At the end of this week local council elections will be held for the first time in three years. Following the 2009 reform, there was a rather long gap to allow for the measures implemented to take root – half of the localities will vote this year, with the rest doing so next year.

This newspaper has argued several times that the participation of political parties in local council elections is often detrimental to the overall cause, as local councils often end up as being the platform for bickering on a national political level which can only cause harm.

Seeing that this system will not change, at least anytime soon, we can only hope that the political parties will not continue to see local councils as a way to attack each other, but rather as a tool to make life better for the residents. Sadly, it is hard to imagine that this will happen.

So residents should use their vote wisely. They should weed out the good from the bad, and should see that they elect the right people for the job.

For example, mayors who have been unproductive should not be elected again. Mayors who have been ruling the locality for a long time but who have never given heed to the problems that afflict the locality, or who ignore the interests of areas just because the number of residents there is too small to make an impact, should be put aside.

One idea that this newspaper has put forward is that of having mayors only elected for a maximum of two terms - which with the current system would amount to eight years. Longer than that, a mayor might think that he owns the locality and start acting like a dictator.

It is so sad to note that some mayors are only interested in doing something when the time comes for them to ask to be re-elected. There are mayors who are hardly seen anywhere but, in the weeks leading up to the election, they appear to be busy doing something. A simple example – why should a large pothole take four years to be patched up properly? Why is this 30-minute job done on the eve of an election?

That is why we say that residents should use their vote wisely. They should do away with mayors and councillors who twiddled their thumbs for years or who built their own local empire, and elect people who will really work hard to serve them and their locality.

It is only in this way that local councils will be fulfilling their role.