Deepening of democracy

IT is now official. Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan has announced that Local Government Elections (LGE) would be held on November 12, 2018.  The last elections were held in March 2016; therefore, when the electorate goes to the polls in 2016, it would be doing so for the second in two years, something it had done once in 23 years prior to 2016.
Minister Bulkan in announcing the date, said the holding of LGE constitutes ‘irrefutable’ evidence of the commitment and sincerity of the A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance For Change’s (APNU+AFC) intention to ensure that democratic governance obtains.
He said: “There is not merely respect, but reverence for provisions in the constitution. More importantly, our commitment to rebuilding the damaged and broken system of local government we inherited is something we will resolutely pursue.

“Any functioning democracy deserves frequent elections at every level. Our inability to honour this practice in the past was a serious democratic blunder which thankfully has been corrected.”

We now have new local government legislation which, among other things, seeks to correct the imbalance in the relationship between the central government and the local authorities. This has been a sore point in the past. It is worth noting here that the previous governing party and the present ones have had fundamental differences on what that relationship should be. The PPP preferred one in which the central government, through the subject minister, maintained what is in effect an absolute veto over local governments, particularly on financial matters. The parties in the current governing coalition have opted for a more democratic relationship, whereby the power of the minister in this regard is greatly reduced.

Former President Donald Ramotar had, during the last Parliament, stubbornly refused to sign into law that aspect of the legislation that sought to operationalise the latter relationship. He had claimed that it was unconstitutional. That was one of several actions that eventually forced the then combined opposition to table the no-confidence motion against his government, which eventually led to fresh elections and the downfall of the PPP government.

It is worth noting that that the Local Government Bill, which was in effect vetoed by President Ramotar, was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new Parliament and assented to by President David Granger.

With the announcement of the date, the electorate should be properly mobilised to participate in the upcoming elections. We have editorialised in the past that this is not an easy task. People all over the world do not generally vote at local elections at the same rate as they do in general elections and 2016 proved this point. There is a feeling that not much is at stake in such elections.

We argue differently. Local governments are the ones that are closest to the people, and therefore lend themselves to greater day-to-day scrutiny by the communities. These governments often determine what services are distributed in the communities, and how these are allocated. In other words, part of the government function of distributing common resources is devolved to the local councils.

Most importantly, local governments should be the nursery for new leadership. Often, leaders arrive in Parliament or in Cabinet without any experience in local government.
For all of the above reasons, people should be urged to vote heavily at the LGE in November. The mobilisation should start now, and it should include a popular education initiative aimed at sensitising the public to the importance of the elections. Such education should be done preferably by GECOM and other NGOs, but the political parties should also help in this regard.

The governing coalition, on the other hand, faces some challenges. Will the APNU and the AFC contest separately or as a coalition? Will they be able to mobilise their constituencies to vote with the same enthusiasm as they did at the general election? Governing parties are always judged on their record in government, and that record is always subject to distortion by the opposition.

The next four months will be defining ones.

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