not say when this date was announced as a remembrance day and celebrated every year since, however I was able to find an announcement in the Royal Gazette dating from 1989.

The word-file attached to the announcement I noticed at DOPA includes greetings from the various religious groups and also some ministerial officials. In detail the contributors are

• The Supreme Patriarch Nyanasamvara Suvaddhana (สมเด็จพระญาณสังวร)
• The chief of the Muslim in Thailand (จุฬาราชมนตรี), Sawat Sumalaisak (นายสวาสดิ์ สุมาลยศักดิ์)
• Chaovarat Chanweerakul (นายชวรัตน์ ชาญวีรกูล), Minister of the Interior
• Wichai Sikhwan (นายวิชัย ศรีขวัญ), Permanent Secretary for Interior
• Wongsak Sawatphanit (นายวงศ์ศักดิ์ สวัสดิ์พาณิชย์), Director-General of the Department of Provincial Administration

Inverse canvassing in village headmen elections

An interesting contrast can be found in the description of village headmen elections in the 1990s as found in the book Democracy, Development and Decentralization in Provincial Thailand by Daniel Arghiros, and a shorter description from the 1960s in the paper ''A Thai Village Headman as a Synaptic Leader'' by Michael Moerman, found in the book Modern Thai Politics.

Once some names have been placed in candidacy, and usually immediately thereafter, a general village meeting is called. The candidates' names are announced, and they are asked whether they are willing to serve is elected. The candidates profess their inadequacy and the private concerns which would interfere with their ability to be effective headman. For the most part, these are not empty protestations. Common villagers, former headmen, and the present incumbent all agree that the office is an unpleasant one which it is best to avoid. It is the duty of the elders and of others who take an interest in village affairs to convince potential candidates to stand for office. In describing the most recent election, one informant tells of how, having been warned by friends in the police that the officials favored him as headman he went to his close kinsmen to tell them not to vote for him. A former headman admits that only those without close friends who can be asked to vote for others are elected to the office. [...]

Especially the part I highlighted in bold shows it was very much the opposite to the situation in the 1990s, when the candidates used vote buying and other (of course illegal) ways to secure the votes. Probably the main reasons for the change is the village development fund which was created in the 1970s. The headmen had a lot of influence on how these funds were spend, so they could use their office to secure lucrative contracts to their friends or kinsmen, or to accept bribes if giving to outsiders.

I don't know what is the situation nowadays. Quite a lot of the funds have probably moved to the local administrations - Tambon administrative organizations and municipalities, so the village and subdistrict headmen should be reduced to tasks and powers like in the 1960s. However one of the projects started by the Thaksin administration was a new village fund system under the name SML (small medium large), and it is still in place despite several change of governments. Given the fact that the headmen in Ko Samui don't want to leave their offices, these offices cannot be as unattractive as they were in the above citation.

Village headman election procedures

In the 1960s the village headmen elections were done in a quite different way than what is usual in democratic elections nowadays.

[...] At the election itself, Ban Ping villagers approach the official one by one and whisper their vote for him to record. Young men and even women are permitted to vote and commonly do although they, like most villagers, suspect that the form of voting permits the official to announce the election of whichever candidate he prefers for the office.
from ''A Thai Village Headman as a Synaptic Leader'' by Michael Moerman

It's of course obvious that with this election method there is no way to check if the official counts correctly or distorts the numbers so his preferred candidate will be the winner.

In the 1990s the voting still wasn't completely secret:

[...] When the hall was full, the deputy district chief asked villagers which method of polling they wanted. They were given the choice to vote by either show hand or by secret ballot. This initial choice was to be made by a display of hands. One of Kamnan Chang's assistants immediately voted for open polling. Other villagers followed his example. He later explaned to me he had done this because he knew nobody would dare publicly to oppose Han. [...]
Democracy, Development and Decentralization in Provincial Thailand by Daniel Arghiros

I don't know if this acclamation way of election is still possible by law. It must be well known to those in power that this election method is easy to be abused like in the example observed above, so the only way to have a fair election is to do secret balloting.

