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Our View: Akel’s recipe for local government disaster needs to be defeated

Interior Minister Nicos Nouris

There appears to be no end in sight to the saga of local government reform that has been dragging on for years. In the latest twist, Interior Minister Nicos Nouris has proposed a sensible solution to the idea of a referendum that was introduced by Akel and backed by the majority of the parties in the House interior committee; this now threatens to create a wreckage of the whole process.

Nouris on Tuesday night proposed holding a referendum on the reform of local government to be held on May 30, the same day as parliamentary elections. It would be a binary vote on the whole reform package that includes the merger of municipalities and communities reducing the number of municipalities from 31 to 17, 18 or 20. The original plan was to have 14 municipalities, but parties have been increasing the number.

This is too rational and practical a plan to satisfy Akel that wants separate, localised referendums – one for each municipality. In other words, if Ayia Napa does not want to be merged with Paralimni, as the reform proposes, and its registered voters vote against this, there would be no merger, wrecking the whole process. A few thousand voters in Ayia Napa, and a few more in Yeroskipou that does not want to be merged with Paphos, can destroy the whole undertaking even if the rest of the population backs it.

What is even more absurd is that Akel wants the referendum to be held in December 2023, after the reforms would have been approved by the legislature and turned into law. In such an event a municipality that voted against its merger would in effect prevent the law being implemented, the attorney-general warned. Another point is that a municipality that votes against its merger would have no legal status, as the reform of local government would have terminated its existence by law.

How Akel proposed to get round this very fundamental problem it has not said. It is all about local democracy, it has been claiming. Its deputy, Eleni Mavrou, who chairs the interior committee, argued that citizens should have a say and role in how local communities evolve. She accused the attorney-general of being interested in facilitating the enforcement of the government bill and “not how to secure the role of citizens in the process”.

It appears that the smaller parties could be persuaded to back the government referendum proposal, Edek and Solidarity saying they did not object to Nouris’ proposal. Akel’s recipe for disaster needs to be defeated if the reform of local government is to happen in two years.

 

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