Establishment of Party Committees to Prepare Draft Municipal, Wilaya Laws

Political parties have begun preparing their proposals on municipal and Wilaya laws by forming specialized committees that include former and current MPs, local elected officials, and legal experts.

This comes as the National People’s Assembly prepares to install a special committee consisting of two MPs from each parliamentary bloc this Monday. The committee will discuss and enrich legislative texts related to the development of local communities’ work.

This step comes a week after the political parties, the two chambers of parliament, and the Constitutional Court received copies of the draft municipal and Wilaya laws, to expand the scope of discussion around them, especially since the presidential committee that supervised the preparation of the draft introduced fundamental amendments affecting the field of local administration, including strengthening the powers of elected councils and regulating the relationship between local bodies and central authorities, to improve the effectiveness of local performance and meeting development needs.

In this context, the Secretary General of the National Liberation Front Party, Abdelkrim Benmbarek, appointed a special committee tasked with enriching the draft municipal and Wilaya laws, which includes party frames and MPs in both chambers, in addition to the President of the Algiers People’s Wilaya Assembly and several mayors. This committee is headed by a member of the Political Bureau and former MP Messaoud Chihoub.

According to what “Echorouk” has learned, this committee will work on preparing proposals for the two projects, based on the previous ground raised by the party, as the latter had previously called for amendments to the draft municipal law, especially in the part related to expanding the powers of the heads of the municipal people’s councils.

In contrast, the committee established at the level of the Rally for National Democracy has been working since last weekend to prepare its draft regarding the municipal and wilaya laws by involving elected officials and leaders specialized in local affairs.

For its part, the National Construction Movement (el-binaa) announced that it is continuing to study and review the two preliminary projects submitted by the National Committee, stressing that the party has previously formed a special committee comprising former and current MPs and elected officials with experience in local affairs.

In the same context, the Socialist Forces Front party revealed the formation of a specialized committee comprising legal experts, elected officials and frames to study the two preliminary projects related to the municipality and the wilaya.

The party indicated that the committee will begin its meetings soon to prepare proposals and enrichments in line with its own vision for the management of local communities, a vision it has previously expressed on several occasions.

It should be noted that the National People’s Assembly is scheduled to set up a special committee this Monday, December 23, to study the draft municipal and wilaya laws and prepare its proposals regarding them.

This step comes in parallel with the National Assembly’s installation of a similar committee next Wednesday, with the aim of strengthening the role of local groups in local development by improving the legislation related to them.