Role of the district officer

In this system, the district officer was the lowest level of generalist, and an important man. The district officer and his deputies became the chief source of higher administrative personnel in the tesapiban system. And it was at the level of the district that the official structure of government came into contact with the populace. From the beginning, the district officer was the local eyes and ears - and perhaps the nose - of the government, as well as the chief executive of a small domain, vested with symbols of authority in an authoritarian society. He was the king's man.
William J. Siffin, The Thai Bureaucracry, page 88.

Though the above quote is on the role of the district officer during the thesaphiban in the years 1892 to 1910, and taken from a 1966 book, it is basically still valid today. The leaders of the two lowest tiers of the central administration - village headmen and subdistrict headmen - are no career bureaucrats but elected local people, and it is the district officer who consults with these headmen on a regular basis. At the beginning of the 20th century (and for many parts of the country until much later) the difficulty of traveling or communicating made such a hierarchical system a necessity, as it was simply impossible for a villager to get into direct contact with the province administration.

But of course, the district officer has much more to do than just being the middlemen between the populace and the province administration. Just recently, the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) has put a PDF with 294 pages on their website titled "กฎหมายที่เกี่ยวของกับ อํานาจหนาที่นายอําเภอ" (The laws which are related with the power of the district officer) - a wide collection from the Criminal Act, Family Registration Act, Weapons Act, Hotel Act, Fishery Act and many more laws covering a wide area of topics. Way too much to read for me, at least it is possible to copy-and-paste it into Google Translate...

Book excerpt "The Thai Bureaucracy"

I have received my copy of the 1966 book "The Thai Bureaucracy" by William J. Siffin, and at first look it already seems like an interesting read on the history of the Thai administration. As a first teaser I am quoting the section on the local government from chapter 8 "The essential character of the contemporary bureaucracy".

A small local government service also exists outside the national bureaucracy. It has perhaps 10,000 officials and employees. Terms and conditions of employment follow those of the national bureaucracy, but the local officials work for particular municipalities, have no opportunities for mobility beyond their particular jurisdiction, and posses little prestige. Autonomous local government is not significant in Thailand. Urban municipal government (apart from the capital area) did not even exist until passage of the Municipality Act of 1933, and today more than half the nation's local officials are employed in the metropolitan cities of Bangkok and Thonburi. Outside the capital there is one city - Chiengmai - with a population approaching 100,000; about eighty towns have average population of 15,000. These data are not necessarily adequate indices of urbanization, for city boundaries do not necessarily coincide with areas of high population density. But to this point, local government in Thailand has been more nominal than real, and this is reflected in the insignificance of the local bureaucracies.

Again, there are two interesting references to older publications, but it seems these are impossible to get in print - and while Google Books has entries for them, they don't even offer snippit view of the contents, neither for Winyoo Angkanaraksa "Local Government in Thailand" nor Frederick James Horrigan "Local government and administration in Thailand".

But since the decentralization of the 1990s the last sentence of the quote is now no longer valid - now there are not just around one hundred municipalities and sanitary districts as there were in 1966, but almost 10,000 covering the whole country. And also the prestige of the positions in local administrative must have grown (or at least have become very lucrative), as otherwise there would be need for a pledge for better protection of local election candidates.

The Election Commission has asked the Royal Thai Police to ensure adequate security for local government elections being held throughout the country.
[..]
There have been reports of violence and intimidation of election candidates. Some of them have been killed, he said.
Bangkok Post, "EC asks for protection for candidates", 2012-07-09

Bueng Kan emblem in the Royal Gazette

In March, the emblem of Bueng Kan province was officially announced in the Royal Gazette - I just didn't notice it directly because the title of the announcement is simply

ประกาศสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง กำหนดภาพเครื่องหมายราชการตามพระราชบัญญัติเครื่องหมายราชการ พุทธศักราช ๒๔๘๒ (ฉบับที่ ๒๖๖)
Announcement of the Office of the Prime Minister about government emblems according to the government act of 2482 (Amendment 266)

So there are already 266 announcements with government emblems, and browsing through them shows a wide range of government agencies, ministries or departments, and many others. But of the administrative subdivisions, only the provinces are covered by these announcements, and there are only four such announcements so far:

