Pressure mounts for local gov't election
The pressure for citizen participation in government appears to be gathering momentum what with a successful three-day workshop entitled ‘Lobbying for local democracy’ organised by a group of NGOs.
The pressure for citizen participation in government appears to be gathering momentum what with a successful three-day workshop entitled ‘Lobbying for local democracy’ organised by a group of NGOs. 
In the dialogue session with state assemblypersons that followed, the representative for Bukit Gasing, DAP’s Edward Lee (left), suggested that local government elections be held simultaneously with general elections to save time, cost and inconvenience for both voters and the government.
The reason being that administratively, state and local governments are closely linked and so logically speaking elections for both should be held simultaneously, similar to other developed nations.
Such polls could also serve as mid-term elections to the gauge the support of the incumbents.
However, the talk is Pakatan reps would rather that parliamentary and state elections be held separately.
From the political point of view, such an arrangement would favour the Pakatan coalition which could focus their resources on launching attacks on their political foes the BN government with an eye on capturing Putrajaya without the need to defend their state governments.
Return of local polls
The dialogue session after the March 29-31 workshop not only discussed the reinstatement of local polls but also public participation in local governments and freedom of information – part of the Participation, Information and Elections (PIE) campaign, inspired by a coalition of NGOs.
The NGOs are pressing for the return of local government polls as their mission.
Suaram programme manager Moon Hui (left) had concurred with the Election Commission stand that the local government polls cannot take place as it had been annulled under the Section 15(1) of Act 171 of Local Government Act 1976.
Section 10 of the Act 171 also states that members of a local council ‘must be appointed by the state authority’.
However, he pointed out this could sidestepped by any state government by invoking Section 1(4) of the Local Government Act 1976 and exempting Section 10 and part of Section 15, which nullifies the legislation that prevents the polls.
Freedom of information
Touching on freedom of information, Lee, in explaining the Official Secrets Act 1972 (OSA), said: “The Selangor government has revealed documents on land issues, deforestation reports and development impact reports to the public.”
He suggested that it would be good if other state governments could adopt the idea.
Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim had declassified the first set of ‘secret’ documents, ‘Green Revolution Plan’ and ‘Bandar Alam Perdana: Lost Land and Houses’ in November last year.
When asked if Penang would emulate Selangor in such matters, Pantai Jerejak state assemblyperson Sim Tze Tzin said, “We will consider it.”
The other point of dissatisfaction was with the way the United Nations Development Programme’s Local Agenda 21, which recommended local authorities seek public input before embarking on any major projects, is being treated like a stepchild by the federal government.
In saying this Malaysian Nature Society vice president, Jeffrey Phang said that currently Local Agenda 21 had been reduced to such activities as organising gotong royong.
