Emblem of Amphoe Mueang Surat Thani

As far as I know, it is only the local governments and the provinces which officially have a seal with custom design fitting to the locality. The districts however use the emblem of the Ministry of Interior as their seal - except for the district in Bangkok, which also have custom seals. As I really love these sometimes very artfully designed emblems, it is a pity the websites of the local governments seem to be the only source to get any information on them - if I had the time and the connection I would research and compile much more of them...

Anyway, when I just recently checked the website of Mueang Surat Thani district - one of the few district offices which have their own website - I was surprised to see a emblem for the district.It shows the two main symbolic buildings of the district - the City Pillar Shrine (Sala Lak Mueang) in the city center and the Si Surat Stupa on the hill south of the city. Also the palm farms in the Tapi river estuary and the small boats used in the small channels of the estuary are depicted. I have no idea whether this is just an artful emblem designed for show, or also the official seal of the district - the Google search results for the Thai term ตราประจำอำเภอ don't indicate that any district actually uses a non-standard seal, the only images it returns seem to be very old seals from districts in Ubon Ratchathani province.

Ko Samui municipal constituencies

With every change of status of a municipality the number of constituencies changes, thus whenever a TAO is upgraded to a municipality or a municipality gets upgraded to a higher municipal status the Election Commission has to draw constituencies for the council election. The constituencies are then announced in the Royal Gazette, but as there are so many of them I only add the basic information while adding them in my XML (as of today I have 2491), and of course normally don't mention them here.

Yesterday, the constituencies for Ko Samui were announced, which has been upgraded from a town municipality to a city municipality effective September 14. With the upgrade, the council has changed from 18 to 24 members, to be elected in four constituencies each having six seats. While most constituency definitions describe the boundaries even if the boundaries are identical with those of the administrative villages, in this case only the subdistricts and villages for each constituency is listed. For example, constituency one consists of village one to three of Ang Thong subdistrict, the whole Lipa Noi subdistrict and village one and three of Taling Ngam.

But since I have no map showing the boundaries of the administrative villages, this kind of definition doesn't help me much to create a map showing their outline. On the website of the municipality I found an announcement from a committee within the provincial office of the Department of Local Administration with three proposals for the constituencies - of which number one was then later chosen. The announcement has an archive attached, which contains maps for the three proposals - however sadly just photographs of the maps, thus not that sharp and not planar either.

The three constituencies for the town municipality from 2008 are defined by a boundary description only, the two constituencies of the subdistrict municipality defined in 2004 however also lists the subdistricts and villages. Apparently, the constituencies for the first municipal election in 2000 wasn't published in the Royal Gazette. But I found no maps for those, and not enough time to try to get the village boundaries from the map above and then merge the polygons to the 2004 constituencies.

Now the constituencies are defined, the Election Commission has to set the date for the election - as the council term ended on September 13, without the upgrade the election must have been within 45 days, thus no later than October 28. Not sure if there is any maximum delay between constituency definition and election, but as far as I know no date has been announced yet. Since the website of the Surat Thani Election Commission is not updated often (the latest found there is from June this year), the better place to find the date would be the Facebook page of the municipality...

Ko Samui upgraded to city municipality

Four years ago, the board to consider draft laws had already decided that Ko Samui municipality (เทศบาลเมืองเกาะสมุย) - which covers the whole Samui island - should be upgraded from subdistrict municipality status to city municipality status. However surprisingly, the actual upgrade published in the Royal Gazette then just upgraded it to a town municipality, just one step higher in municipal status and not directly at the highest status.

Since I haven't seen it mentioned in any of the recent board meeting transcripts, it was now again a surprise when Khun Wisarut in the 2bangkok forum posted the link to the NathonCity website, which has the fax with the upgrade order in their news section. According to that scan, signed and send on August 12, the upgrade become effective September 14, the day after the term of the current council and mayor ends. Thus normally there should be a new election for both council and mayor within 45 days, but this depends on whether the Election Commission will be able to draw new constituency boundaries within that time - with the upgrade there are now 24 councilors election elected in four constituencies instead of 18 councilors in three constituencies.

It is somewhat strange that four years ago Samui was denied the city status, not it received it even though there was now also a change to a special administrative area like Pattaya in the discussion. I don't know any of the internals - maybe those who blocked the full upgrade last time are not in power anymore? Or drafting a law for a special administrative area couldn't be done quickly enough to be able to use the end of the terms for the status change? Or the city status was now granted to stop the request of becoming a special administrative area, which would mean even less of the tax income of Samui would go to the other parts of the province and country.

