LOCAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Responsibility of Political Parties – Pre-Elections Fairytales or Post-Elections Reality?

The idea of a project of this kind has been inspired by the findings obtained by CeSID's volunteers at the local elections held on 19 th September, 2004 .

The findings of the research on the pre-election promises of the candidates, conducted on that occasion, pointed to the fact that on one hand party campaigns abound in most frequently unreal pre-election promises to citizens concerning their life in the local community, and on the other hand excessive and fierce criticisms of their political opponents.

However, the ratio of power in the local representative bodies, after the elections, made the parties form diverse coalitions with partners with different programs, even with the parties that had been the object of the most negative campaign in the pre-election period. The impression was that citizens' interest and fulfilling of the promises given in the pre-elections period, remained subordinate to the post-elections combinations of political parties.

The unprincipled conduct of political subjects creates an impression among citizens that coming and remaining into power are the basic motives for political activism. To such a conduct of local committees of political parties, according to our opinion, also contributes the pressure put by the central party bodies, which are out of tune with citizens' problems and demands concerning the characteristics of the life in the local community.

Owing to such a situation, apart from other factors, the already low level of citizens' activism is further decreasing. Citizens, disappointed by the post-elections goings-on and by disregard for the pre-elections promises, are losing their interest in the political process.

The last public opinion research, conducted by CeSID after the elections, gave reliable and worrying data on the level of citizens' apathy and dissatisfaction. The findings of the research pointed to the cause of those occurrences: disappointment at and distrust in political parties. One of the consequences of such an attitude of citizens is higher and higher level of electoral abstinence.

The media, the main creators of public opinion, do not pay enough attention to analytical and research journalism, to cherishing a critical approach towards observing parties' inconsistencies and goings-on in local authority bodies. The reasons for such attitude of the media are numerous: ignorance of the methods for monitoring the work of political parties and municipal bodies, lack of information about pre-elections promises of political parties, lack of understanding of the relations between parties, ignorance of program and ideological direction of political parties and the way in which it deviates from practical politics at the local level.

The goals of the project are:

• Increasing the control of the work of political parties' local committees
• Influencing the increase in political consistency and responsibility of political parties;
• Increasing their decentralization.
• Analysis of the influence of inter-party relations on the work of municipal assemblies;
• Familiarizing citizens with the work of municipal assemblies;

The implementation of this project will contribute to increasing political responsibility and consistency of political parties in the pre-elections and post-elections periods, as well as to increasing the citizens' awareness of the need and significance of the control of the work of political parties and authority bodies in the local community. We are assured that achieving these goals will have as its consequence the increase in electoral and social participation of citizens. The expected long-term influence of this project will be the increased control of the work of political parties. Reporting on the work of political parties will represent a contribution to a more transparent political process, especially in a post-electoral period. This way of civic and neutral control of the consistency of political parties in implementing their own political programs and goals, we believe, will lead to increasing the consistency of political parties in post-elections coalitions, to more responsible work after coming into power and to decreasing the electoral abstinence of citizens, which is, mainly, caused by the distrust in parties' functioning after coming into power.

The activities on the project are: collecting data on pre-elections campaigns of political parties and on citizens' attitudes, monitoring the work of local authority bodies, as well as the analysis of the collected data and their presentation in the public in the course of the closing month of the project implementation.

The beneficiaries of this project are mainly citizens. The project will contribute to political parties' consistency, as well as to their work to the benefit of citizens, but also to increasing the citizens' awareness of the need of their activism for the sake of more efficient control of the work of political parties and local authority bodies. The committees of the parties that participate in the local authority will have the benefit from the project, since they will be able to notice from the results of the project in which issues they disagree with citizens, where they lose their trust and what should be done to gain their trust again. The beneficiaries of the project will also be the local media and NGOs.

CeSID's local collaborators and volunteers, who will gain valuable experience within the planned activities in monitoring the work of municipal assemblies, will have the possibility to pass their knowledge on the media and local NGOs, as the main creators of public opinion in the local community. The target group of the project are also political parties at the local level. We are assured that local committees of political parties through these activities on this project will perceive some shortcomings in their work and make positive changes. The changes refer to increasing political consistency and responsibility towards citizens and other parties, decentralization in relation to the leadership and their general democratization.

CeSID has been conducting the project “Responsibility of Political Parties – Pre-Elections Fairytales or Post-Elections Reality?” with the support of Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

Four municipalities are included in the project: Kraljevo, Jagodina, Leskovac and Pancevo.

The project was commenced on 1 March 2005 and lasted until 1 August 2005.