Local Government

Abstract

The reform, reconstruction and revitalisation of local government was just as urgent and difficult a task in 1989 as reform at national level. Indeed, the revitalisation of local government was one of the key conditions for creating a new civil society and political space that would make the new democratic institutions function. Under communism, local government had for all practical purposes lost its autonomy and become part of the transmission belt system of the regime. However, it was, in 1989, potentially a vital tool in the reform project. It was at the cutting edge of delivering services to the citizens; it was their first and most immediate contact with the state, demonstrating to them at first hand the new and more human face of the democratic system; it was the laboratory and school of democratic politics. Local party activists, councillors and local NGOs could represent a larger and more widely distributed network of civil society then central government elites, and initiate a large number of people into some form of political activity and public responsibility, learning the need for personal commitment and responsibility, dialogue, compromise and tolerance that had not existed under communism.