Ko Tao district developments

When the cabinet meeting was held in Phuket, the province administration of Surat Thani was proposing the creation of a new minor district (King Amphoe) for the island of Ko Tao due to its remoteness from Ko Pha Ngan. However I haven't seen anything in the transcript of the cabinet meeting, nor any other news since then,

However, in one of the board meeting transcripts of the board to consider draft laws this proposal resurfaced. On April 23, board one had this issue on their agenda as item 3.2. A big part of the transcripts are the guidelines on creating a district or minor district, and why Ko Tao does not qualify under these except as being a special case for its importance as a tourism area, but some parts are worth to quote in detail.

ข้อพิจารณาแนวทางที่ ๑ มีเหตุผลและความจำเป็น ประกอบกับมีเหตุผลความจำเป็นพิเศษเพื่อพัฒนาเกาะเต่าให้เป็นพื้นที่ส่งเสริมการท่องเที่ยวที่มีความสมดุลและน่าอยู่อย่างยั่งยืนและเพื่อเฉลิมพระเกียรติสมเด็จพระบรมราชินีนาถ เนื่องในโอกาสเฉลิมพระชนมพรรษา ครบรอบ ๘๐ พรรษา ๑๒ สิงหาคม ๒๕๕๕ จึงเห็นควรให้กรมการปกครองเสนอคณะรัฐมนตรีพิจารณาจัดตั้ง อำเภอเกาะเต่าเป็นกรณีพิเศษ ตามมติคณะรัฐมนตรี ๒ พฤศจิกายน ๒๕๔๗ Item to consider is that there is reason and necessity in accordance with the special need for tourism development on Ko Tao, and to honor Her Majesty the Queen on her 80th birthday on August 12, the Department of Provincial Administration offers to submit the request to create Ko Tao district as a special case according to the guidelines from cabinet meeting on May 2 2004.

But after some more discussion of the guidelines for new administrative subdivisions in contrast to local administration changes, the resolution of the board seems to be

ดังนั้น การยกฐานะองค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลเกาะเต่า เป็นเทศบาล จึงเป็นรูปแบบการบริหารงานที่เหมาะสมและสอดคล้องกับสภาพเศรษฐกิจ สังคม และด้านการอนุรักษ์ทรัพยากรธรรมชาติและสิ่งแวดล้อมของเกาะเต่าในปัจจุบัน Thus lifting the status of the TAO Ko Tao to a municipality would be the appropriate one in line with the economic, social and environmental issues of Ko Tao.

The island of Ko Tao currently is a single subdistrict (Tambon) within Ko Pha-ngan district, and covers just three administrative villages, and as of December 31 a registered population of just 1,706 citizen. It would be thus even smaller than the otherwise comparable case of Ko Kut district. That was however created in 1990 already, before the focus moved to local administration. As local administrative unit to be upgraded now is the TAO Ko Tao (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลเกาะเต่า), and there are smaller municipalities than what Ko Tao would become - Nong Khayang in Uthai Thani as the smallest has just 677 citizen...

Ko Tao district proposed

The Thai language news portal of the Department of Public Relations of the Thai government yesterday had an interesting short article, apparently a new district is about to be proposed. As it wasn't found in the English language section, nor have the English newspaper picked up the issue yet, I have to do the translation myself.

Surat Thani province prepares to propose to the cabinet to change administrative status of Ko Tao to District Ko Tao, in order to be more comfortable for the citizen, improve tourism and develop the area to be more effective.

Thirayut Iamtrakun (นายธีระยุทธ เอี่ยมตระกูล), province governor of Surat Thani, disclosed that in the roaming cabinet meeting in Southern Thailand to be held in Phuket in March 2012 the province will ask for approval by the cabinet to set up Ko Tao as a new district, to split from Ko Pha Ngan district. To enhance and support the strategy of the city of good people Surat Thani, including to make it easy for citizen in remote areas to travel to contact with government service conveniently. Additionally, to enhance tourism and develop the area to be more and more efficient.

