Organise a national referendrum on restoring local government polls put on hold since the 1964 Indonesian confrontation against Malaysia.

y4c nep forum 060207 m kulasegaran Throwing down this gauntlet at Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, DAP's vice-president M Kulasegaran ( left ) said if the harping on his "Performance now and people first" theme is to be believed, the people's interest must be above the BN's moves to dodge such polls.

" In fact, Najib should fulfil the promise made by then Alliance government to hold local elections after the end of Indonesian confrontation which has not been realised until now by the BN administration," said Kula who is also party deputy state chairman and Ipoh Barat MP.

Kula does not buy into Najib's argument that local government elections will lead to too much politicking at the cost of public services.

He said the real reason is that BN fears losing the majority of the local administrations if such elections take place.

He said Najib's argument that they will incur cost, time and involve politicking does not hold water as the same can be said of state and federal elections.

Foundation of democracy

"Local government is a very important level of government in a democracy and there is no justification whatsoever not to allow the people the right to decide who should be in the local government," Kula said.

He claimed that BN is trying to undermine Pakatan's 2008 general election promise of restoring the local administration elections as the BN political agenda has been to ultimately abolish it after its suspension by its predecessor.

"In fact the abolition of local council elections in the early 70s has resulted in many inefficient and unresponsive local councils which are not transparent and accountable in their policy formation, decision and implementation," he charged.

Kula believes that the majority of Malaysians are in favour of reviving the local government polls and challenged Najib to hold a national referendum to decide the issue.