Farmer fund poll stokes resentment

       The lead-up to the Farmers' Reconstruction and Development Fund committee election has become a hotbed of corruption claims, conflicts and innuendo.
       Tensions are running high as the poll looms because the outcome could result in big changes for an organisation fraught with scandal, a source said.
       The fund, established in 1999, was intended to oversee the transfer of farmer debts from financial institutions to the fund, which would shoulder the debt burden for farmers in accordance with the Farmers' Reconstruction and Development Fund Act.
       But conflicts of interest,political intervention and alleged abuse of authority soon began to emerge.
       Over the past decade,16 people have held the office of secretary-general of the fund, for an average of just eight months each.
       The latest, acting secretary-general Sangsidh Piriyarangsan, has vowed to leave office unless new members from farmer groups, who will be elected on Sept 13, offer him their full cooperation.
       The committee is made up of 41 members,20 of whom are farmer representatives. The rest are from the government sector and specialists from the private sector. The committee is chaired by the prime minister or his assigned deputy.
       Democrat MP Somkiat Pongpaibul,who has been involved in farmer movements, coined the term "imperial farmers" to describe the farmers' representatives elected to the fund and who were seduced by the power and forgot their roots and the plight of others.
       Once elected, these so-called imperial farmers gave in to temptation to seek profit for themselves instead of assisting their fellow farmers.
       The source said Mr Sangsidh's policies, from restructuring to restricted access to business class air travel for members, has enraged these privileged farmers.
       In the past, there were strong ties between the secretaries-general and farmer representatives, and then Mr Sangsidh took the helm.
       When Mr Sangsidh, a former Chulalongkorn University academic,assumed office he tried to foster improved relations among the feuding
       farmer factions. He was unsuccessful.
       The source said a rift between Mr Sangsidh and the farmer representatives became tense when he became the first secretary-general to dare to freeze the budget demanded by the farmer network organisation related to the farmer representatives. Mr Sangsidh required separate requests by smaller groups of farmers,the source said.
       Mr Sangsidh's policy to expand the number of Farmers' Reconstruction and Development Fund (FRD)branches from 31 to 76- which are seen by farmer representatives as an effort to reduce the power of the representatives - was also a trigger for farmers' demonstrations against him.
       Farmer representatives from the Central Plains and the Northeast are recognised as big guns in the power play over the fund.
       Trouble started to brew when a complaint was lodged with the Administrative Court declaring Mr Sangsidh incompetent to run the fund.
       The complaint was based on his double employment - he also works as an economics lecturer at Chandarakasem Rajabhat University.
       The court dismissed the complaint.