In the celebration, there was a ceremony to pay homage to Chaisoontorn monument, the life-size standing monument of the leader who led his followers from the other side of The Mekong two centuries and two decades ago to set up a new settlement near the fertile Kaeng Samrong area some 165 kilometers from the International River.
This new home has become present Kalasin City in Kalasin Province.
In the reign of King Rama 1 of The Chakri Dynasty, the time when the nation's policy of centralization needed more emphasis, the Kaeng Samrong leader, then under the name of Chao Somphamit, took part in Bangkok ceremony to pledge allegiance to the center. The King conferred Chao Somphamit the new position of Phaya Chaisoontorn to govern the Kaeng Samrong settlement which was upgraded to Kalasin which means black water to describe the sufficient quality of the water and the fertility of the soils in Kaeng Samrong swamp.
Later on, during the significant administrative reform and 110-years-of-the-reform-of-thai-bureaucracy in the reign of King Rama 5th, Kalasin was under the administration of Roi-Et region or Monthon Desa Phiban Rio-Et and it enjoyed at that time the position of a province or a Changwat of the region.
However, when the country experienced severe economic difficulty before and after World War 2 cum the great economic recession, the Thai administrative structure was changed to realize an appropriate adaptation to the world crisis.
As a result of this adaptation, Kalasin Province was, in 1933, downsized to a status of an Amphoe or a district under the administration of Maha Sarakham Province, which is on the other side of the Chi River.
Fifteen years later, Kalasin was back to enjoy the status of a province in 1947, two years after the end of World War 2 and one year after the introduction of the Constitutional Monarchy form of government in the country.
Kalasin province nowadays consists of 18 administrative districts or Amphoe which are closely linked to the central government in Bangkok as each district officer or Nai Amphoe has been appointed by The Ministry of Interior to serve under the appointed provincial governor.
An Amphoe comprises of clusters of villages called Tambon aka subdistrict. In Kalasin, there are now around 140 Tambon. Each Tambon has an indirectly elected Kamnan as a Tambon chief.
The lowest tier of administrative units in the Amphoe, below the Tambon, is the village aka Moo Baan. A village head is called a Phu Yai Baan, meaning a significant person in the community; voters directly elect him to govern the village.
In the past, both Kamnan and Phu Yai Baan had a carefully traditional and official link with the Nai Amphoe according to the vertical chain of command downward from the Interior; but recently the trend has changed with the result that they tend to lean more toward political influences.
There are three forms of local government in Kalasin.
The first form is the biggest one which covers both urban and rural areas of the province. It is the Kalasin Provincial Administration Organization (PAO) aka Or Bor Jor. With a population of nearly one million in 2014, it covers the whole territory of the province consisting of almost 140 Tambon or clusters of villages, widely understood by the name of sub-district.
The locality of the PAO is the same area as the administrative area of the province itself. The PAO's governmental structure consists of a 30 member legislative council and a directly elected president of the PAO as the chief of the executive branch of this local government in the province.
The second form of the local administration in Kalasin is the municipality. There are two levels:
1) More urbanized municipality.The Mueang Kalasin Municipality (also Kalasin Town Municipality or Tesaban Mueang Kalasin) in the capital city of Kalasin and the Mueang Bua Khao Municipality in the capital of Khuchi Narai district are the two local governments in more urbanized communities.
Mueang Kalasin Municipality had enjoyed this status since the introduction of this type of local authorities in Thailand at the time when the government had downsizedKalasin province to a status of an Amphoe under Maha Sarakham province. But the Mueang Bua Khao Municipality has just been upgraded after it's urbanization has reached a particular stage
2) Less urbanized municipality. The 77 less- urbanized communities in the rest of the settlements in the province, especially the one in the capital city of a district, are Tesaban Tambon or Sub-district Municipalities. Some of these municipalities have just been upgraded to a status of Sub-district municipalities recently. For example, in Mueang district, only Nong Kung Tambon Administration Organization remains a Tambon Administration Organization; the rest have been upgraded to enjoy the Tesban Tambon status since 2010.
A Tesaban Muang consists of communities or neighborhoods aka Chum Chon (ชุมชน) while a Tesaban Tambon consists of a group of villages. Each Choomchon has a Chum Chon Administrative Committee responsible for a sort of community affair. Tesaban Mueang Kalasin in 2015, for example, constitutes of 37 communities. Theoretically speaking, a Chumchon administrative committee has been empowered to manage the so-called One Million Village Fund.
The last form of local government in the province is the Tambon Administration Organization (TAO) aka Or Bor Tor. All of the 78 Tambon or sub-districts outside the areas of the two levels of the municipalities in the province mentioned above are under this category of local government.
The president of a TAO is the chief executive of this local government. Voters in the Tambon directly elect him, but the legislative council at this level consists of councilors elected by voters from each village, and each village has two councilors. As such, the number of TAO councilors varies according to the number of the villages in the TAO.
When a TAO becomes more urbanized with a greater financial status and are able to meet some other requirements, it is qualified to seek permission from the Ministry of Interior to upgrade its status to that of a municipality.
In the age of modern Kalasin, there is no area in the province that is outside a local government boundary.
We are, and have been, in a democratic form of local authorities!