Sutisak Tantayotin, deputy secretary-general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), and Surangkana Wayuparb, former chief executive of the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), have emerged as two potential candidates in the race to become the NBTC's new secretary-general after the candidate interview round was carried out on Thursday, according to a source from the NBTC board.
However, the board has yet to set a final timeline to vote to select one of them for the post of secretary-general. The vote is expected to be listed as an agenda item at a board meeting in the near future.
According to the voting process, NBTC board chairman Dr Sarana Boonbaichaiyapruck might nominate someone at some point who he believes to be the most suitable to the board members for a vote.
If the name presented receives fewer than four votes of the seven commissioners, the names of other applicants would be presented in descending order until the board identifies a candidate who wins the majority.
Pravesana Mulpramook, secretary of the NBTC chairman, said the NBTC office held interviews for the post yesterday.
There are nine qualified candidates including Pakorn Apaphant, executive director and member of executive board of Geo-Informatics and Space Tech Development Agency (GISTDA); Trairat Viriyasirikul, deputy secretary-general of the NBTC; Kittisak Sriprasert, former president of CAT Telecom; and Colonel Thanatmet Phatnarongrat, member of the Performance Monitoring and Evaluation Committee of NBTC.
The others are academic Pisit Boonsrimuang; Dr Polawat Witoolkollachit, former board chairman of KTB Computer Services (KTBCS); Mrs Surangkana; Mr Sutisak, and Peerakan Kaewwongwattana, chief executive of Airport Rail Link.
However, Mr Peerakan missed the interview. All seven NBTC commissioners participated in the interview process yesterday.
Throughout the interview process, Mr Pravesana said each candidate is allowed to present their opinion and vision to the board within 10 minutes, then the candidate must answer questions from each commissioner by selecting questions that each commissioner prepared. The latter process took 20 minutes for each candidate.
Mr Pravesana accepted that several candidates are of interest as they presented their visions and answered the questions impressively. However, he has no idea who is first priority in the NBTC chairman's mind.
The source on the NBTC board said there are potential candidates for the post after the interview, including Mr Kittisak, Mr Sutisak, Mr Trairat and Mrs Surangkana.
However, the most outstanding insider candidate is Mr Sutisak, while Mrs Surangkana is seen as the most outstanding external candidate.
NBTC chairman Dr Sarana previously signed an announcement on June 27 disclosing progress of the recruitment process for the secretary-general post that its subcommittee for qualification verification has approved all nine applicants as qualified candidates.
Dr Sarana insists the ongoing recruitment procedure for new secretary-general cannot be scrapped without reasonable support as that poses a risk of being sued by the nine applicants.