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February 2005 : Single Party Government
The February general election result came out that Thai Rak Thai candidates win majority seats and will be able to set up a single party administration the first ever in Thai political history. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra appointed Mr. Anand Panyarachun, former PM, to chair a national reconciliation panel responsible in solving southern violence and his cabinet agreed on national agenda on systematic water management.
The study committee on local administration in Suwanaphum airport vicinity considered a draft bill on setting up “Suwanaphum City” with authority similar to BMA. The SML- pilot project on villages and communities potentiality development reached a target of 90 percent and is applying to the remaining 70,000 villages.
Thai Rak Thai won landslide
Thai Rak Thai party on February 6 won in 310 constituencies and 68 party list candidates, totaled 376 members in the parliament followed by Democrat, totaled 96 from 71 constituencies and 26 party list, Chart Thai 25 from 18 constituencies and 7 party list while Mahachon party won in 2 constituencies only.
32,342,834 from 44,572,101 eligible voters, 72.56 percent, came to cast their ballots.
Though almost 400 complaints on election fraud submitted, the Election Commission announced the poll results so the first parliament assembly could be held within 30 days in regards to the Constitution. If the commission finds ground on any complaint the result shall be nullified and that constituency shall have a by-election.
In the first parliamentary session, all members shall vote for the House speaker and two deputy speakers and in the following session, within 30 days, the new prime minister will be voted.
As the Constitution states that at least a quarter of parliament members can request for censure debate on prime minister or non-confidential vote on individual cabinet members and impeachment, there were fear that the three opposition parties, less than 125 MPs, could not perform their ultimate functions. Mr.Banyat Bantatthan, Democrat party leader showed his spirit by resigning as he had previously announced when he become accession to the position.
Anand chaired reconciliation panel
PM Thaksin Shinawatra, on February 28, appointed Anand Panyarachun, former PM, to chair the National Reconciliation Commission responsible on solving violence in the south. Mr. Anand will choose a 30 members panel from public and private sector, particularly in local area, to help him. The panel is in accords to the policy previously proposed to the PM by the intellectuals.
Meanwhile violence in the south, explosion and ambush targeting both civilians and public officials, is still ongoing. The Prime Minister had announced a zoning strategy, designated area into 3 zones, red, yellow and green, according to their seriousness, in which each zone will get unequal share of development budget but the strategy was abandoned due to strongly opposed from intellectuals, politicians and human rights activists fearing that injustice will hasten the violence, indiscriminate society and breaches human rights in regards to article 30 in the Constitution.
The cabinet approved on establishing a “ Development Regiment”, transfer from Regiment 16 in Prachuabkirikhan, bases in Inkawuth military compound in Pattani with responsibility on both military and development functions. The 1800 million baht budget will be allocated within 4 years starting from 2005 to 2008.
National agenda on water management
The Prime Minister, after a meeting with minister if natural resources and environment and minister of agriculture and cooperatives and reletae agencies, approved a national agenda on systematic water management on 3 main principles; 1] management of waste water, 2] providing household water supply to 5,000 and 14,000 villages inside and outside the designated forest boundary respectively, 3] providing water for agriculture use to 14,000 villages.
As there were clear evidence that farmers in irrigation area has triple income than their peer outside, the government is planning to enlarge existing irrigation area, natural water resources and village water-supply.
Though the 2,000 billion bath budget allocation within the next 4 years is not yet endorsed the PM ordered all related agencies to joint draft implementation plan in 25 water basins within 1 month. The implementation plan will be integrated into national policy on water management starts from upstream catchments area to the rivers estuary .
Suwanaphum city administration
The study committee on local administration of Suwanaphum airport vicinity , chaired by interior minister Pokin Polakul, on February 28, approved a draft bill, submitted by a working group chaired by Somkid Lertpaithoon, on setting up “Suwanaphum City” before sending to the cabinet.
The principle is to set up a local authority, “Suwanaphum City”, to promote development and provide infrastructure in area around the new air port. The authority should be independent similar to BMA with administrative and legislative bodies directly elected by the people. The city council must report their performance and finance; derives from taxes and air port tariff, to the public annually.
Regards to the new administration comprises of some area in BMA and Samutprakarn provinces, existing MPs and senators shall take office until the next general election while local administration members, city and district councils , shall function until the councils terminate but kamnan and villages head shall be in position until dissolve when the minister deems appropriate. All local administrations in Suwanaphum city boundary must transfer their assets, liabilities, rights and personals to the new authority in 2008.
SML progression
Somnuek Jarasathien, chairman of the PM working group on project to set up model village for village development reported progression of its first phase that 90 percent of the 1,002 villages received SML loan have reached target of self- management and utilizing the government loan to stimulate economic growth in the village. One example is that the people used the loan to build a market and income gained from rent were spent on providing scholarships for the children in the locality. However, another 10 percent failure resulted from lack of understanding in the project’s objectives and some obstacles in communication.
The SML project shall continue into phase two starts this May, 2005 with budget of 1.85 billion bath targeting at schools and universities students to participate in the project and become advisor to the villages.
From : http://www.fpps.or.th
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