Petition to Parliament seeks empowerment of local administration

At least 50,000 signatures are required to have a draft amendment considered in Parliament.

The petition was presented by the movement's director, Pannika Wanich, addressed to House Speaker Chuan Leekpai, and was received by Phongsri Tarapoom, member of House of Representatives’ working group on political affairs.

Pannika said the movement was able to gather signatures from supporters in just three months of campaigning between April 1 and June 30. “We exceeded the goal quickly as we made everyone understand that every province should be able to choose its administrators, while centralised administration should be abolished to allow LAOs to manage their budgets and resources efficiently,” she added.

Parit Wacharasindhu, Move Forward Party’s communications and policy campaign manager who accompanied Pannika on Monday, added that the petition was not submitted in the name of Progressive Movement or Move Forward Party, but should be viewed as a “petition of the people”.

“Whether the MPs and senators would agree to amend the constitution or not, we will continue to push for the decentralisation of power in Thailand,” he insisted.

Progressive Movement leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit had earlier said that the petition is pushing for the following five changes:

1. LAOs to have power over all public services except national finance, military and foreign affairs.

2. Reduction of overlapping duties among LAOs, regional and central authorities.

3. LAOs to be allocated 50 per cent of the national budget.

4. LAOs to have full jurisdiction without intervention from regional and central authorities.

5. Local people to be able to participate in public hearings on important local issues, and to vote to remove local administrators. Citizen councils to be established to supervise budget planning and allocation.