The local council reform that has just been announced makes an attempt to improve the workings of these entities which, in the last 15 years, have more or less helped to make life better for the residents of the 68 localities.

The words “attempt” and “more or less” are used purposely because, as the saying goes, you may take a horse to the water, but you cannot force it to drink. Through the reform, the government is aiming to make local councils more accountable, but it stops short of forcing them to work and carry out their duties properly, and requesting that they do more than the minimum.

The 15 years of experience we have had with local councils have shown that there are localities that have made big strides forward. Some localities have been literally transformed, thanks to a council with a hard-working mayor at the helm. Others have practically remained the same as they were 15 years ago, not to say worse, simply because the council did not carry out its duties as it should have, maybe because a know-it-all mayor was too arrogant to listen to what the residents were saying and too lazy to do something more than he or she is required to.

Some mayors have handed out a chocolate box all residents could enjoy, while others gave them a dry bone lost in a heap of empty promises.

The parliamentary secretariat responsible for the local council reform must have been in a quandary when it came to deciding whether to cap the number of times that a mayor can serve his or her locality.

Suggestions to limit this to two terms, for a total of eight years with the new arrangements, would have been on the one hand detrimental in cases where mayors deserve to continue with their sterling work, and on the other hand beneficial where mayors do close to nothing and yet, for some reason or other, are re-elected.

What the secretariat must have thought when it came to discussing this issue is that, after all, it is the residents who elect their representatives, and if they continue to elect a hard-working mayor then it’s all well and good for them; and if they elect a bad mayor then it’s their problem. And, in a way, this makes sense.

What the secretariat did not take into consideration in this equation is that there are mayors who are elected because they are popular with the residents for the hard work they put in, and there are mayors who get re-elected either because there is unfortunately no one else who can take their place or because they have enough personal votes to see them through each time they contest, even though they do not deserve to be re-elected.

But then, again, it is up to the residents to oust mayors – and councillors, for that matter – if they are not living up to the expectations.

The thing is, residents should learn from their mistakes.

If a mayor is so hard-working that he is appreciated by both sides of the political spectrum, and can have a double-page spread in a newspaper every six months because of the amount of work carried out in the locality he serves and the number of activities that the local council organises, then he deserves to be given a second, a third and even a fourth chance.

But if a mayor is not approachable because of his arrogant ways and the council’s work is restricted to the minimum of things that local councils are responsible for, then it is up to the residents to do away with him. If they choose to re-elect him, then it’s totally their fault that their locality is in a shambles.

Residents sometimes under-estimate the power of their vote. Some use it wisely, others should learn from past experiences.