Local administrative reforms that would determine the terms of kamnans and village heads will be seen as an indicator of whether national reform efforts being pushed by the National Council for Peace and Order will succeed.
A move by the National Reform Steering Assembly (NRSA) to press ahead with a bill that would reform village power bases is worthy of praise.
The bill is to shake up the kamnan, or chief tambon, and village head recruitment process, and impose limits on their tenures.
The NRSA voted 91:27 in favour of the bill with 32 abstentions, amid opposition from local leaders nationwide.
Soonruth Bunyamanee is deputy editor, Bangkok Post..
Local leaders have threatened to bolster their opposition to the bill if it goes any further.
The highlight of the bill is a proposal to have kamnans and village heads elected every five years by eligible voters in each village and tambon, or sub district.
Currently, local leaders, once elected, can stay in office until they reach 60, the mandatory retirement age. While each village head is elected by residents, kamnans are indirectly elected by village heads.
Another proposed change is that kamnans are elected by eligible voters in each tambon instead of village heads as stipulated in the current law.
A performance evaluation of each kamnan will be conducted every three years, compared to five years currently.
Next, the bill will be forwarded to the cabinet and, if approved, to the National Legislative Assembly for consideration.
But, as everyone knows, the bill's passage into law depends on the NCPO.
I would say it's possible only a non-democratic government like the Prayut Chan-o-cha administration can press ahead with such a law. It is a blessing in disguise.
This is not the first time the tenure of those local leaders has been up for review.
When the first local administration act was promulgated in 1897, kamnans and village heads, or whatever they were called back then, had a job for life once appointed.
In 1972, the coup led by Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn set the term of local leaders by forcing them to retire at 60.
After the 1991 coup led by the National Peace Keeping Council (NPKC), the coup-installed government under then prime minister, Anand Panyarachun, amended the law in 1992 and shortened the tenure of local leaders to five years.
One year after the coup led by Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin in 2006, the law was changed again by the coup-installed Surayud Chulanont administration to please local leaders.
The change permitted kamnans and village headmen to remain in their posts until they reached 60.
After the country returned to democratic rule, the Pheu Thai government wanted to erase any influence of the coup.
It proposed an amendment to the law to cut the tenure of kamnans and village heads to five years but backtracked amid opposition from local leaders nationwide.
In 2009, the Democrat-led government proposed a change to the local administrative law to dissolve all kamnan and village head positions. However, they decided to shelve it because of opposition by local leaders.
The timeline suggests that laws concerning adverse changes to the roles of local leaders are not easy to introduce; so the question is why?
Like it or not, we must accept that many kamnans and village heads are well connected to politicians and play a key role in influencing local and national politics.
The longer they stay in their positions, the larger the political benefits they reap.
Several years ago, a kamnan of a small tambon in a neighbouring province to Bangkok told me that he had spent four million baht to be elected to the position he held.
With a salary of 10,000 baht a month at the time, imagine how many years he would need to recoup that money.
Why did he spend such a huge amount?
I'm sure political parties, particularly ruling administrations, do not want to upset local leaders because in doing so it could affect their political bases.
On the contrary, they would rather please them in a variety of ways, including with welfare payments and a salary increase.
Unsurprisingly, democratically-elected administrations have never succeeded in forcing changes in the law concerning local leaders.
That's why I believe this time round is the last chance the country will get to achieve this kind of reform proposed by the NRSA.
A quick check on social media indicates most netizens support the proposed bill as they believe the influence of kanmans and village heads unfavourably increases in line with the time they spend in power.
And unlike in the past, some local leaders lack public spirit and the will to do their best for the community.
While I mostly agree with them, I still believe many kamnans and village heads are good at their jobs and are dedicated.
There is no reason for these good leaders to be afraid of an election every five years if they really make a contribution to the community they serve.
Still, I think we should also be concerned about the possibility that, with more elections coming, vote buying may intensify along with the interference of ill-intended influential figures and higher-level politicians.
And I disagree with Yongyos Kaewkiew, chairman of the Village Chiefs and Kamnans Association of Thailand, who says shorter terms and more elections will deepen social divides.
Is he sure there are no divisions in communities currently and is he confident that most people in communities are happy for their village chiefs to stay in their jobs until they reach 60?
At the very least, an election would give people a chance to change their leader and hold them accountable, instead of waiting for them to reach the mandatory retirement age.
If kamnans and village heads are allowed to stay on until they are 60, they will not feel compelled to be held accountable because they won't see their power as being challenged.
Therefore, if the military government fails to push this law through, at a local level, what hope is there for national reform?