The chief of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has allowed former elected members of local administrative bodies to resume their work after they were banned shortly after the coup.
The order, which does not apply to Bangkok and Pattaya, aims to fill all vacant seats at local bodies so they can function normally.
Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, in his capacity as the NCPO chief, has exercised his mandate under controversial Section 44 of the interim charter for the first time by issuing the order, overriding the established approval process of the cabinet and the National Legislative Assembly.
The section stipulates the NCPO chief shall have the powers to make any order which shall be deemed to be legal, constitutional and conclusive.
Citing the good cooperation by local people and administrative bodies to date and the need for unity, the order said the latest elected members of such bodies whose terms had ended or who were banned by the NCPO order earlier may resume their duties in the current situation where "an election cannot be held".
With the order, members at 126 local administrative bodies and executives at 213 organisations who had completed their terms between May 22 and Dec 31, 2014 will resume their duties.
The order also allows incumbent executives of the 806 organisations whose terms end next year to continue doing their duties until a general election is held.
Shortly after the coup, the NCPO on July 10 froze all new local elections. Vacant seats were to be filled by persons with "appropriate qualifications" while vacant executive seats were taken by the chief administrators of the local administrative bodies.
There are 7,853 local administrative organisations, according to Interior Ministry website data as of Sept 30 this year. They consist of 76 local provincial organisations, 2,440 municipalities at the city (30), town (176) and subdistrict or tambon (2,237) levels, 5,335 tambon administrative organisations, and one each for Bangkok and Pattaya.