Appointed village and subdistrict headmen

Browsing through all the old news reports from the National News Bureau of Thailand can dig out quite some gems. With the help of Google I have found an aborted attempt to stop the elections of subdistrict and village headmen and make then instead appointed. There are five new reports on this topic.

• Poll finds most people prefer to have Kamnan and Phuyaiban elected every five years, August 16 2003
• Kamnan and Phuyaiban to be appointed by chief district officer, January 29 2004
• No govt scheme to rob people of democratic powers merely by having Kamnan, Phuyaiban appointed, January 31 2004
• Bill on appointed Kamnan, Phuyaiban withdrawn from cabinet, February 4 2004
• Interior Ministry to conduct poll on proposed appointment of Kamnan, Phuyaiban, February 20 2004

The changes planned by this proposal was that the headmen will have their term extended from 5 to 10 years, and stop them from being local politician campaigning for their election. Instead they were to be selected by a committee consisting of government officials, representatives from the village, and "qualified persons". The final word on the appointment was to be given to the district officer (nai amphoe). Also mentioned but actually no change is the mandatory retirement age of 60 years.

However one week later the bill was revoked to "settle a misunderstanding" first. But as far as I know it hasn't shown up again, these short news clippings were the first and only time I have heard about this plan.

Male/female ration in the lowest administrative levels

In the portrait of the female TAO chairman the low ratio of female officers was mentioned. I now could find a statistics which shows this quite clearly, even though it only lists the numbers for the lowest central administrative levels, the subdistrict (Tambon) and village (Muban). It not only lists the leaders of these two levels, but also the assistants.

Thai	Officer	Male	Female	Ratio
กำนัน	Subdistrict headman	6647	274	4
ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน	Village headman	64692	4042	6
แพทย์ประจำ ตำบล	Subdistrict doctor	4912	1355	22
สารวัตรกำนัน	Deputy subdistrict headman	12984	1219	9
ผู้ช่วย ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน ฝ่ายปกครอง	Deputy village headmen (administrative)	117158	19651	14
ผู้ช่วย ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน ฝ่ายรักษาความสงบ	Deputy village headmen (security)	31480	178	1

Noticeable is the fact that the ratio of females increases with the lower positions - more village headwomen than subdistrict headwomen, more female assistants than headmen. Only two numbers strike out - the subdistrict doctors with 22% and the security affairs village headman assistant with only 1%.

The table lists all the numbers for each province as well, so the overall ratio is highest for Singburi (27%), and lowest in Chiang Rai and Yala with only 2%.

I could create a similar ratio from the list of province governors and vice governors. This includes only 1 female province governor (out of 75) in Phayao and a total of 8 vice governors (out of 171), thus 1% and 4% respectively.

Village headmen exception in Tak

Another Royal Gazette announcement related with the subdivisions, though not one of those I usually process for the histories of the subdivisions. So it was a bit of fluke that I noticed this one at all, when looking at the recent publications I just noticed the ผู้ใหญ่บ้าน (Phu Yai Ban, village headman) at end, and I took a closer look inside.

The full title of the announcement is "ประกาศจังหวัดตาก เรื่อง ยกเว้นหรือผ่อนผันคุณสมบัติของผู้ที่จะได้รับเลือกเป็นผู้ใหญ่บ้าน" which means "Announcement of Tak Province on the omission or exception of qualifications of a person who will become village headman". The village in question is Village 4 or Ban Mae Om Ki (หมู่ที่ ๔ บ้านแม่อมกิ), Mae Wa Luang subdistrict (ตำบลแม่วะหลวง), Tha Song Yang district (อำเภอท่าสองยาง).

The announcement actually only cites the laws which the decision is based on, and that the governor of Tak has the authority to make this exception. The only thing it adds to the title of the announcement is the word "พื้นความรู้" which means "background knowledge". I am not sure if I understand this correctly, I would think it means he does not have the educational degree necessary for the post.

I have checked quickly for similar announcements like this in the past - there were two in 2008, one in 2006, four in 2004, and a lot in 2001 and some other years, the oldest is from 1974.