A significant percentage of contact between the state and the people occurs on the local level. Local government is responsible for providing public services, such as security, street lighting and maintenance, waste collection, road safety, traffic control, and fire departments. Essentially, waste piling in the streets, poor street lighting, an absent sense of safety and many other problems that Egyptians suffer from on a daily basis are the outcome of ineffective local administrations. This makes its reform pivotal to the increasing the quality of citizen’s everyday life, yet reforming the local governance system is garnering very little attention in the current constitutional drafting. A transition to democratic, decentralized local governance will move decision-making from the national to the local level, allowing for localized solutions and programs to be implemented to better serve its constituency. Democratic local governments are socially accountable to the public and hence this right is closely tied to the right to public participation.
 

What is the Right to Democratic Local Government?

The right to democratic local government is the right for Egyptians to elect representatives to their local governing bodies who are vested with the authority to make decisions about public services in their locality without direct oversight and undue interference of the central government. Local governments that are close to citizens and understand their problems are held accountable more easily and are more responsive to citizens’ needs. Local governments vested with decision-making authority can better direct public services in the effort to raise the overall standard of living. Finally, local governments are more effective when they serve all citizens, regardless of religion, race, gender, class, income, ethnicity, or level of education.
 

What is the Impact of the Right to Democratic Local Government on our Everyday Life?

Local Administration Structure

The current system of local administration is a reflection of the highly centralized ideology and practices of the national government.¹ Egypt does not have local government, but local administration. A local government would have the power to set their own agenda, create their own laws, raise and spend their own revenue, or make decisions about the future development of their area. Unfortunately, the role of local officials in the last few decades has been not to govern their local constituency, but to administer a national agenda. In order to ensure the national agenda is implemented throughout the country, the central government appoints the majority of local officials, including governors and other heads of local bodies. This has resulted in the local administration applying cookie-cutter programs and solutions and not being able to customize to address its constituents’ priority list and deprives the people from a local administrative ruler that is accountable only to them, not the executive authority that appointed them. Appointing governors and local non-technical officials is not a global norm; 75% of the world’s population have the power to elect their governor/mayor.

The local administration is primarily run by the executive municipalities on direction from the national government. Members of the Local Popular Councils (LPCs) are the only elected government officials in the local administration, but their authority is severely restricted by legislation and their role is largely consultative. The relative importance of the LPCs to the national agenda is evident in the fact that Egypt has been without them since mid-2012 and it is unlikely they will resume their function until well after the Presidential and parliamentary elections expected in 2014. Under the last parliament, the LPCs were dissolved and the local administration structure was changed; the appointed executive municipalities were removed and the elected LPCs were tasked with the executive local administration role. Even though giving elected council local executive powers may seem like a move toward democracy, it attracted a lot of criticism from public administration experts. This new structure inadvertently annuls the LPCs main mission, keeping the administration accountable to the people. How is the LPC to be accountable to itself?

Another deficiency in the local administration structure is the representation of informal areas. Many of these areas are not fairly represented due to administrative boundaries that do not align with how the population settled, leaving homogenous urban areas that house hundreds of thousands, divided administratively into two or more districts. This is the case in Ezbet Khayralla, where the north region falls under “Old Cairo” district, the south is mostly part of the “Dar al-Salam” district, a small eastern part is with “Basatin”, and the main entrance to the Ezba falls under the jurisdiction of “al-Khalifa” district. This fragmentation deprives the people from using their collective voice to advocate for their needs. This problem is not exclusive to residents of low-income or informal areas, some affluent areas; particularly new desert cities built around Cairo’s peripheries do not have elected representation on the local level. These residents are from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, yet both lack a voice and representation in the local administration. Local administration cannot run democratically without the input of the people (see the Right to Public Participation) and the current system does not have a mechanism, through which the public can directly provide input without going through their representative, whether it is reporting malpractice of officials or service providers, or suggesting solutions to a local problem.
 
Barriers to Effective Democratic Local Governance

There are several barriers for elected representatives to effectively participate in local administration in Egypt. For example, elected representatives in local councils, who theoretically are the voice of the people, do not always have the technical capacity and insight to properly monitor and evaluate the administration’s plans, not to mention the tilted power dynamics in the local administration system and rampant corruption. This is in addition to the dominance of political parties, which was evident in the elections conducted since 2011, which limits independent representatives and opens the opportunity for political alliances and agendas to supersede the public interest. This problem is not particular to Egypt, but nonetheless, it needs to be addressed.
Budgetary constraints are a vital barrier to the effectiveness of the local administration system. Local administration budgets accounted for only 12% of the national Egyptian budget in 2012/2013, compared to the 20-30% international average for emerging economies, which demonstrates where local administration falls in national priorities.² How is the local administration expected to improve services offered to the public if it is under such resource restraints?
 

The Right To Democratic Local Government in the Egyptian Constitution

Articles 175 through 183 of the 2014 constitution (articles 183 through 192 of the 2012 Constitution) address local administration in Egypt. It is our opinion that these articles do very little to strengthen local government in Egypt and do not represent a significant shift from previous constitutions.

What will local administration look like if the draft constitution is adopted in its current form? It will have younger faces and more women representation, with the minimum age of candidates lowered to 21 (from 35 years old) and a quarter of the seats allocated to youth (younger than 35 years old) and another quarter to women. Article 180 states that:

Every local unit elects a Local Council by direct, secret ballot for a term of four years. A candidate must be no younger than 21 years old. The law regulates other conditions for candidacy and procedures of election, provided that one quarter of the seats are allocated to youth under 35 years old, one quarter is allocated for women, workers and farmers are represented by no less than 50 percent of the total number of seats, and these percentages include a proper representation of Christians and people with disability.

