No more research, no more excuses: Local elections are 60 years overdue

Kua Kia Soong

Federal Territories Minister Hannah Yeoh’s recent defence of her ministry’s decision to conduct ‘research’ before introducing a mayoral election for Kuala Lumpur is deeply troubling.

She argued that “evidence-based decision-making” was needed before such a reform could be implemented.

This sounds reasonable – until we remember that ordinary people have already waited 60 years for local government elections and the peninsula had local council elections even before independence! What exactly is left to research?

How many more decades of ‘studies’ and ‘consultations’ must people endure before being allowed to elect their own local representatives?

Let us be clear: Kuala Lumpur should already have an elected mayor and council. There is no democratic justification for further delays.

A broken promise since 1965

Local government elections were suspended in 1965 during the Indonesian Confrontation, with the explicit assurance that they would be restored once the emergency ended.

The emergency ended, but democracy never returned.

All these years, the Alliance and later Barisan Nasional (BN) and then Pakatan Harapan (PH) refused to restore local elections. Their motive was obvious: appointed councillors ensured political control, patronage and insulation from voter accountability.

Tragically, Pakatan Harapan has continued this anti-democratic practice in Selangor and Penang since 2008. Despite enjoying state power for more than a decade, Pakatan Harapan chose political appointments over democratic elections.

Local councils became convenient training grounds for party loyalists and NGO allies. The predictable fallout – factional disputes, complaints from excluded activists, and the entrenchment of patronage politics – has exposed the bankruptcy of this system.

A capital without democracy

Nowhere is this democratic deficit more glaring than Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. KL residents of pay some of the highest assessment rates, endure controversial mega-projects and suffer from congestion, floods and urban mismanagement. Yet they cannot elect their mayor or councillors.

Instead of committing to a clear timetable for directly elected Kuala Lumpur mayoral elections, the Ministry of Federal Territories now proposes more ‘research’. This is democratic procrastination masquerading as technocracy.

‘We can’t afford it’?

Past leaders have claimed that local elections are too costly or that the country must first stabilise its finances. The infamous ‘RM1tn national debt’ narrative was even invoked by PH in 2018 to justify postponement.

This argument collapses when we recall that the Kuala Lumpur municipal elections of 1952 were held before independence, when Malaya was far poorer.

At independence, local elections continued because appointments were recognised as a colonial and undemocratic practice. If a poor, pre-independence Malaya could afford local democracy, what excuse does middle-income Malaysia have today?

The race relations red herring

Opponents have long argued that local elections would deepen racial divisions. In 2017, Dr Mahathir Mohamad warned that elected councils might polarise people along ethnic lines, with Chinese-majority urban councils and Malay-majority rural ones.

This is historically dishonest. The real reason local elections were abolished in the 1960s was political: many towns and cities were being won by the opposition, including the Socialist Front.

Moreover, non-partisan local elections are common worldwide, including in major US cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. Malaya itself had non-partisan local councils before 1960.

There is no reason race and religion must dominate over service delivery, urban planning and ratepayer welfare.

Local democracy and education

Elected local government could help depoliticise education by allowing local education authorities – once provided for under the Education Act 1961 – to allocate resources based on community needs rather than federal political calculations.

Their disappearance in the Education Act 1996 symbolised the centralisation and politicisation of education policy. Restoring local democracy would help return schools to communities, not politicians.

No taxation without representation

Ratepayers fund local councils through assessment taxes, yet have zero democratic control over how their money is spent. This violates the core democratic principle of no taxation without representation.

The Athi Nahappan Royal Commission report in 1968 recommended restoring elected local government. But BN ignored it, setting a disgraceful precedent of shelving royal commission recommendations.

The commission concluded that elected councils, despite imperfections, are far superior to nominated ones.

The foundation of democracy

Local authorities manage housing, transport, public health, planning, environment and community services. They are the primary units of government where democracy should be most immediate and meaningful.

Residents protesting reckless development projects, women, workers and marginalised groups need channels for participation. Local councils provide precisely that democratic entry point.

Enough delays, enough excuses please!

Now, Hannah Yeoh’s ministry tells us more ‘research’ is needed before Kuala Lumpur can elect its mayor.

But Malaysia has already practised local elections before independence, received royal commission recommendations, witnessed decades of civil society advocacy, observed global models of elected mayors and councils.

Research is not the problem. Political courage is.

PH promised to restore local government elections. Delaying them – whether through financial excuses, racial scare tactics or technocratic studies – is a betrayal of democratic principles and manifesto commitments.

Local council elections are not a policy experiment. They are a democratic right denied for six decades.

No buts. No more research. Kuala Lumpur and all cities in Malaysia must elect their mayors and councillors now.

Kua Kia Soong, a former MP, is the director of human rights group Suaram.

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