Should Government Resume Local Council Election?/ 是否该恢复地方议会选举？

updated at 5.20pm

This morning, I attended a panel discussion on local council election live on Ai FM radio together with Human Rights Activist Ng Chong Soon.

In principal, it is good to have local council election since citizens can exercise their rights to elect their own councilors.

Hopefully this will make councilors more committed and in their work. Same goes to local authority that it could be more democratic, transparent and fair in dealing with the public.

The local council is the third tier in the local government and closest to the rakyat.

Restoring local council election will obviously generates a lot of excitement and hopefully we will have a more efficient local council.

However, the reality may be slightly different. I’m talking from the point of view of serving 3 terms as an EXCO and hence have intimate dealings and knowledge of the running of local council.

The local council’s duty is basically to provide services to rakyat and serves as a facilitator of economic growth within the local council.

However, local council have very limited financial resources and growth of revenue is unable to keep up with the rise of the council’s enormous number of staffs.

Besides that, the technical know how of local council is very limited.

These breed inefficiency, corruption and poor delivery system. The ‘tidak apa’ attitude of some staffs is prevailing because of the closed system of services.

Hence, having local election will not solve the problem until the system of service is open up and the inherent structural problems are rectified. There should be increased financial resources and technical know how before it could function effectively.

This cannot be achieved by local council election. There may be even a constitutional amendment that requires cooperation of the state government. Often state government is unwillingly to give up their power. It is what they regard as Federalisation of a state institution.

In short, it will require a total revamp of local council authority before a local council election can serve its purpose of a more effective, functioning local council.

Since local council’s financial sources are very limited, they are often dependent on state government or federal government for grants for development expenditures.

When different political parties run the local council and state government as well as federal government, one can imagine the amount of politicking, the lack of common objectives and more of arm-twisting.

The BN federal government will not be so helpful to PR state government and PR state government may not look favorably to a local council dominated by BN councilor. In the same way, the reverse may be true.

The PR promised in their election manifesto to resume local council election. If the state government is committed to have local council election, they can still do it despite the federal government not agreeable to it.

Maybe the government should allow local council election in PR states. This will be a good pilot project to evaluate local authorities where councilors are elected Then, it will be interesting to watch whether an elected councilor will ensure a more effective and functioning local council, or it will just be a mere exercise of voting and the local rakyat not benefiting at all from these exercise.

今早，我出席Ai FM“爱谈天下事”时事节目，对恢复地方议会选举议题发表了一些看法。另一名受邀嘉宾是人权月筹委主席吴仲顺先生。

我认为，推行地方议会选举是好的做法，让选民可以行使本身的权力推选县市议员，促进民主进程。通过民选，我们也希望县市议员更忠于职守，对工作更负责。与此同时，县、市议会的操作也会更民主、透明和公平。

地方议会是地方政府的第3层权力架构，也是最贴近人民的一层。恢复地方议会选举肯定让选民雀跃不已，对有效的地方议会充满期待。

然而，现实中可能和理论略有不同。这是我担任3届州行政议员期间，管理和与地方议会打交道的经验和心得。

地方议会的工作是为地方上的人民服务，及促导当地的经济活动。 然而，这个政府机构的资源和收入来源却非常有限，其经济收入增长根本无法负担大量的工作人员。

此外，议会里也缺乏专业人士和技术专才。这导致议会的工作和服务效率滑落，表现腐败。由于地方议会实行“闭门”制度（没有调职制），议会的工作人员普遍上都抱持“无所谓”、不认真的工作文化。

因此，除非开放职员调派及纠正固有的结构性问题，否则推行地方议会选举也无法确保现有的弊端获得解决。

要使地方议会有效地操作，首先必须增加其财政资源及技术专才。该两项问题并非能通过民选议员能解决的，可能需要州政府的配合进行修宪。不过，州政府往往不会情愿放弃他们的权力。

换言之，地方议会进行改组使必然的，这样才能确保选举达到真正的目的。

由于地方议会的经济来源非常有限，因此须依赖州政府和中央政府的财政援助和拨款，来进行地方上的发展计划。

当不同政党出任地方议会、州政府甚至是中央政府代表时，可以预见行事上会有无数的政治冲突、施压、缺乏共同目标等问题。

国阵中央政府或不乐意协助民联州政府，而民联州政府也不会“善待”由国阵议员主导的地方议会。相反的，若两党对调角色，相信结果也一是样。

民联政府在全国大选向选民矢言恢复地方议会选举。如果他们有意落实承诺，就算中央政府不同意，民联还是可以在他们执政的州推行民选议会代表。

也许中央政府应该允许民联州政府落实地方议会选举。这是评估民选议员和议会表现的好的先驱计划。之后，我们可以监督民选代表是否能确保地方议会有效操作，或仅是一个让选民形使表决权，但没有从中受益的措施。