Civil society groups are organising a two-month-long Local Democracy Festival in Penang starting this Tuesday, with a forum on free and fair access to media.

Penang Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) coordinator Lee Hui Fei said the purpose of the festival is to get more people “excited and involved” in the decisions that affect their lives.

She said, among others, the event hopes to encourage people to be constructively active in the discussion, planning and implementation of policies and services in Penang and in the local communities.

She added that the event would help Penangites be more aware of how local government works, the roles and functions of the different arms and agencies of the state and municipal governments.

“We encourage and support all groups to be involved, especially the marginalised, to get everyone’s ideas and experiences on how we can and should affect positive change for our shared future,” she said during a press conference in Komtar today.

Youths’ to debate in Dewan Negeri

Lee was accompanied by other civil society representatives – Youth Parliament organising committee member Sara Ayuni Hamdan, Penang Suaram secretariat member Ong Jing Jeng and the NGO’s programme officer Melanie Yong and Jaringan Utara Migrasi dan Pelarian (JUMP) representative Peter Barnabas.

Other than Suaram, the organising partners of the festival, which ends on October 14, are: Sembang-Sembang Forum, Coalition for Good Governance Penang, JUMP, Penang Women’s Development Corporation, People’s Green Coalition and the Association of Chinese Journalists and Press Photographers, Penang.

Programmes include art event Busking (Sep 8), Democratic Heritage Tour (Sep 9), Forum on ‘What sort of local elections do we want?’ (Sep 15), Refugee Carnival (Sep 29-30), Community Trainings in Teluk Kumbar (Oct 6) and Tasek Gelugor (Oct 7) and Youth Parliament (Oct 12-14).

The state government is sponsoring RM25,000 for the festival, which is being organised for the third time in Penang since Pakatan Rakyat took over the state in March 2008.

According to Sara Ayuni, the group has obtained the consent of state legislative house speaker Abdul Halim Hussein to conduct the Youth Parliament programme – comprising youth from both political divide – in the Dewan Negeri.

State executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow said he was happy with the event, the first of which was held in 2010 and dubbed “Local Democracy Wake”, which was then followed by “Local Democracy Month” in 2011.

Chow said the state encouraged the participation of citizens in decisions which affect their lives as the people are important agents of reform.

“Recently, many Penangites have shown concern for issues of planning, especially in the recent Penang Forum 5 , and that is why we have incorporated a round table on the issue on Oct 6,” he added.

More citizen participation in Penang

Meanwhile, Ong noted that citizen participation in Penang was better compared to other states, for example Perak, as the Penang and Seberang Perai municipal councillors here were more open to being questioned on their contributions.

“The councillors in Perak have told us when we sent questionnaires to ask them on their contributions that they would only report to their respective parties,” he claimed.