RECENTLY, the term “good governance” is being increasingly used in development literature. Bad governance is being increasingly regarded as one of the root causes of all evil within our society. Major donors and international financial institutions are increasingly basing their aid and loans on the condition that reforms that ensure “good governance” is undertaken.
The existing Constitution says that Local Government Elections must be held every three years for Mayors, Deputy Mayors and councillors for each municipality. The new democratic environment in Guyana since the 1992 ” dawn of a new era” encouraged only one local government election-August 4, 1994 at the grassroot level.
The objective of local government election reconstruction is of course to promote the welfare of the people. Accordingly, a number of important social and economic rights will, for the first time in the history of our country, not be constitutionally guaranteed to the individual.
Without these, those fundamental rights recognised in 1994, often tend to be of little practical value in the daily lives of the people. An essential part of this transformation is the extension of grassroots democracy by increasing opportunities for the participation of citizens in the management and decision-making of their townships and states. A local government constitution is likely to be lifeless if it is seen by the people as an instrument to be operated by the party in government, while their only role is limited to the election of those others from time to time.
A fresh local government election is likely to succeed if it is so designed as to assure active participation by the people at the grassroots level on a continuing basis. The arrangements proposed under the local government system are intended to make of each local democratic organ a living and vibrant body capable of effectively addressing itself to local needs within a framework which synchronises its actions and policies with those of the central government.
I feel however, that no central governmental arrangements are likely to be viable except if it makes provision for the holding of an early local government election.