City Hall has asked a House standing committee to seek the immediate return of elections for Bangkok district councillors, which were put on hold following the 2014 military coup.
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt attended a meeting on Wednesday with the House committee on power decentralisation, local administration and special administrative management to discuss the resumption of district council elections.
The Bangkok city council earlier resolved to bring back district council elections, but an immediate resumption requires amending relevant legislation. This is why Mr Chadchart met with the House committee, to convince the panel to request parliament to go ahead with the amendment.
Mr Chadchart said he told the House committee that Bangkok city councillors were currently working alone to gauge residents' problems and urban issues. There simply were not enough of them. They needed the assistance of district councillors.
At present, so-called civic community members were appointed to take on the tasks of district councillors. However, they were not elected and were often chosen by district chiefs.
Residents wanted to elect their true representatives who could respond to their needs and alleviate local problems, the governor said.
Since City Hall was powerless to amend laws, all it could do was propose changes to the City Administrative Code Act to allow the resumption of district council elections.
"And the House committee will communicate City Hall's proposal to parliament," Mr Chadchart said.
The act was one of the laws published in the Royal Gazette on April 16, 2019.
The idea of reinstating the district council elections was brought forth at the Bangkok city council meeting on July 6. The city councillors were the first local Bangkok leaders to be elected since the 2014 military coup leaders suspended elections for Bangkok governor, city councillors and district councillors, apparently out of fear they might trigger social unrest.
The city governor was appointed, and elections for governor and city councillors were not held until May 22 this year. Elections for district councillors remain in limbo.
Under the 2019 act, there can be more than one city councillor representing a district, depending on the size of the local population.
Also, the law stipulates that district council elections are halted until laws related to national strategies and reforms are up and running. Such a legislative process could take many years, according to a source familiar with the issue.
After the coup, the government-appointed national reform steering committee suggested that district councillors may be dispensable, given their limited role and authority. Their work, in providing consultancy on district developments to a district chief and the Bangkok council, could adequately be covered by the city councillors, who report to the Bangkok council, the committee said.
Also, the district council polls attracted little voter turnout, according to the committee tasked with exploring local administrative overhaul under the National Reform Steering Assembly established by the coup-engineered National Council for Peace and Order.
The committee further pointed to a supposed conflict of interest - while district councillors were assigned power to distribute development budgets in their localities, city councillors, with whom they work closely, had the duty to disburse such funds.
University students check a list of eligible voters for the last Bangkok district elections, in August 2010. (File photo: Pattanapong Hirunard)