UNDERSTANDABLY, we have not had the time to go through what those who have made it in the Western societies regard as the established procedures of gradualism, through which a developing nation must gravitate into the modern world.

But, as it happens; we are in the modern world beyond recall. We are affected by it. We must live in it. But we can do so only if we make ourselves part of it. And we cannot do this if we continue to encumber ourselves with a kind of state apparatus which was designed for a different society coming through a wholly different process of local democracy.
In Guyana we have been trying since August 4,1994,to change this little by little with a view to creating a fresh climate in which the people and their mass organisations can see themselves as a legitimate part of the day to day decision making processes of the state. But we need to do more. The people vote at periodical elections but, for the rest, they seem to look on from the outside. They may criticise governmental and opposition actions, on the local government election reforms, but they do so as spectators.
The four key western missions in Guyana on Wednesday called for the holding of local government elections, saying that there is no valid justification for further delay, which they said is responsible for a persistent drag on Guyana’s national development. Given the important and pressing needs for effective local governance, we believe that 2013 should be a watershed moment for the people of Guyana-the year they can once again democratically elect their local government.
Many of the more gross defects of the local government reforms can be corrected and have indeed been largely corrected in the welfare state of modern Western Europe. A Municipality or a NDC is likely to be lifeless for nineteen (19) years if it is seen by the people as an instrument to be operated by one set of Mayors, Deputies, Chairmen and Vice Chairmen while their only role is limited to the election of those others from time to time. A local government institution is likelier to succeed if it is so designed as to assure active participation by the people on a continuing basis every three years.
If the local government reform committee has thought of achieving this by meshing our central and local governmental institutions through certain arrangement, under which we should be able to have the advantages of centralism without those disadvantages by which it tends to be easily beset by systems which fail to articulate its movements with those of local democratic organs. Development of local democracy is an integral part of the total democratic fabric.