Local government elections should be reintroduced to encourage participatory democracy, said a Chinese lobby group today.

The Malaysian Chinese Organisations' Election Appeals (Suqiu) Committee said the government should amend the Local Government Act and other relevant legislations for this purpose.

"If citizens cannot determine how their community's daily public affairs are to be run, participatory democracy is practically non-existent," said the committee.

It said that the lack of public participation will deter transparency and accountability, adding that the present system of appointing local council members had jeopardised Malaysia's democracy as it limits people's participation in public affairs.

The lack of an electoral mechanism for checks and balances has resulted in mismanagement and abuse of powers by the local authorities, it said.

"Kuala Lumpur and other Federal Territories (FT) are the most disadvantaged as they do not even have an elected state government."

The statement said that KL and other FTs operate like a state without an autonomous authority despite the fact that they play an important role in the country.

Suqiu cited the example of KL, which has a RM1.3 billion budget for this year. This is equivalent to 14 percent of the federal government's budget.

This factor alone is sufficient for the city to have an authority accountable and answerable to the people by way of elections, the statement added.

Federal Territory Day

The committee also urged Malaysians to celebrate FT Day tomorrow with stronger conviction for the restoration of local democracy, and hoped that this could make it "a day of celebration instead of a day of mourning for the paralysis of democracy."

Suqiu has long called for the restoration of democracy and other basic principles such as those related to equality between ethnic communities, democracy, human rights and judicial autonomy, through it [#1] 17-point appeal[/#] which was released before the 1999 general elections.

The appeals became controversial when certain quarters took exception to Suqiu's calls for the abolishment of the distinction between Bumiputra and non-Bumiputra, and the committee was subsequently asked to put aside the sensitive requests following a meeting with Umno Youth early this month ([#2] Gerakan played major role in Suqiu''s capitulation [/#], Jan 17).