Local Government ever?

Mar 22, 2009 Editorial

The ordinary citizen may be forgiven if he/she takes the news that there may be local government elections (LGE) later this year with a huge pinch of salt. The last time those elections were held was in 1994 – two years after the vaunted “return of democracy to Guyana”.

Mandated by the Constitution – the highest law of the land – to be conducted every two years, those promises have been made annually with great ostentation by the government only to rescind it later. A whole generation has grown up without experiencing what it means to exercise their democratic right to choose their local leaders.

This cannot be good for democracy. At present, democratically elected Community and Village Councils exist only in Amerindian localities, which are governed by the Amerindian Act. It cannot be that the requirement for holding the elections has slipped past the powers-that-be. Because it is a Constitutional requirement, the government has to introduce a motion in Parliament to have it postponed, a debate has to take place with the Opposition and finally all of them have to vote for the postponement. And this has been going on for over fourteen years! Rome was not built in a day, but did it take fourteen years – and counting?

What is going on? The 1997 scheduled LGE clashed with the general elections for that year and the ensuing violence snarled any rescheduling for the next couple of years. In the subsequent “dialogue process” between President Bharrat Jagdeo and then PNC leader Mr Desmond Hoyte, the PNC raised several procedural and substantive concerns about the entire process. A Joint Task Force on Local Government (JTFLG) was established in 2001, comprised of members drawn from the PPP and PNC. The other opposition parties were never brought on board.

The JTFLG was supposed to present its recommendations to the two leaders but this has never happened because of various and sundry “disagreements” between the two sides. Initially the gap centered on various aspects of the electoral system and “the concept of fiscal transfers” raised by the PNC. Those objections from the PNC still remain and have been inflated by demands for “an education programme” on the local government system to be implemented and a re-demarcation of local government boundaries.

The President has asserted that the PPP is anxious to have elections by November – which is the date given by the Chairman of GECOM as feasible for those elections. Last February 25, the National Assembly approved $90M for the update and, finalisation of the voter’s list and production of new identification cards have been approved. It would appear that there are no logistical obstacles to hosting local government elections this year.

The President also signalled that if the two sides cannot reach agreement soon, “we would have to go to Parliament and have the debates take place there (and probably) go to a select committee and whatever comes out of that then that would be the framework that would be guiding the elections.” If this process was always available for breaking the logjam (and it is) one has to question why it was not resorted to before. But even the President’s veiled threat does not have the definitiveness that would make citizens hold their breath for LGE in November. After eight years, the President must be aware of the PNC’s objections and also his party’s position on them, so we can – with some degree of certainty – predict that the JTFLG will not arrive at any decision soon.

If the government then moves to Parliament and accepts the recommendation of a Select Committee, it would appear that we could possibly see some light at the end of the tunnel. Possibly. But we have to understand that movement in that august body called Parliament, especially in its Select Committees is not as automatic as might be suggested.
We know that a matter at least as important as LGE – reform of the Disciplined Forces – has been held up for almost five years in a Select Committee. We hope that needed LGE legislation will not take as long: we would not want to disappoint another generation.

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