Samui Government.

[Rooo]

Womble in a previous post, asked who won the election.Now that was a good question, but I didn't even know what the election was for.

Now I'm sure that I'm not the only one that is not knowledgeable of the local system of government & it's workings.

Could someone please explain the local system on Samui & it's relevance to Suratthani province.

Maybe keep us abreast of what all the elections are about. as it seems to be so many on the local level.

[LaoPo]

Womble in a previous post, asked who won the election.Now that was a good question, but I didn't even know what the election was for.

Now I'm sure that I'm not the only one that is not knowledgeable of the local system of government & it's workings.

Could someone please explain the local system on Samui & it's relevance to Suratthani province.

Maybe keep us abreast of what all the elections are about. as it seems to be so many on the local level.

I'm not sure about the elections (likely to be local but could also be provincial elections ?).

There seems to be a controversy about the # of cities in Surat Thani province; one (wiki) speaks of just 1 city - Thesaban nakhon - whilst the other link (blog) speaks of 2 cities: Surat Thani city (as capital) and Koh Samui (as island).

But, interesting to read the follow up of your question Rooo!

Maybe this helps ?

http://tambon.blogspot.com/2008/05/local-g...s-of-surat.html

The numbers of the various entities are as follows.

* 2 cities (Thesaban Nakhon) - Surat Thani and Ko Samui

* 2 towns (Thesaban Mueang) - Tha Kham and Na San

* 25 subdistrict municipalities (Thesaban Tambon)

* 113 Tambon Administrative Organizations (TAO)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surat_Thani_Province

LaoPo

[sbk]

Yes, it is confusing. I know Samui had a status change recently but not sure exactly what that means governmentally.

[MaewNam]

The administrative system is a bit confusing, especially the fact that it has "local government" and "central government" in parallel.

The central government is province (changwat), district (amphoe), subdistrict (tambon) and village (muban), all in the line-of-command of the Ministry of Interior. The two highest level have officials appointed from the MOI, the villages have a headman (phu yai ban) elected by the population but approved and paid by the MOI. One of the village headman then, also elected by the population, becomes the subdistrict headman (kamnan).

The local government is done by councils elected by the population, and this includes municipalities and subdistrict administrative organizations (TAO or SAO, in Thai O.Bo.Tho.). Especially the TAO usually cover exactly one Tambon, but not necessarily so, they can also share a Tambon with a municipality or cover several adjoining Tambon. For the municipalities it has three levels - subdistrict municipality (thesaban tambon), town (thesaban mueang) and city (thesaban nakhon). This was what happened in Samui last year, the municipality (which covers the whole district) was upgraded from subdistrict municipality to a town. As a side-effect: in towns and cities the villages loose their meaning and it has no headmen anymore, but those in Samui don't want to loose their positions...

And now the one which was elected last Sunday is the Provincial Administrative Organization, another local government unit responsible for the whole province. Actually, the election was in April 2008, this time it was only a by-election because the previous chairman Thani Thaugsuban was yellow-carded by the Election Committee for election fraud, additionally the chairman for the Samui constituency was red-carded and it had a new election for this position as well.

Hope this short version gives an idea and clears up some misunderstandings, one could easily write a book about these topics. Or a blog like my "Changwat Amphoe Tambon" :-)

[MaewNam]

There seems to be a controversy about the # of cities in Surat Thani province; one (wiki) speaks of just 1 city - Thesaban nakhon - whilst the other link (blog) speaks of 2 cities: Surat Thani city (as capital) and Koh Samui (as island).

The reason is - at first the Ko Samui subdistrict municipality was about to be upgraded to a city, and this was even already approved by the board in the Ministry of Interior, but then actually it turned out to become only a town. So Wikipedia is correct, and that blog posting only represents my knowledge at that time, see also this posting.

[Rooo]

Thank you, will take me some time to try & assimilate all this.

[churchill]

Already here.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Prominent-Fa...at-t284105.html

[LaoPo]

There seems to be a controversy about the # of cities in Surat Thani province; one (wiki) speaks of just 1 city - Thesaban nakhon - whilst the other link (blog) speaks of 2 cities: Surat Thani city (as capital) and Koh Samui (as island).

The reason is - at first the Ko Samui subdistrict municipality was about to be upgraded to a city, and this was even already approved by the board in the Ministry of Interior, but then actually it turned out to become only a town. So Wikipedia is correct, and that blog posting only represents my knowledge at that time, see also this posting.

Thank you for the explanations in post #4 and 5. Interesting!

