The Interior Ministry has a history of jealously guarding its turf and it sees the bill as a direct threat to it.

Aree, a veteran bureaucrat who spent most of his career running people's lives from the Interior Ministry, has made it clear that he wants nothing to disturb his ministry's control over the various local administrations - and, thus, its authority over the local populace. Any notion that local communities will have the power to organise and question its authority, which is exercised through such local administrative bodies as tambon and provincial administrations, is simply unacceptable.

That explains why Aree and his peers at the Interior Ministry are prepared to go on a collision course with Human Security Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham over the Community Organisation Council bill, which was tabled to Cabinet last week but was eventually referred to the Council of State following a heated and inconclusive debate.

It has become a rare controversy for a government better known for its lacklustre performance and an absence of concrete achievements. Prime Minister General Surayud Chulanont, whose tendency to compromise has become a hallmark of his administration, seems to be caught in between, reluctant to lean toward one side or the other for fear of causing a rift between his two handpicked ministers.

But the conflict has already come to a head and there is little room for compromise. Paiboon, who is also deputy prime minister in charge of social affairs, has announced that he is putting his job on the line by pushing the bill which he believes will for the first time provide villagers in all localities a voice as part of grassroots democratisation. The bill seeks to empower villagers to set up community councils so that they can offer input on local development projects and monitor their implementation.

For as long as one can remember, the Thai populace has always been governed through a top-down bureaucratic process with the Interior Ministry serving as the all powerful agency that essentially administrates every person's life from the cradle to the grave. Villagers are supposed to be passive recipients, while the Interior Ministry through its local administrative bodies decides what is best for them.

That's why the Interior Ministry has been so rattled by the Community Organisation Council bill.

Falling short of providing local villagers with veto power, the bill seeks to empower them so that they are able to question development projects that may not be compatible with their livelihoods or may pose a threat to the environment. In the past, local administrators effectively imposed their own will on the people without even seeking their views.

It was not unusual for tambon or provincial administrative councils to take it upon themselves to introduce development projects or social initiatives that turned out to be destructive to local communities.

In many cases, the personal interests of local administrators took precedence over community needs.

With years of direct involvement in community activities, both Human Security Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham and his deputy, Poldej Pinpratheep, are well aware of the potential of people at the grassroots level to contribute to the development of their own communities. They are convinced from their hands-on experiences that villagers would be better able to defend the interests of their communities if they only had a say in what is otherwise imposed upon them.

To allay the Interior Ministry's professed fears that the authority of local administrators would be challenged, the latest version of the bill makes it clear that it seeks no legal power for the proposed community organisations, nor does it envisage a parallel power structure to rival that of local administrations. The bill only provides a legal basis for community organisations to be set up at tambon, provincial and national levels.

Taking a cue from the Interior Ministry, some tambon administration councils have already begun to rally against the bill, which they claim would make local administrative bodies "redundant" and create confusion and conflicts at the grassroots level. The campaign against the bill is most likely to intensify as Interior Minister Aree digs in his heels.

General Surayud has repeatedly stated that his top priority as interim prime minister is to put Thailand back on the track toward democracy. The prime minister, who has already been criticised for being indecisive, now has the choice of continuing to sit on the fence and watch the two opposing sides wage their war of words or putting his foot down on the fate of the bill. The stand he takes on the controversial bill will definitely be seen as a major test of not only his political leadership but also his commitment to democracy.

Thepchai Yong