• All 75 provinces in a single announcement from 2004 [Gazette]
• Krung Thep Maha Nakhon from 1973 [Gazette]
• Chachoengsao emblem change from 2007 [Gazette]
• Bueng Kan from 2012 [Gazette]

Sakon Nakhon license plate change reverted

2011 license plate

2006 license plate

November last year, a new license plate graphic for Sakon Nakhon was announced, changing the design completely [Gazette] -instead of the city gate (ประตูสัญลักษณ์เมืองสกลนคร) it now shows Phra That Choeng Chum (พระธาตุเชิงชุม), the major Buddhist site of the province, and a Bee Palace (แห่ปราสาทผึ้ง), made from bee wax in the most important a local festival.

Already in April . but I just notice it now - a new announcement was published which nullifies the new license plate announcement [Gazette]. The main sentence within the announcement is the following:

รูปแบบใหม่ของจังหวัดสกลนคร โดยมีลายกราฟฟิกพื้นหน้าแผ่นป้ายเป็นรูปพระธาตุเชิงชุม อันเป็นสิ่งศักดิ์สิทธิ์เคารพบูชาของชาวสกลนคร ซึ่งพิจารณาแล้วเห็นว่าไม่เหมาะสม
New look of Sakon Nakhon which has a graphic on the license plate with a picture of Phra That Choeng Chum, a sacred item of worship for the people of Sakon Nakhon. This is considered inappropriate and not suitable.

Besides this announcement, there have two further announcements on new license plare graphics, but sadly in both cases the PDF from the Royal Gazette website lacks the appendix with the actual graphic, thus I only mention them shortly here and don't give them a full posting as I would do normally. I just hope these were exceptions, and future announcements will include the graphic again, as it seems these announcements is the only source of where one can find good depictions of the license plates on the web.

• Lamphun province, announced June 28. [Gazette]
• Krabi province, announced April 4, [Gazette]

Book excerpt "Origins of Military Rule"

I am currently reading "Thailand: Origins of Military Rule", an economic history of Thailand written from a strong socialist viewpoint. Though I don't subscribe to that ideology, it is an interesting read, and it has one small paragraph fitting into the topic of this blog, which deals with the thesaphiban reforms 1892-1915.

The organization of the new Interior Ministry consisted in theory of several monthons, each headed by a commissioner; several provinces or chamgwads within each monthon and headed by governors; districts within each province; and so forth down to the smallest administrative areas. The entire system took a number of decades to emerge. The most important aspect to note is that it involved the deliberate reduction of the powers of the pre-capitalist governors in favor of the regional commissioners above and the district officers below. Thus the provincial governors, who formerly were chao muang (lord of the place) were reduced to pu warajakarn changwad (man in charge of the province for the king). With the reorganisation of government, they also ceased to be appointed by the king and became instead part of a civil service structure built on Western lines. These developments represented changes in the power structure towards a more centralized control.
Elliott, David. Thailand : origins of military rule. London: Zed Press, 1978. Chapter 2 "Early underdevelopment", page 77.

And the reference within this section made me notice yet another old book, much more on-topic with this blog. And thanks to BetterWorldBooks now a former library book of William J. Siffin "The Thai Bureaucracy" is on the way to me.

150th birthday of Prince Damrong

Statue in front of the MOI

Today marks the 150th birthday of Prince Damrong, the first Minister of Interior of Thailand and thus the father of the current administrative system of provinces, districts, subdistrict and villages - only the circles (monthon) have since been abolished. Additional to his contributions to the public administration of Thailand, he was also a renowned historian, author of several books and regular contributor to the Journal of the Siam Society. It is not surprising that he was the first Thai to be have his anniversary associated with the UNESCO in 1962 at his 100th birthday.

In celebration of the 150th birthday, here are some interesting English-language articles or websites about Prince Damrong.

• Bangkok Post "A Prince for all pages" on the Print Damrong library in Varadis palace.
• HiSo magazine Thailand Tatler has an article "Prince Damrong: An Illustrious Life" which includes interview with two of his grandsons.
• The Ministry of Interior still has its commemorative pages on Prince Damrong

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...