Ko Tao is an area of about 21 square kilometer or 13,125 rai, mostly hills near the sea, 45 kilometer away from the district [office] Ko Pha Ngan. Divided into one subdistrict and three village and a population of 1706. Most moved there from Ko Pha Ngan and Ko Samui, to make a living in tourism and in services around tourism, as Ko Tao is an important tourist attraction, famous for diving in coral reefs.
[ThaiNews Network, 2012-02-05]

The rules to set up a district could allow the creation of a Ko Tao district (อำเภอเกาะเต่า), as tourism development is mentioned as a major exception from the minimum number of subdistrict.

However, with just 1700 citizen it will be a very small district - even smaller than the currently smallest district Ko Kut in Trat province, which has 2253 citizen in two subdistricts. Since the minor districts (King Amphoe) are no longer existing as a second level of districts, more appropriate for areas to small to get a full district but still have enough local problems to need more direct central administration, now the hurdle for a new second level administration is much higher than it was in past. It will be interesting to see what the cabinet will say about this proposal, so I will certainly pay close attention to the media reports on that Phuket meeting.

District officer home in Surat Thani

Even though it is located on the main street through the city of Surat Thani, I only noticed the building in my latest stay there - the official residence of the district officer of Mueang Surat Thani district. I knew that the province governor has an official residence in the city, which from the outside looks quite representative - see the posting on the administrative offices in Surat Thani - but didn't before found a similar place for the lower administrative levels. Well, except for the village headmen, which usually have their normal home as their office as well.

But given the fact that district officers are also shuffled around the country same as province governor, often only staying one year at a given office and ordered to report to new locations on rather short notice, it makes sense that the government provides adequate housing for them. Obviously, the district officer home is far less representative than the province governor villa.

Surat Thani municipal elections

Thirakit, probably the new mayor

Yesterday were the municipal election in Surat Thani city, both the mayor as well as the municipal council were elected. There were three candidates for the post of mayor

1. Sombun Suwannabut (นางสมบูรณ์ สุวรรณบุตร), incumbent
2. Thirakit Wangmuthitakun (นายธีระกิจ หวังมุทิตากุล)
3. Sufang Chaewong (นายสุฟ้าง แซ่หว่อง)

Sufang banners

Though the campaigning officially started August 5, four year after the last municipal election marking the end of the term in office, I was able to catch photographs of all three mayor candidates while I was strolling through the city end of May. While I was looking for posters for the national elections - and there were just very few within the city - I found one poster of each of the new candidates. Rather interesting is the banner by candidate three, which shows Sufang with an old photograph of a whale caught or stranded. I wasn't even aware that there were whales in the Gulf of Thailand except the dolphins off Khanom beach and in Songkhla lake, but now learned that Bryde's Whale also is found in the Gulf of Thailand. Sadly don't know anything about the background of that photo on the poster.

City rewire project

The poster of incumbent mayor Sombun is not exactly an election poster, but the project announcement for the rewiring in the city center, getting rid of the ugly cables on posts along the street, changing to underground cables. Back in May a lot of construction on this project was underway within the city,   and though still a lot more will be necessary to make Surat Thani an actually beautiful city it will definitely look better when this project is done. And I wouldn't be surprised of this project was started right on time to be completed with the election date. One thing I am not yet understanding - according to the municipal law a mayor is only allowed to be in office for two consecutive terms, however Sombun would have started a third term if elected. Don't know why her first term starting in 2003 apparently did not count.

The election result is interesting, according to the inofficial preliminary result  the mayor will change, as Thirakit won 17,699 votes compared to 16,406 for incumbent mayor Sombun. Sufang only won 5,791 votes.

Change of Ko Pha Ngan municipal boundary

Announced in the Royal Gazette last Friday, and probably effective August 4 already, the TAO Ko Pha Ngan (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลเกาะพะงัน) and the subdistrict municipality Ko Pha Ngan (เทศบาลตำบลเกาะพะงัน) have changed their boundaries. There are two announcements, one dealing with the TAO [Gazette] and one with the municipality [Gazette], latter one also including a map to show the boundaries. And quite helpful, that map also marks the locations of the municipal and TAO office as well as the office of neighboring TAO Ban Tai - but since the websites of all three offices are offline I cannot be fully sure the locations I buildings I have picked for my map [see it in Google Earth] are 100% correct.

Sadly the announcement on the creation of the sanitary district Ko Pha Ngan (สุขาภิบาลเกาะพะงัน) from 1990 does not include a map, so I can only guess that the area transferred now was the small piece at the southeast, which is shown with a dotted line in the map. Then this transfer would make perfectly sense, as that area was then totally separated from the main part of the TAO, I only wonder why it took more than 10 years after the TAO was created to do it. And again, due to the lack of board meeting transcripts I haven't heard about this change before.

