Opposition leader Simon Busuttil this evening came all out against the bill amending the Local Councils Act, being debated in Parliament, saying it was undemocratic and a disgrace.
Speaking on the second reading of the bill, Dr Busuttil said the new law would cancel the local council elections due 2017.
It showed that the Labour government was insensitive to the basic principles which united society, such as the principle of democracy.
Dr Busuttil said that the Justice Minister, who was piloting the bill, would be remembered in history as the minister who cancelled an election and weakened democracy.
The Opposition, Dr Busuttil said, was strongly against the bill and would be voting against it because it was regressive.
He appealed to the media and the people to speak against the law and register their disagreement, especially since it was their right to vote that was being undermined.
The sole reason behind the bill was the Labour government’s policy not to decentralise power. It was an initiative the government did not have an electoral mandate for.
The Labour government believed it should be the sole holder of power with the people being its beggars. It believed that since it could not remove councils, it should diminish their importance and authority.
Its plan was clear and it was implementing it by reducing the councils’ financial allocation, introducing arbitrary means of funding and spreading the idea that they were unnecessary.
The government, Dr Busuttil said, had also wanted to cancel the April 11 elections. But these were held due to the Opposition’s insistence.
The Opposition, Dr Busuttil said, believed in democracy including in local councils, in European Parliament elections, and through abrogative referenda.
The Opposition’s argument now, Dr Busuttil said, was that the 2017 elections should not be cancelled.
Changes to elections, he said, had always been made in agreement between the two sides of the House but the government was now breaching the concept that electoral legislation should not be contentious but be enacted in agreement between the two sides.
Moreover, the people had in 2013 elected their representatives for four years but the government was arbitrarily increasing their term by two years.
The bill was also taking away the right to vote from young people who would turn 16 or 17 in 2017.
The people did not want this and only 11 out of the 40 people who took part in the consultation exercise carried out by the people had agreed with the government.
The government wanted the elections to be held once every five years together with the European Parliament elections. The Opposition, Dr Busuttil said, did not agree.
This was because a five-year term was too long for councils and during EP elections, the people should be able to concentrate on what they wanted from the European Parliament. It was likely that the council’s campaign would suffer as a result of the EP campaign.
The Opposition, Dr Busuttil said, believed in increasing the people’s power and the importance of elections. It wanted to make councils stronger and more autonomous, increase their funding to enable them to be innovative, keep communities alive, and safeguard the environment and help them attract more EU funds.
The government, on the other hand, wanted the councils to be its beggars.
Dr Busuttil said that the bill being debated showed that the government did not believe in democracy and in the decentralisation of power and wanted to weaken the people’s power by cancelling an election. It wanted to centralise, rather than decentralise power.
It was clear that the government was to go ahead taking away the people’s sacrosanct right to vote, Dr Busuttil said.