Lubartów, March 2020
Promises, good things, and the fool's joy.
Cunning or common sense? After all, both terms are synonyms of pragmatism.
There is such a (wrong) view that party affiliation in local government does not matter.
Why is this view wrong? For two reasons.
The first is that when concluding coalition agreements, we are dealing with taking positions. So, if you vote for the A group, that is, Wspólny Lubartów, and you know that it is getting along with the B group, that is, the Civic Coalition, you assume that there will be representatives of AB in the authorities. You do not assume that C, which is Law and Justice, will appear there. With your specific political views. Of course, this is a practical example, theoretically the letters can be rearranged freely.
And the second reason relates more directly to election promises.
There are voters who pay little attention to election promises. It is enough for them that Mr. X is from the A group. This may not exactly mean that the voter knows what his delegate will do, but generally knows what he will be against.
There is another group of voters who may not read the program thoroughly, but are seduced by the rhetoric of the candidate "what good will I do / did". Doesn't check, but is impressed.
Finally, there is a third group that reads electoral programs and is interested in what a candidate has to offer a particular constituency and himself.
How does it look more practical? In Lubartów, the Lubartów Joint Election Committee gained the upper hand. The Mayor of this Committee also won, although the support he received in the second round from the opponents has to be taken into account. This committee promised different things on a page that is not there.
For example, higher subsidies for the prices of water and sewage. For example, the departure of Lubartów from the Union of Communal Communes of the Lubartów Region.
But in the meantime, he concluded a coalition agreement with the same grouping C, that is, Law and Justice, for which the AB voter by no means voted. And he broke it off KO, or made a surprise.
What will it do? That in the future, according to the view of Committee C, for example, about higher subsidies for the year, there is nothing to think about, because the latter has the opinion that the local government is not about supporting the inhabitants. Likewise with garbage prices.
Will voter B support the candidate of Group A in the next second round?
There is no need to wonder if the candidates in their leaflets will mention changes in views and broken promises. They won't.
We do it. We remind you who promised what. We also want our recipients to know more about the functioning of local government. So that they know which promises do not fall within the competence of the City Council or the Mayor. So as not to be fooled.
There is no policy locally? If you have certain views, you do it - tax, educational, and so on.
View A: We will enact higher taxes for education.
View B: We will enact higher taxes for the roads.
C view: We will lower the taxes of the inhabitants.
It's politics.
The City Council and the Mayor make their own decisions. But it is the inhabitants who create the self-governing community. They elect their delegates. And it is they who have the right to know how these delegates work. They have the right to demand explanations as to why such and no other decision was made. They have the right to know who took it.
We are asking this as a watchdog organization.
Control of power is the right of every citizen.