What are the responsibilities of the Local Council? Article 180 continues:

Local councils are responsible for developing and implementing the development plan, monitoring the activity’s different aspects, exercising the tools of monitoring the executive authority such as proposals, and submitting questions, briefing motions, interpellations and others, and withdrawing confidence from the heads of local units, in the manner organized by law. The law defines the mandate of other local councils, their financial sources, guarantees of its members, and their independence.

This is a step forward from the 2012 Constitution and the draft prepared by the Committee of 10, both, which allocated the task of assigning the local council’s responsibilities to the judiciary branch.

The division of administrative zones across the nation is stated in Article 183 in the 2012 constitution; Article 175 in the 2014 constitution added that “the establishment, alteration or dissolution of boundaries between (local) units should account for local economic conditions and cultural dimensions in a manner organized by law.” This can be used as a foundation to rectify representation problems in areas such as ‘Izbit Khayrallah discussed above.

The 2014 constitution gives Local Councils room to operate with more independence. Article 178 states that the Local Councils are to have independent financial budgets, which are to include revenues from locally generated taxes and resources allocated from the national government. On the other hand, Article 181 gives centrally-appointed executive authorities the right to interfere with Local Council decisions in specific cases “to prevent the Council from overstepping these limits, or causing damage to the public interest or the interests of other local councils.” But who decides what these limits are? Or what is in public interest? This article threatens the independence of the local administration system from the executive authority.

The question of executive authority is another important point. Article 179 states, “The law regulates the manner in which governors and heads of other local administrative units are selected, and defines their mandate.” Why are governors and heads of local administrative units appointed by the central government? In law and in practice, these executive authorities hold the greatest amount of power in local administration. They have the most authority to implement a local agenda. These positions should be filled by direct election and held accountable to the people, not the central government.
 

Global Examples

The system of local government in any nation is a reflection of the ideology and practices of the national government. A nation’s constitution details the ideology and aspirations of its people and is born out of unique cultural and historical circumstances. This is especially true for articles dealing with the responsibilities and autonomy of local governments. Some constitutions are very brief on the structural organization of local administration, such as the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and South Korean Constitution (1949) Articles 117 and 118, leaving the legislative bodies the responsibility of further defining the roles and responsibilities of local governments.¬ Other constitutions, such as the Constitution of South Africa or the Constitution of Thailand are very detailed on the subject of local government.

South Africa’s Constitution (1996) was drafted after a long period in which local government and local regulations were used as a way to oppress the black population. As a result, the South African Constitution is very specific about the roles, responsibilities, and limits of the local government. The section on local government runs well over 2,000 words and includes 13 different articles that defines the status of municipalities, the objectives of local government, the developmental duties of municipalities, the role of municipalities in cooperating with provincial and national governments, the establishment of municipalities, the powers and functions of municipalities, the composition and election of municipal councils, the requirements for membership of the municipal councils, the terms of municipal councils, the internal procedures of municipal councils, and the requirement to publish municipal by-laws. In other words, local government was too important an issue for South Africans to be left to be defined by law.

The Constitution of Thailand (2007) is another example of a constitution that provides an expansive section on local government. Article 281 lays out the fundamental principles of local government.

Subject to Article 1 [of the Constitution], the State shall give autonomy to the locality in accordance with the principle of self-government according to the will of the people in the locality and shall promote the role of a local administration to be the key agency in the provision of public service and the participative role in making decisions to solve local problems. Any locality which meets the conditions of self- government shall have the right to be formed as a local government organization as provided by law.

Through the six articles that follow, the Thai Constitution then fleshes out each of these principles. Local assemblies are filled by direct election and local administrative councils may be indirectly election by the local assemblies or through direct election. No local administrators or assembly members can be appointed by higher levels of government (Article 284). Article 283 grants local governments the “powers and duties to oversee and to provide the public services for the benefit of local people and shall enjoy autonomy in laying down policies for administration and provision of public services, personnel administration, fiscal and financial matters. …” Article 283 also commits the state to supporting local governments “so that they can be strong and able to administer independently and efficiently responsive to the needs of the local people.” This is followed by the recognition that not all local governments have the capacity to take on the full range of responsibility detailed in the Constitution, but commits the state to decentralizing power and authority in parallel to the growth in capacity at the local level.

The Thai Constitution also provides mechanisms through which the people may express themselves through mechanisms other than elections. Article 282 provides for “a people-based scrutinizing mechanism” of the supervision of local government. Article 285 allows for the people to remove “any member of the local assembly, any local administrative committee or any administrator of that local government organization” through a public vote. Article 287 guarantees the right “to participate in administration of the activities of the local government organizations,” and requires the local government to “provide the method so that the people can participate in such activities.” Article 287 also requires the government to be proactive in providing information about any government action that “will affect substantially the life and living conditions of the local people … an ample period of time before undertaking the action.” Local governments are also required to share information about the “work progress in the preparation of budgets, expenditure, and the results of the performance during the year so that the people can participate in the review and overseeing of the management of the local government organization.”
 

The Way Forward

It is not realistic to expect the local administration to be decentralized and reformed overnight, and thus a transitory period is expected but a clear and transparent implementation plan needs to be in place to see that transition through. Given the discrepancy between the laws that define the roles and responsibilities of local government and the practices of local government in Egypt, other countries have shown how constitutional articles can lay out a path for democratic reform at the local level. The articles are based on the following principles: