In specific local government such in Pattaya, the Mayor of Pattaya led as executive and Councillors of Pattaya led the legislatue. Both of the position are elected by the Pattaya local citizen directly. The councillors of Pattaya would select 1 assembly chairman, and 2 deputy assembly chairman.
Meanwhile, in Bangkok, the executive branch is led by Governor of Bangkok and the legislative branch is led by Council of Bangkok. Both mayor and council are directly elected by local citizen. The council is responsible to select 1 chairman of assembly and more than 2 deputy assembly chairman with 2-year term (M.Bernan, 2011). In addition, the Bangkok territory is separated into districts. The government of each district is divided into the executive and the legislative branch, led by a district director and the district council. Each district is separated into sub districts, The sub district head led each of the sub district (Fumio Nagai, 2009). The Governor of Bangkok from amongst the Bangkok metropolitan officers is responsible to appoints the district directors and the sub district heads in Bangkok, meanwhile the citizen are responsible to directly elect the district councillors in Bangkok (Fumio Nagai, 2009).
In short, the local administrators are elected by local residents. The electoral term is four years in Thailand’s local governments (Thomas, 2011). A by-election will be held in the corresponding constituency if a councillor positions is vacant. If a mayor position becomes vacant, a new election for 4 year term is held.
The elections for council and mayors are not necessary must be held on the same date.For example, decentralization was a major issue in the general election in September 1992. Pro-democracy parties seeks to introduce the direct election of provincial governors, who had been originallly appointed by the central government. They also voicing out to grant the status of a local autonomous entity to the Tambon council. The election of the provincial governors using popular vote idea is opposed by the Ministry of Interior (Thomas, 2011). It is because before this, the position is granted to the ministry officials as the highest post that they could hold. For this reason, the coalition government that has power in that time ignored the issue. The idea of granting autonomous status to the Tambon council was realized when the ruling coalition parties made a compromise that led to the establishment of the Tambon Council and Tambon Administrative Act 1994.
Most Tambon Council in Thailand gained autonomous status under the act. The direct election has started to be realized under the power of Prime Minister Thaksin. He recognized the rural electors as capable and viable voters and opened for political participation of rural electorate on national level (M.Bernan, 2011).?
