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• Bill on appointed Kamnan, Phuyaiban withdrawn from cabinet, February 4 2004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However one week later the bill was revoked to "settle a misunderstanding" first.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.