How come a German software developer, living in Aachen/Germany is interested so much in the administrative subdivisions of Thailand* if I may ask ?

* and many more subjects in Thailand, reading your blog a little...

LaoPo

[trashy]

So is Samui a town or a City?

[sbk]

There seems to be a controversy about the # of cities in Surat Thani province; one (wiki) speaks of just 1 city - Thesaban nakhon - whilst the other link (blog) speaks of 2 cities: Surat Thani city (as capital) and Koh Samui (as island).

The reason is - at first the Ko Samui subdistrict municipality was about to be upgraded to a city, and this was even already approved by the board in the Ministry of Interior, but then actually it turned out to become only a town. So Wikipedia is correct, and that blog posting only represents my knowledge at that time, see also this posting.

so, it appears that Samui was not given City status, for reasons unknown. I'd be interested in hearing the reasons why if you ever find them out.

[Rooo]

There seems to be a controversy about the # of cities in Surat Thani province; one (wiki) speaks of just 1 city - Thesaban nakhon - whilst the other link (blog) speaks of 2 cities: Surat Thani city (as capital) and Koh Samui (as island).

The reason is - at first the Ko Samui subdistrict municipality was about to be upgraded to a city, and this was even already approved by the board in the Ministry of Interior, but then actually it turned out to become only a town. So Wikipedia is correct, and that blog posting only represents my knowledge at that time, see also this posting.

so, it appears that Samui was not given City status, for reasons unknown. I'd be interested in hearing the reasons why if you ever find them out.

I read somewhere, that the decision not to grant city status,because it would have abolished the positions of village headman.

They all rallied & got the decision reversed so to speak after it was approved from BKK.

Now I read in the paper , that the village headmen are all rallying to get their positions reinstated. So I can't really work it out.

[Samuian]

Yes, it was a decision by the Kamnans, by vote!

It's the same as everywhere else, all about Power,

influence and of course what else money!

One part of the delegates stayed at the Hotel for the weekend.

The power struggle about the Puu Yai/Kamnan system goes on since Chuan's times

back in 1997 to 2001.

[MaewNam]

How come a German software developer, living in Aachen/Germany is interested so much in the administrative subdivisions of Thailand* if I may ask ?

* and many more subjects in Thailand, reading your blog a little...

I was thinking about writing down that story in the blog already, so I only give the short version now. Married with a Thai, I discovered Wikipedia when it was still a small site and noticed that Thailand was not covered well. So both to learn more about the country as well as to fill the void I started writing the articles on the provinces, all in the English version to train my English skills more. And starting with the provinces the topic did not release me, especially because it was so difficult to find sound information without being able to read Thai, the explorer in me woke up and I researched more and more.

[MaewNam]

so, it appears that Samui was not given City status, for reasons unknown. I'd be interested in hearing the reasons why if you ever find them out.

I read somewhere, that the decision not to grant city status,because it would have abolished the positions of village headman.

They all rallied & got the decision reversed so to speak after it was approved from BKK.

Now I read in the paper , that the village headmen are all rallying to get their positions reinstated. So I can't really work it out.

For the village and subdistrict headmen it made no difference whether it became a town or a city, as for both municipal level they loose their job. Only if it stayed at subdistrict municipality they could continue unchanged. So the last-minute change from city to town must have had other reasons, I can only suspect it must be something about the province government which opposed the upgrade from start and that way maybe at least managed to keep some of the income from Samui into their budget. One of the differences between the three municipal level is the percentage of local tax going to the local government.

As for the headmen still rallying, the latest I know is this article from Samui Express. I doubt they have any chance to succeed, as the rule that the headman offices get abolished one year after the upgrade of the municipality is quite clear. But who knows, it seems that even in Bangkok it still has village headmen even though they were to be abolished some years ago.

[churchill]

It seems strange that even though Samui voted for City Status and Bangkok approved it , Surat Thani had the right to change it to town - just so that they had more control over the finances - Perhaps there is a lack of trust between the Surat Government and Government on Samui . Which is probably not surprising given the corruption on the Island .

Edited July 30, 2009 by churchill

[limbos]

Given the corruption on the island. You're joking right? That seems to me just a storm in a glass compared to what must be going on on main land Surat Thani.

Ever seen all those beautiful, perfect roads on the main land with the last one being build the one to the ferry in Donsak. These guys in Surat must've been s hitting their pants by missing out on so much funds coming from Samui and for which they almost had to hand over near to nothing in return.

[sbk]

gotta agree with limbos on this one here. Given the awful state of the roads on Samui compared to the wonderful roads on the mainland its really easy to see where all the money has gone.