Why your vote matters

Tomorrow, the polls open for a local government election (LGE) with a difference – an election called after a Privy Council decision that the extension of terms of office for councillors and aldermen was unlawful.

The reason for that extension was local government reform.

Those changes will grant elected councillors and the aldermen who lead them with a more important role in the management of communities empowered by access to money from the planned property-tax regime.

How it will work is still to be explained in procedural detail, and the revenue to municipal corporations won't change immediately.

Local government elections traditionally don't command a good turnout of voters.

The 2020 general election attracted 58.08 per cent of the electorate to the polls. The last local government election brought 34.49 percent of voters out to exercise their franchise.

This year's pre-LGE campaigning was conducted at a pitch normally associated with a general election, suggesting that for both the Government and the Opposition, the outcome represents more than a litmus test of relative popularity.

Councillors and aldermen wielding more power to improve the lives of their communities and operating with a far more intimate engagement with the voters who put them in office will bring the parties they represent into a much closer relationship with the voting public than ever before.

If this strengthening of local governance works the way it is supposed to, councillors elected to office in 2023 are positioned to drive one of the most significant changes to the way the business of the country is managed since Independence Day in 1962.

But party politics remains the default courting tactic for voters, not the nuanced solutions that each community will require.

Nineteen different political parties contested seats in the 2020 general election, the most consisting of a single independent candidate, though only the People's Democratic Party broke through the two-party hegemony with a sweeping win in Tobago.

The reality of local government is that boroughs are often run by councils with a mix of party representatives overseen by aldermen representing the majority party's winners.

But the vote on Monday is not just for the candidate of a party; it is also for an ideal to which each candidate must ultimately be held accountable.

With increased power to govern also comes a greater expectation of responsibility in office and demonstrated respect for maintaining the resources of the commons.

The ambition of local government reform to increase the autonomy of municipalities must also hold them accountable for effective use of their budgets.

Candidates may offer themselves in party colours, but as officials of local government, their ultimate responsibility is to the communities that elected them to office.