Thursday, April 13, 2017

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.

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