Decentralization has exist in Thailand in the end of 1990s. There are 76 provinces or known as Changwat in Thailand. Thailand local governments are classified into general and special form. Under general form, there are three types of local government which are Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO), municipalities and Tambon Administrative Organization (TAO) (M.Bernan, 2011). There are two level of local government under the general form. The lower level of government are municipalities and TAO. The municipality are located in urban area and TAO are usually established in rural areas. PAO is the upper level local government which covers entire province. There are two specific form of local government, which is in certain localities, namely Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) and the City of Pattaya (M.Bernan, 2011).
In Thailand, each of the local government consists of the executive and the legislative branch. Municipal government originated in 1993, and compiles of 3 types, city level, town level and sub-district level. The executive and the legislative branch led by mayor and municipal council in municipality. The members of assembly and the mayor are directly elected based on direct election. As for PAO and TAO, the executive branch led by administrative organization chief and the legislative branch led by an administrative organization assembly (Fumio Nagai, 2009). Similar to municipal, local citizen are responsible to elect the members of PAO assembly directly. The chair and the deputy chair will be elected for 2-year term during the assembly meeting. The chairman is the head of PAO, and is directly elected by local constituencies. The chairman is held to assigned the deputy based on the assembly numbers. Under TAO, TAO council are elected directly from the village, which is 2 from each village located in the area of TAO and the chief is directly elected by local constituencies (M.Bernan, 2011).