Editorial

The leaders of the three political parties, their media and their organisation have done their utmost to influence the outcome of Saturday's vote to elect 23 local councils.

The creation of 67 local councils in the early 1990s was a political and administrative breakthrough that empowered a form of subsidiary government and initiated a partial devolution of power away from the central government. It was and remains a worthy initiative, taken, it needs to be recalled, in the aftermath of a political experience between 1971 and 1987 characterised by an unbridled exercise of central authority and ministerial discretion by the socialist government at the time that came near to threatening democracy.

Initially limited in their governance, local councils have since assumed more and more responsibility. They have, on the whole, been a positive feature of governance subject, naturally, to the extent of their efficiency or inefficiency. Few doubt that, for all the failings of some, they have been, generally speaking, a power for good. Most local councils have, in varying degrees, improved the environment of their geographical space and tried to create a better sense of civic values.

Far more gets done, now, to improve each locality than was ever possible under the auspices of a central government. By its very nature the latter was incapable of understanding, let alone catering for in a meaningful manner, the needs of the citizens in each locality, be those needs trifling or considerable to them. Any improvement was dependant in great part on political patronage.

Inevitably, local governance came under the same sort of stink that any authority is heir to and, as naturally, under the strains of political divisions. This form of micro-government has tended to reflect, for good or bad (perhaps bad) political life and tensions at the macro level. Rather unfortunate. It would be better by half if each local council were elected or drummed out on the basis of its performance on behalf of the community it represents. If only political parties would understand that and stop allocating scores (in percentage terms) to or flagging mishaps by individual councils not of their shade.

The fact is that once the political parties involve themselves directly in the pre-elections process, those who make up the local community tend to align themselves along party lines. There is growing evidence, however, that this tendency is just that and can no longer be regarded as the given it used to be. Cross-party voting and a growing number of voters prepared to float from one party to another even at a general election are slowly seeing to that.

At the subsidiary level this could present a further significant development forward, politically. Voters whose allegiance is to one party can switch to another if their local council is deemed by them to have been ineffectual or performed in a desultory fashion. They can do this without making waves at the national level.

For the good of their own community, voters on Saturday ought to ignore the siren calls of their political allegiance and cast their vote in favour of whoever performed well and delivered since the last local council election.

The alternative, to give the opposition or the government a bloody nose, may be gratifying but it will do nothing for the standard of governance residents should be expecting from the councillors who represented them for the past three years. In short, they should weigh up what their councillors have done or failed to do, think local and vote.