Recently, there has been an increase in leaks concerning the provisions of the proposed Local Administration Law to be referred to the Parliament, amid widespread discussions about tendencies that withdraw essential powers from elected municipal councils and grant them to appointed executive directors, in a step that opens wide the door for questioning the future of local democracy, and the usefulness of municipal elections in the first place.
Although the government has not officially announced the texts of the law to this moment, what is being circulated cannot be overlooked, especially since it comes in an unsettling context, after dissolving the elected municipal councils before the end of their legal term and replacing them with appointed committees that enjoyed clear governmental support. This step was popularly understood as an attempt to entrench the correctness of a decision that remains a subject of widespread constitutional and political debate.
The core of the public concern is not connected to mere administrative details, but touches a fundamental principle:
What is the value of an elected municipal council if it is stripped of decision-making tools?
And what is the point of going to the polls if the real executive role is in the hands of an appointed official who is not accountable to the public?
The transfer of powers from elected bodies to the executive administration, even if justified by slogans of efficiency and professional management, empties the elections of their content, transforms municipal councils into mere formalities, and strikes at the heart of the concept of popular participation.
More dangerously, this tendency does not come isolated from a broader context of legislative confusion, as each election cycle is conducted under a new law, without institutional accumulation or legislative stability, which has confused municipal work, weakened citizens' trust in the democratic process, and impaired the local councils' ability to plan and work long-term.
The question that clearly imposes itself today:
Are people expected to participate in electing "defanged" councils?
And do governments think that continuously changing laws can address performance crises while marginalizing the essence of popular representation?
Any law on local administration that does not start from enhancing the powers of elected councils and linking responsibility to public accountability is a law that reproduces centralization in a new form and puts local democracy to a real test, which it may not pass this time.
