การบริหารงานของเทศบาลตำบลบ้านโฮ่ง อำเภอบ้านโฮ่ง จังหวัดลำพูนในช่วงที่มีปลัดปฏิบัติหน้าที่แทนนายกเทศมนตรี พ.ศ.2558-2562

Abstract

Local administration completely brings government closer to the people, for the sake of decentralization, where the people have full power to make decisions towards their local public affairs in accordance with the rule of law. On 22 May 2014, the coup d'etat was launched and the Constitution of The Kingdom of Thailand (Interim), B.E. 2557 was promulgated. This resulted in exercising power of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) according to Article 44 of the aforementioned Interim Constitution which has absolute effect on the Department of Local Administration regarding the Order of the Head of the National Council for Peace and Order. No. 1/ 2557 on Temporary Acquisition of Local Council Members or Local Administrators. That was considered a freezing of local government administration due to disallowing of elections for new council members and executive administrators of local governments. Ban Hong Sub-District Municipality was 1 of the 2 local administrative organizations in Lamphun District that was affected by the Order of the Head of the National Council for Peace and Order. No. 19/2558. As a result, the Mayor of Ban Hong Sub-District Municipality was suspended from 25 June 2015 (B.E. 2558). During that time, a Municipal Clerk was serving and running the municipality on behalf of the absence Mayor. Therefore, it was the intention of this study to find out advantages and limitations, as well as, to examine the difference in working and administrating of the directly elected Mayor versus the unelected Municipal Clerk acting as a Mayor in Ban Hong Sub-District Municipality. This study aimed at reflecting the different contexts of municipal administration under the change of national politics. This is qualitative research which has been done by analyzing internal documents of Ban Hong Sub-District Municipality, academic documents, related research documents, and by doing in-depth interviews with the main-focused group of informants. The results were then analyzed and discussed in line with the concepts of local government, The Strong Mayor Form, and Authoritarianism. The study revealed the differences in municipal administration and the findings were as follows: Elected executive administrators tended to spent most of the money on infrastructure, focus on using the budget allocation to the fullest to take into account political interests, focus on results rather than methods when it comes to management, be proactive to reach out to local people, and be able to quickly make decisions against urgent problems in a timely manner. Whereas, Unelected municipal clerks acting as a mayor would rather spend most of the money on overall benefits by mainly considering the whole amount of budget, perform good internal management, emphasize appropriate practices according to the rules, response to people's demand under the municipal law framework and along with the local development plan. The Municipal Clerk, as a chief of the civil servants, had sufficient understanding of the organization's internal structures, thus he/ she must be able to manage things effectively despite his/ her temporarily position. Moreover, the work system tended to be more lawful and standardized which could help reduce risk of illegal actions. Nevertheless, strict adherence to rules resulted in delay performance in people's point of view. The political change in Thailand totally effected people's insecurity towards the administration of the government, the lack of continuity in local development, the lack of involvement of local representatives in solving local problems. Even though, local politicians pay their attentions to political interests, they are still trusted by local people because they are familiar and come from the same community. A Municipal Clerk acting Mayor still lacks clear policies that can solve problems to truly meet the needs of people. Therefore, being inactive would decrease people's alertness and participation in local politics.