Monday, August 13, 2018. Master of Government Affairs and Administration with International Program of Governmental Affairs and Administration (IGOV) UMY held a Lecture Seminar with the topic “Government System and Politics in Indonesian and Thailand”. The speaker in this event is Dr. Rungarun Boonsayan (Lecturer of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khon Kaen University, Thailand), Assoc. Prof. Sataporn Roengtarn (Khon Kaen University, Thailand) and Dr. phil. Ridho Al-Hamdi (Director of the International Program of Governmental Affairs and Administration, UMY). This event was attended by Khon Kaen University Lecturers, Khon Kaen University Postgraduate Students, MGAA students. The objectives of the Lecture Seminar were to present an understanding of the Thai-Indonesian government and political system at the local level to the central government. Therefore, it was appropriate to present two expert speakers, considering that both Thai-Indonesian political and government observers. According to Dr. Rungarun (KKU), “presumably the democratic system that we embrace still has some shortcomings, almost the same as Indonesia, the classical problems of politics and the Thai government are still found by some heads of government to do dynastic politics and money politics or buy votes,” he explained. However, on the other hand innovation continues to be carried out, efforts to support the implementation of open and participatory governance, Thailand uses several popular social media such as Line and Facebook to reach the community. Prof. Sataporn went through the topic of his research entitled Citizen Engagement and Local Government in Thailand, explaining that the reality of the problem was Thailand’s local government, continuing development but not in accordance with community needs and corruption. Many local governments have been found not running well, lack of participation to involve the community in the administration of government. Meanwhile, Dr. phil. Ridho explained political issues to the dynamics of governance in Indonesia. The program ran for three hours, at the 1st floor of the Postgraduate Director’s Meeting Room, the Postgraduate Building, Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta followed by discussion sessions and the awarding and souvenirs for the speakers.