Change of area of provincial court Chaiya

As the provincial courts (ศาลจังหวัด) not necessarily are responsible for a whole province - some of the larger provinces have more than one provincial court - their area of responsibility can occasionally change as well. On November 25, an announcement was published in the Royal Gazette which changed the area of responsibility for the provincial court Chaiya, in the northwest of the province Surat Thani [Gazette].

The province of Surat Thani is in fact divided into four judiciary areas, Chaiya covering the northwest, Ko Samui covering the islands to the northeast, Surat Thani itself the central area. Another court for the southern area located in Wiang Sa has been announced in 2007, but not yet opened, but I have included it into the map already as the first announcement already lists the districts to be covered. Ko Samui is also rather new, it was created in 1996 and opened in 2006. Chaiya is much older, it was created and opened in 1947.

The change in area announced now is the reassign of Vibhavadi district from the authority of Surat Thani court to Chaiya. When Chaiya court was created in 1947, the area of that district was still part of Khirirat Nikhom district, and the announcement states on its last page that this change of area was made possible since Vibhavadi was elevated to a full district in 2007.

Local elections in Surat Thani 2011

The websites for the provincial election commissions have now been all moved into the main election commission website. I have only checked the one for Surat Thani, which has all the former contents removed and now is almost empty - except that I found the calendar of local elections for next year in there. Actually, it's not the calendar of the election dates but the calendar of the end of terms, the election is then normally within 60 days after the end of term.

As one can see from the list below, the elections will start in September or October. It may also be the chance to upgrade some of the TAO to municipalities, which is normally done at the end of the terms.

• August 4: Surat Thani city
• August 10: Ko Pha Ngan subdistrict municipality
• August 10: TAO Chaiyakhram, Don Sak (only Mayor)
• October 6: TAO Makham Tia, Mueang (only Council)
• October 6: TAO Krut, Kanchanadit
• October 6: TAO Ko Pha Ngan (Only Council)
• October 6: TAO Ban Tai, Ko Pha Ngan
• October 6: TAO Don Sak
  
• October 6: TAO Pak Phraek, Don Sak


• October 6: TAO Khao Hua Khwai, Phunphin


• October 6: TAO Tha Rong Chang, Phunphin


• November 10: TAO Ban Yang, Khiri Rat Nikhom


• November 16: Chang Sai subdistrict municipality, Kanchanadit

Surat Thani constituencies

As there will be yet another by-election, this time in constituency one of Surat Thani, I'll use the chance to cover the constituency in more detail, same as I did for the Bangkok constituency 6 in July. But don't worry, I won't do like this for every future by-election, I do it because Surat Thani is the province I research in most detail, and also because this election will again get a larger focus due to the candidate. Somewhat surprising, the Democrat Party nominated one of the political heavyweights Suthep Thaugsuban (นายสุเทพ เทือกสุบรรณ), as Deputy Prime Minister responsible for the enforcement of the emergency decree, as their candidate.

What makes this decision more notable is the fact that Suthep has to resign as Deputy PM in order to be able to stand for election, so it is surprising he so willingly moves to be a less prestigious simple Member of Parliament instead of being a member of the Cabinet. One reason I could imagine is that he expects the current government to break apart soon and therefore goes to the lower but more save job. Or he is preparing for the pending party dissolution as suggested by this Bangkok Post opinion article? At least it shows Thai politics will continue to be interesting to watch...

Constituencies 2007

But the actual topic I want to write about is the constituency itself. With the 2007 constitution the constituencies were returned to be multi-seated, so the province Surat Thani has been again divided into 2 constituencies with 3 seats each. As defined in the Royal Gazette announcement (Page 14 of the PDF), the two constituencies cover only whole districts with one exception, the subdistrict Thung Luang of Wiang Sa district is part of constituency two, the other parts of the district belong to constituency one. The map to the right shows their extent in detail - constituency one covers the east of the province including the capital district, whereas constituency two covers the western half.

Interestingly, this is not the first by-election for Constituency One in the parliamentary term. The original result of the 2007 election had Suthep Thaugsuban (นายสุเทพ เทือกสุบรรณ), Praphon Ninwatcharamanee (นายประพนธ์ นิลวัชรมณี) and Chumphon Kanchana (นายชุมพล กาญจนะ) as the winning candidates, all for the Democratic Party.

