It is ridiculous to claim that local council election would be costly for taxpayers and create greater racial polarization, said Chan Foong Hin, the DAP Sabah Vice Chief in rebutting Abdul Rahman Dahlan, an UMNO Minister.
“If what Rahman claims is right, then the same logic could be applied to parliamentary and state election as well, but why do we hold the elections?”, said Chan.
In contrast of what Rahman claims, the Sri Tanjong Assemblyman pointed out that, local council elections would bring closer the racial polarization gap.
“Everyday I receive a lot of complaints pertaining mostly local community livelihood issues such as street lamp no light, clogging drainage, uncollected rubbish etc. I believes the other YB also has the similar experience as well. In fact this kind of issues are much more related to the jurisdiction of local council, and very least connected to the state assembly legislature work. If Malaysia has local council elections, then the councilors would be more willing to listen to the people as they are elected by the people.”
“The features of local community livelihood issues are not racial oriented. May be Malaysians from different kind of background would have different ideas on the education, for instance, English used as the teaching language of Mathematics and Science preferred by certain group but against by another group. But I don’t think that there is difference between a Malay hawker and a Chinese hawker when they made the complaint against the inefficient market management by local council.”
According to Chan, the gap between different group of ethnics could be brought closer if Malaysians start to debate the local community issues more deliberately. The local community would be more empowered by letting them to choose their own mayor, town port president, village head etc. Decentralization and devolution of power from federal and state ministry of local government would make local council more efficient to respond to the people needs.
“The local folks know better where to build public toilet, how to plan for smoother traffic flow, not the bueracrats from thousand kilometers away in Putrajaya. But it is ridiculous for Malaysians, as the public toilet also need the interference from federal minister.”
“The end of racial polarization started with local council elections. Local community members would have better sense of belonging once they share the same value, same consensus and same destiny as they decide for their own, for the very basic livelihood issues.”