Municipal elections have always had their peculiarities, often forcing parties to work under different conditions and make different compromises. In the current phase and five months before the next municipal elections, another peculiarity is added, that of the reform of the Local Self-Government. Facts that force the parties to enter into a full-fledged debate in view of their next election contest.
On the one hand, they started and will continue to make plans with a depth of five years, that is, believing that nothing will change. On the other hand, they are preparing to start a dialogue and discussion on the reform of Local Government, which entails several changes and differentiation of the current status quo in the 30 municipalities. The reform debate leaves all possibilities open:
(a) postponing the December elections and holding them later on the basis of new data;
b) holding elections but with a half term for the elected; and
c) of course there should be no data change.
The time left until the December elections does not seem to be enough to complete the reform of the Local Government and to set up the polls on the basis of these data. The possible reduction and abolition of some municipalities will be one of the issues that will be discussed extensively, with those affected moving in every direction, in order to prevent this possibility. The government intends to include in its bill the proposal of the Italian experts. A proposal accepted by the Union of Municipalities and which provides for the reduction of municipalities from 30 to 22. Which means that the implementation of this change implies differences in the entire electoral process.
In the near future, the political parties will weigh the pros and cons of all scenarios, in order to decide whether or not it is in the interest of postponing the December elections or to hold elections, but those who will be elected will have a reduced term. Before proceeding, they should take into account the reactions at the local level, since no party - after what happened in the recent parliamentary elections - wants to see the voters punish it again.
At the same time, for the political forces, the prevailing scenario is for the December elections to be held normally and beyond, if it is decided to reduce the term or whatever, they will see it in the new year or later. Therefore, the consultations and plans for the December elections will proceed normally, without taking into account the parallel discussion on the reform. Plans concerning the selection of both mayoral candidates and municipal councils.
In the midst of all this, DISY decided to submit a proposal for changes in the electoral law, restoring the horizontal voting, proposing the voting by mail and changing the time of filling in the electoral lists. AKEL made it clear yesterday that what matters is the discussion of the Local Government reform. DIKO is moving in the same direction, which is standing vertically against the horizontal voting. On the other hand, the Citizens' Alliance is in favor of the horizontal and is ready to discuss DISY's proposal. On the other hand, for the Ecologists, DISY's interest in the horizontal voting is "welcome but late". They wonder where DISY was a year ago, when the Ecologists supported the horizontal voting for the Parliamentary. The Ecologists also ask for clarifications on what DISY supports about "holding the municipal elections by horizontal voting or postponing the elections for two and a half years".
Source: Liberal