Suthep resigned his parliamentary seat in July 2009, when a court ruling was imminent which probably would have disqualified him from being a MP. In the by-election which followed his brother Thani Thaugsuban (นายธานี เทือกสุบรรณ) - who was just few months before disqualified as being the chairman of the Provincial Administrative Organization.

Constituencies 1976, 1979, 1983, 1996

Going back into the past, the outline of the constituencies changed several times in order to keep the electoral weight of each vote roughly equal. Until 1974 the whole province was a single constituency, due to a smaller parliament as well as a lower relative population in the province. 1976 was the first time the province was split into two constituencies, constituency one covering the east and number two the less populated west. First defined in 1976 [Gazette], they were kept same in constituency definitions 1979 [Gazette], 1983 [Gazette] and 1996 [Gazette]. The only difference in 1996 was that both constituencies were sending three MPs, whereas in the years before both send two.

Constituencies 1995

In 1995 [Gazette], Surat Thani sent five MPs to the parliament, thus the constituencies had to get a different electoral multiplicity. Constituency One was made the three-seated and thus became larger than in the previous elections, and correspondingly constituency two sent just two MPs and became smaller.

Constituencies 1998

Finally, in 1998 the single seated constituencies were defined [Gazette], which split Surat Thani into 6 constituencies. The population numbers did not fit well enough to use only full districts, so three of the districts were split between two constituencies - Kanchanadit, Khirirat Nikhom and Khian Sa. Only constituency One covered a whole district, the Mueang district.

Upgrade of Ko Samui municipal status officially announced

On Monday, the upgrade of Ko Samui from subdistrict municipality to a town municipality was published in the Royal Gazette. What makes this announcement a bit strange is the fact that the upgrade already happened in 2008, and thus it is published more than 2 years later. In fact, the announcement was signed by then Deptuy Minister of Interior Suphon Fongngam (สุพล ฟองงาม) on June 9 2008. This is also the date which I found in the annual list by the Department of Local Administration as the date on which the upgrade became effective.

The interesting question is why this announcement was kept in the pipeline for this long time, the median value for all the announcements I have already gathered in my XML is that the publication happens at 51 days after the signature - and now this announcement easily captured the maximum position with 847 days. The additional documents added in the announcement - the description of the boundary as well as the map - don't show any indication that were not yet present at time of the signature, the only date shown on both is the June 9 2008. Besides, preparing a map and the boundary description for a municipality which covers the complete island is nothing which should take that long.

I wonder if this announcement now may be the first of the huge backlog of municipal upgrades pending their announcement in the Royal Gazette, most of them upgrades of TAO to subdistrict municipalities however.

Special administrative area for Ko Samui?

An article in the newspaper Samui Express made me notice that the plans for special administrative areas is still in the discussion. Last time I heard about it was in December, when it was just a side-note that both Mae Sot and Ko Samui are set to become a special kind of municipality. Sadly the article this time does not give much more background either.

WHILE Koh Samui has been unsuccessful in its bid to become a city, it is on its way to becoming, at least, a special district, a status that could in turn lead to the attainment ofits ultimate goal of, well, cityhood. Recently Samui Mayor Ramnet Jaikwang welcomed to Samui members of a Special Development Subcommittee involved with the task of conducting public hearings to get people’s opinions on the establishment of Samui asa special district.
[...]
Koh Samui has been chosen as the pilot area for the administrationof special districts.

A little bit more could be found at the Thai local website nathoncity.com, which not only had a report on this meeting, but much more interesting an article with some background on special administrative areas. I'll write up the details from that article in a separate post soon.

District head officer transfers in Surat Thani

On the website of the Surat Thani provincial office of the Department of Provincial Administration I found the transcripts of the monthly meetings of the district officers (รายงานการประชุมนายอำเภอ). At first I only used the one from June 2009 which was available as a WinWord file to add the current names into my province XML. Yet after some more looking around I noticed that these transcript not only show the current names of the district officers listed as participants of the meetings, but also when applicable any new appointments are listed in these documents as well.

The latest such transcript of Meeting 2/2553 held on February 25 2010 (Photos) includes no less than 8 new district officers. Sadly this transcript seems to be only available as a scanned PDF, so I cannot simply copy and paste the relevant contents, but have to type it myself. Each of the reassignments in written in the same style.

