Kamnan
Encyclopedia
A kamnan is a Thai
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 governing official at the tambon
Tambon
Tambon is a local government unit in Thailand. Below district and province , they form the third administrative subdivision level. As of the 2009 there are 7255 tambon, not including the 169 khwaeng of Bangkok, which are set at the same administrative level, thus every district contains 8-10 tambon...

 (subdistrict) level. It is usually translated as "subdistrict headman".

The position of a kamnan was introduced with the thesaphiban administrative reforms at the end of the 19th century, first enacted in 1892. On of the village elders of the muban
Muban
Muban is the lowest administrative subdivision of Thailand. Usually translated as village, they are the subdivision of tambon. As of 2008, there are 74944 administrative villages in Thailand. As of the 1990 census, the average village consisted of 144 households or 746 persons.A muban does not...

. The kamnan was chosen or elected among the village elders (phu yai ban) of the villages within the tambon. It was originally a lifetime post. Their main task was to implement the policies from the higher administrative levels, and being the main point of contact for the people in their area.

Being a very centralized state, it took till the 1990s to have the local administration given more focus. With the Tambon Council and Tambon Administrative Authority Act BE 2537 (1994) and later the 1997 constitution
1997 Constitution of Thailand
For legal and historical context, see the Constitutions of Thailand articlethumb|275px|Bangkok's [[Democracy Monument, Bangkok|Democracy Monument]]: a representation of the 1932 Constitution sits on top of two golden offering bowls above a turret....

the Tambon Administrative Organizations (TAO) were created as new local administrative units. During a grace period the Kamnan were member of the TAO. Also the lifetime term was changed to a five year term.

Sources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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