KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23 — Malaysia should revive local council elections to safeguard public interest, a lawyer said amid growing concern in Kuala Lumpur over the sale of public land for development.
Derek Fernandez, a legal expert in local government laws, said there should be local government elections for all local authorities in Malaysia as it would promote accountability.
“Decision-makers will be accountable directly to the people and therefore they will make decisions in interest of the public, and not necessarily in interest of any other party.
“The main reason for elections is the public can remove them if they feel they are no longer acting in interests of the majority of the public,” he told Malay Mail when contacted.
Residents of the capital city only have one vote during the general elections — which is for their Member of Parliament.
Eight out of 11 federal constituencies in Kuala Lumpur are controlled by PKR and DAP. Local councils in states outside the federal territories are run by the state governments, while the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) is controlled by the Federal Territories Ministry.
A few neighbourhoods in the capital city have started opposing high-density condominium projects, such as Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Taman Desa, and Taman Tiara Titiwangsa.
Fernandez, who is also a city councillor of Petaling Jaya, said there was no reason why local government elections are not brought back, pointing out the “cardinal principle that there should be no taxation without representation”.
“As the local authorities imposes a form of taxation, i.e. assessment and collecting revenue from the public, it is only just and equitable that the people or the public be entitled to vote for the persons they wish to represent them in their local authority.
“This way, the leadership of the local authority will be directly responsible and accountable to the people for their actions,” he said.
Fernandez said residents’ concerns would be addressed more effectively if the “power to hire and fire” lies with them.
“Certainly there is accountability, you don’t perform, you go, that is the major benefit. They will be more sensitive to residents’ concerns because residents have a right to appoint that person or remove that person,” he said.
KL needs councillors
As for the federal territory of Kuala Lumpur, Fernandez noted the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) only has a mayor and an advisory board, but no councillors as required for other local authorities.
“In the case of DBKL, it is time that it be governed not just by the mayor or the minister, but there must be included councillors, who preferably are elected, as DBKL is far too big an organisation to be effectively run without councillors.
“The law should be amended so that DBKL is returned back to the same regulatory regime under the Local Government Act 1976, whereby councillors together with the mayor are in charge of the administration of the local authority,” he said.
Section 10 of the Local Government Act states that a local authority is to have either a mayor or president and between 8 and 24 other councillors, but Fernandez explained that the Federal Capital Act meant that this did not apply to DBKL.
“The Local Government Act also should be amended to allow for elections of local government councillors and mayor,” he said.
The Local Government Act currently prevents local council elections from being held and was upheld by the Federal Court in August 2014 as being constitutional.
The Penang state government had previously introduced a state law to allow local council elections in Penang, but this state law was shot down by the Federal Court in the same 2014 case for being inconsistent with the Local Government Act which is a federal law.
Political appointees no more
Polls reform group Bersih 2.0 chair Maria Chin Abdullah said that those in local councils in Malaysia now are unfortunately political appointees instead of being elected to their posts.
“Despite the opposition saying they support local council elections, in 2008 elections that was their battle cry, they were saying they should bring back local council elections, but they didn’t make much effort.
“The Selangor government worked with civil society organisations to come out with blueprint on how to run local council elections without doing amendment to federal laws, but it stopped at that, only a piece of paper
“They don’t carry it out, so what’s the point of asking us to prepare that blueprint if you don’t actually implement it?” she asked, having previously chaired the Coalition for Good Governance that had studied and prepared a report on local council elections for the Selangor government.
Maria said restoring local council elections would help build democracy, as it involves the decentralising of decision-making at the local council level and allows for different communities to be represented even at the local level.
“That means at local level, different communities can now have a say on local issues if their representatives are elected, for issues such as women, Orang Asli, all kinds of issues.
“Because you are talking about local council issues, that covers from how your taman (neighbourhood) is being run, about cleanliness of city or taman, you can have a say. And about land, because land is considered [a state matter], how land is being apportioned or developed. We can have a say on that to improve,” she said.
“It’s actually about getting people’s voice at different levels of governance process, so from local council to state to parliament, we should have much more representation,” she said.
Maria said that this has to be complemented with a change in local elections process to propositional representation instead of the first-past-the-post system if the state and federal governments are sincere about implementing local council elections.
Having local council elections would prevent a top-down approach and would ultimately mean better policies and improve services provided to residents, she said.
“Now political appointees, they don’t have to listen to people’s voices. They are just doing what they want. It will force them to be more accountable, because after five years, if they are not accountable, people will vote them out, if they want to retain their position, they will do better,” she said.
Mayors in the various states and KL should be elected, she said, also saying that the top echelons in DBKL who make decisions should go through elections.
Elections for KL mayor
Taman Tun Dr Ismail (TTDI) residents’ association chairman Abdul Hafiz Abu Bakar said he had always advocated for the Kuala Lumpur mayor to be an elected position, rather than an appointed office.
“In fact [a] few years ago, I attended a seminar organised by DBKL and during the plenary session, I did raise this issue whereby I proposed the position of mayor should be an elected position in line with many other great cities in the world,” he told Malay Mail when contacted.
Noting that elections would allow the best person to offer themselves to be a mayor, Hafiz also said a mayor who is elected by the public will be “more sensitive towards the needs of the people” and be more responsible towards their welfare.
“The mayor should be responsible towards the people in the city, rather than be responsible to those who appoint him.
“So if the people feel the mayor is not doing his job, then they can elect somebody else. If the people feel the mayor is not doing his job correctly, there’s no way they can make changes (now), because currently the mayor of KL is appointed by the minister,” said Hafiz, who is part of a lawsuit challenging DBKL’s nod for a project on what is claimed to be part of the Taman Rimba Kiara public park.
Hafiz, who was one of the 10 ordered by the courts last week to pay RM40,000 in legal costs in the early stages of the lawsuit, said TTDI residents were “very disappointed that mayor feels it is right to develop the land even though it was earmarked as public park” in the draft KL City Plan 2020.
“Yes, we acknowledge that the draft plan is not gazetted, but the plan was drawn up by DBKL themselves. The least they can do is honour the plan even though it was not gazetted,” he said.
Local government elections were previously held during the 1951-1965 period, but they were suspended by the federal government in 1965 due to the Indonesian Confrontation and were never restored.