นายจิรศักดิ์ ชัยฤทธิ์ ตำแหน่ง นายอำเภอชัยบุรี จังหวัดสุราษฎร์ธานี ได้รับ การแต่งตั้ง (ย้าย) ให้ดำรงตำแหน่งนายอำเภอบ้านนาสาร
Mr. Chinsak Chaiyarit, currently district officer of Chaiburi, Surat Thani, get appointed (moved) to position as district office Ban Na San

So, the other seven reassignments are as follows

• Natthi Udompramuan (นายณัฏฐ์ธีร์ อุดมประมวล) from Na Khu, Kalasin to Vibhavadhi
• Prasoet Chitmung (นายประเสริฐ จิตมุง) from Vibhavadhi, Surat Thani to Don Sak
• Wira Thongphi-chit (นายวิระ ทองพิจิตร) from Kong Ra, Phatthalung to Tha Chang
• Sanit Siwihok (นายสนิท ศรีวิหค) from Tha Chang, Phatthalung to Kanchanadit
• Suraphon Limsila (นายสุรพล ลิ่มศิลา) from Pak Phayun, Phatthalung to Chaiburi
• Suriyan Chirasatsunthon (นายสุริยัณห์ จิรสัตย์สุนทร) from Ban Na San, Surat Thani to Tha Chana
• Charoensak Wongsuwan (นายเจริญศักดิ์ วงศ์สุวรรณ), sergeant (จ่าจังหวัด) at Surat Thani province become district officer of Ban Na Doem

However, only the new officers in Surat Thani are listed, not what happened with the former office holders - where they were transferred or if they retired, nor how long the office might have been vacant. Only from earlier transcripts I knew that both Kanchanadit and Don Sak were vacant since January.

It seems that amphoe.com, which also lists the names of the district officers, is quite up to date, at least for Phanom district it already shows Suwit Chuchuaisuwan (นายสุวิชว์ ชูช่วยสุวรรณ), who became district officer in August 2009. But if this holds for all provinces I cannot check, a full list of all district head officers is something I still haven't found online, there's only the photo page of the current officers in Surat Thani. I also haven't checked if for other provinces similar files are available online, it is quite a lot of work to follow the reassignments for one province by reading the transcripts, so I doubt I'd be able to follow more than one province.

New Muban in Surat Thani

Published in Royal Gazette on February 19, the province Surat Thani announced the creation of eight new administrative villages, all effective November 6 2009.

1. Mu 8 Ban Khao Phanom (บ้านเขาพนม), Pa Ron subdistrict, Kanchanadit district, split off from Mu 1 Ban Wang Sai (บ้านวังไทร). [Gazette]
2. Mu 9 Ban Huai Thun (บ้านห้วยถุน), Pa Ron subdistrict, Kanchanadit district, split off from Mu 1 Ban Wang Sai (บ้านวังไทร). [Gazette]
3. Mu 6 Ban Phru Khae Phatthana (บ้านพรุแคพัฒนา), Krut subdistrict, Phunphin district, split off from Mu 1 Ban Krut (บ้านกรูด). [Gazette]
4. Mu 7 Ban Si Charoen (บ้านศรีเจริญ), Tha Sathon subdistrict, Phunphin district, split off from Mu 2 Ban Bo Krang (บ้านบ่อกรัง). [Gazette]
5. Mu 11 Ban Si Khit (บ้านสี่ขีด), Bang Ngon subdistrict, Phunphin district, split off from Mu 8 Ban Sa Phan Mot (บ้านสะพานมอส). [Gazette]
6. Mu 14 Ban Tham Khong (บ้านถ้ำฆ้อง), Bang Sawan subdistrict, Phrasaeng district, split off from Mu 8 Ban Tham Rob Nam (บ้านถ้ำครอบน้ำ). [Gazette]
7. Mu 11 Ban Wang Tham (บ้านวังถ้ำ), Nam Hak subdistrict, Khiri Rat Nikhom district, split off from Mu 6 Ban Nam Tok Khlong Phai (บ้านน้ำตกคลองพาย). [Gazette]
8. Mu 26 Ban Hin Phota (บ้านหินพ่อตา), Prasong subdistrict, Tha Chana district, split off from Mu 19 Ban Mae Thalang (บ้านแม่ทะล่าง). [Gazette]

As it is a bit too much word to create maps for each of the Muban out of the boundary description like it I for the single new village in Sakon Nakhon earlier, I am now only presenting approximate placemarks with the center of each of the new villages. But if there will be more such announcements from other provinces now, I guess I will skip even that, maybe even skip to announce each village itself and only make a short collective posting here.


