As 35 local councils go to the polls next week, candidates may be discouraged to note that voters seem more disillusioned than ever.

The local councils are nothing more than training centres for aspiring politicians

Timesofmalta.com recently asked readers to gauge how their councils fared over the past years, but more than 200 comments later, only a handful of people had something positive to say.

The overwhelming majority complained the councils left their roads in disrepair, garbage uncollected and parking was unbearable.

Many more said councillors lacked customer relations skills and only paid attention to residents on election eve.

Sliema and Mosta attracted most negativity – perhaps unsurprisingly seeing as the campaign has been dominated by Labour criticising the Nationalist Party over Sliema and PN criticising Labour over its handling of Mosta.

But readers did not seem to blame one party or the other. Mosta resident Charles Sammut said he would not vote because both parties had left promises undelivered in the past, while Carmel Farrugia said Sliema had never had a decent council since its inception.

“It would be better if the government appointed a civil servant to run the day-to-day duties of the local council and save money on all the rest,” he added.

St Paul’s Bay council, responsible for Burmarrad, Buġibba, Qawra and Xemxija, also received its fair share of harsh criticism, with the keyword being “neglect”.

The comment board sparked several interesting discussions. Some readers recounted personal experiences, such as Jennifer Camilleri whose petition was ignored by the Balzan council and Jonathan Camilleri who said the Birkirkara council was “hostile” to his complaints.

In response, several incumbent councillors like Birkirkara mayor Michael Fenech Adami, Xgħajra mayor Anthony Valvo and Sliema councillor Julian Galea gave their accounts of what happened, though they were not always received kindly.

One of the most frequently mentioned complaints was about wardens and the parking fines they issued. While residents of Siġġiewi, Floriana and Msida complained about being given too many tickets, those in Vittoriosa, Swieqi and Dingli complained wardens were virtually inexistent.

Many readers criticised the local council system as a whole, with many saying they were done with voting for good.

Others complained that all the problems boiled down to partisan politics.

“The local councils are nothing more than training centres for aspiring politicians. They’re a complete waste of money in my opinion and Malta did need not such local councils but an efficient centralised system,” PM Camilleri wrote.

So if the online comment boards are anything to go by, the political parties are right to fear an unimpressive voter turnout on March 10.

What they do to change that next time round remains to be seen.