A majority of people in provinces across the country want the right to elect their governors the way residents of Bangkok do, according to an opinion survey by the National Institute of Development Administration, or Nida Poll.
The survey was conducted on April 18-20 via telephone interviews with 1,320 people aged 18 and over of various levels of education, occupations and incomes in provinces outside Bangkok throughout the country.
Currently, the governors of every province except Bangkok are appointed by the Interior Ministry. Only the people of Bangkok, which has been made a special administrative area called the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, elect their own governor.
Asked whether they want to be able to elect their governors, the answers were:
- 66.14% said "yes", very much;
- 18.64% said "yes", moderately;
- 10.07% said "no", definitely;
- 3.79% said "no", not particularly;
- 1.36% were not interested.
Asked whether they thought elected governors would be different from appointed governors in terms of their contributions to the development of the provinces, their answers were:
- 57.80% said "yes", very differrent;
- 27.05% said "yes", fairly different;
- 8.71% believed they would not make any difference;
- 5.91% believed they would make only a little difference;
- 0.53% were uncertain.