View New Surat Thani Muban in 2010 in a larger map
Since two of the new villages have the word Tham (ถ้ำ) meaning cave in their name - are there any caves there worth visiting, like the Wat Tham Singkhom in the same area?

TAO office opening video

On Youtube I found the video below, which shows the construction of the new office building for the TAO Maluan (องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบลมะลวน), Phunphin district, Surat Thani province. Though I cannot understand the soundtrack - my Thai is sadly still too bad - I can guess that it includes the meeting of the TAO council deciding on the new building, and I can understand that in the end it gives some background on the subdistrict itself, like listing the neighboring subdistricts and the villages.



The TAO was created in 1997 (Gazette), though actually it was already a TAO 1958-71 (Gazette). The subdistrict is much older, the oldest announcement mentioning it is from 1939. Sadly ThaiTambon.com has no more information on its history either.

The subdistrict is subdivided into 9 villages, and as of 2008 it has a population of 7479. It covers an area of 77 km². The subdistrict is located in the northwestern corner of Phunphin district, neighboring subdistricts are

• East: Si Wichai
• South: Hua Toei, Nong Sai, Nam Rop, Bang Ngon
• West: Takut Tai of Viphavadi district
• North: Khlong Sai of Tha Chang district

The name of the subdistrict originates from Ma Luang (ม้าล้วง), meaning "horse digged out", as a marble horse statue with Khmer inscription was digged out in a temple opposite the TAO office. Therefore also the seal of the TAO feature a horse as the main symbol. But no hires version available on the website to create a decent SVG version of it.

Surat Thani PAO by-election results

The by-election for the chairman of the Surat Thani provincial organization (PAO) was done yesterday, and the website of the PAO has the full results down to each constituency in one PDF file. It was a quite close result:

1. Montri Phetchakhum (มนตรี เพชรขุ้ม, Candidate 3, top poster) - 113,340 votes or 38.1%
2. Damrong Thaugsuban (ดำรงค์ เทือกสุบรรณ, Candidate 1, poster below) - 111,776 votes or 37.6%
3. Prawit Ninwatromni (ประวิช นิลวัชรมณี, Candidate 2) - 72,136 votes or 24.3%

Out of the 676,850 eligible votes, slightly less than half (i.e. 322,768) did cast their vote. 5,993 votes were invalid, another 19,853 were abstains.

I am slightly surprised that Montri, the one who filed the complaint against Thani Thaugsuban which led to this by-election, could win and not the Damrong, who gave up his seat in the PAO council and the post of the speaker of the council so he must have be quite sure to be the winner.

Additionally to the chairman, also the council member for Ko Samui was elected, as the former council member Surinya Yuennan (สุริญญา ยืนนาน) was red-carded; and also in Tha Chana a by-election was necessary as this was the constituency of Damrong Thaugsuban who had to resign his council seat to run for the chairman position.

The results for these two constituencies are as following.

• Ko Samui
  1. Charoen Chansa (เจริญ จันทรา, Candidate 2, see poster) - 8,422 votes
  2. Suwaphat Samwang (สุวพัฒน์ สมหวัง, Candidate 1) - 7,867 votes
• Tha Chana
  1. Bunying Yongli (บุญยิ่ง ย้งลี, Candidate 1) - 12,264 votes
  2. Phittinan Rak-iat(พิตตินันท์ รักเอียด, Candidate 2) - 4,140 votes
  3. Watthana Samli (วัฒนา สำลี, Candidate 3) - 3,640 votes
  4. Somdet Phromwiset (สมเดช พรหมวิเศษ, Candidate 4) - 569 votes

Many thanks to Camille from the Samui info and weather blog, who has provided me with the photos of the election posters.

Emblem of TAO Ko Tao

One year ago I noticed that the emblem of San Pu Loei in Chiang Mai featured the letters อ (Oh Ang), บ (Bo Baimai) and ต (To Tao) - the Thai abbreviation O.Bo.To. which stands for องค์การบริหารส่วนตำบล (Ong Kan Borihan Suan Tambon), in English called Tambon (Subdistrict) Administrative Organization (TAO or SAO). While that TAO has been upgraded to a municipality and had to change the design of the emblem, I now discovered another one with a similar design, and this time from the province I care about most.

The island Ko Tao (เกาะเต่า) administratively forms a subdistrict of Ko Pha Ngan, the larger island about 40 kilometers to the southeast. This subdistrict was created in 1982, previously the three administrative villages were still part of the Ko Pha Ngan subdistrict. In 1996 the local administration by the TAO was established, taking care of the now 1500 officially registered citizen.

As already mentioned, the emblem I found on the website of the TAO shows the three letters OBT, in this case below a stylized palm island with the sun setting (or rising). Quite clearly a fitting symbol, as this island best known for its diving locations and has lots of palm trees and sandy beaches. I was there only a few hours so far, as a stop during a cruise in the Gulf of Thailand. Actually, I wasn't on the island itself more than a few minutes, as most of the time it was snorkeling in the waters.

The drawing in this posting is from the SVG-Version I made, though definitely not perfect it seems to resemble the one on the TAO website closely enough. Now there only 141 other local government entities emblems left to collect to get a full coverage of the heraldry of Surat Thani...

Surat Thani PAO chairman by-elections on July 26

Last week the newspaper Samui Express reported that the yellow card for PAO chairman Thani Thaugsuban (ธานี เทือกสุบรรณ, see his election poster) and the red card for PAO councilor Surinya Yuennan (สุริญญา ยืนนาน) from Ko Samui was confirmed by the Appeals Court Region 8 (ศาลอุทธรณ์ภาค ๘), so the by-elections for both posts are now imminent.

While I cannot find the actual date of the court decision, on the Thai news website SuratNews.com I could find many more details on these forthcoming elections. Apparently the Election Committee (EC) had, in anticipation of the court decision, already fixed the date for the election to July 26, and has set the candidate registration to June 15-19. Thus now it is already clear who will run for the post of the new chairman, and two of them already run for the last election.

• Damrong Thaugsuban (ดำรงค์ เทือกสุบรรณ), currently PAO councilor for Tha Chana and cousin of Thani Thaugsuban. He has to resign his councilor seat to run for the chairman position, thus Tha Chana will also see a by-election, which is expected to be on July 26 as well. Also, as he is president of the council, a new president has to be elected within 15 days.
• Prawit Ninwatromni (ประวิช นิลวัชรมณี), former mayor of Surat Thani city, Member of Parliament for the Democratic Party as well as Senator
  
• Montri Phetchakhum (มนตรี เพชรขุ้ม), with 31% the second of the last election. It was him who filed the complaint which led to the by-election. See his election poster from last time to the right.
  

As all three showed at the opening of the registration period and could not agree on their candidate numbers themselves, the numbers had to be drawn, giving them the above order. For the vacant councilor for of Samui the following candidates have registered.

• Suwapat Somwang (สุวพัฒน์ สมหวัง), former councilor in the municipal council of Ko Samui.
• Chairin Chansa (เจริญ จันทรา)
  

Candidate registration for the now also vacant Tha Chana district will be held June 22-26. Though Thani Thaugsuban was eligible to run again as he only got a yellow card, he apparently chose to let his cousin run instead. As I am not in Thailand for the election this time I cannot collect photos of the election posters like last time, maybe a reader on location could help me to decorate the posting on the election result then. I just hope the PAO website will show the detailed results again like it did last time.

Surat Thani PAO chairman by-elections

I wrote about it in February that the chairman of the Surat Thani provincial administrative organization (PAO) Thani Thaugsuban (นายธานี เทือกสุบรรณ) was forced to step down after receiving a yellow card for irregularities in his election campaign. Since then it was quiet about the issue, so I already wondered if I might have missed the elections altogether, but now I can found a news release titled EC will not postpone by-election in Surat Thani by the National News Bureau of Thailand. This confirms that the yellow card was confirmed, and the by-election will take place within 45 days after the court finally issues the verdict, but there is no date fixed yet.

The Election Commission (EC) rejects a request for a delay to a by-election in Surat Thani province and will arrange the election within 45 days after a court issued an order to organize the election.

Election Commissioner Sodsri Sattayatham said that the commission's weekly meeting today focused on the request filed by former executive of the Surat Thani Provincial Administration Organization (PAO) Thanee Thaugsuban, a brother of Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban. Ms. Sodsri said the court had upheld the EC's decision to yellow card Mr. Thanee in the last Surat Thani PAO's election and the EC would hold the by-election within 45 days as there were no viable reasons for the delay to the election. However, Ms. Sodsri said the commission had yet to set a date for the election.

Ms. Sodsri remarked that the court's verdict was final and could not be revoked.