State and Local Government Indistinguishably Intertwined

We will now be electing our regional local governments. Even amid the election campaign, it is appropriate to note that it was under Miloš Zeman’s government in 1998 that the country was chopped-up into fourteen regions. Some of them were so small that European money could not flow into them and artificial super-regions had to be raised over them.  It was at this time that the idea of returning to the all-country establishment (with the district offices as state subsidiaries) was dropped for good. It was, however, not a mere idea but, in fact, a comprehensive package of bills proposed by my government in 1992. The Czech National Council presidency did not even table them. Indeed, panic had set in that a new dualism would occur and the Moravians would follow the Slovaks in splitting. It was nonsense but it had an impact.

Even before that, the government did something you simply do not do in a parliamentary regime. Hesitantly, somewhat tentatively, in a rough draft attempt, they asked the Chamber of Deputies: “What do you fancy? For the self-government and state administration to separate, or for both agendas to join?” Just as your waiter may inquire how you want the steak. Bloody, well-done, or medium. This, however, is not supposed to be the way affairs pass between the government and the parliament! The government has the responsibility to come up with its own proposal and have it approved, or leave defeated. Through its vote, unanticipated by the Rules of Procedure, the Chamber told the waiter that they want it … charred. The local and state government mashed together. The MP’s might have thought to themselves that the elected representatives can hire civil servants to clean up the mess. State and local governments have become indistinguishably intertwined. The local government was absolutely blurred. The state strengthened.

This intertwining burdens municipalities and towns with more formerly state-performed agendas. The state often adds no extra money to them for that. This partial interlocking may have some practical benefits. That is, for  the state, certainly. For the most important part, it was and remains a stodgy double-cross on the self-government. The citizen approaches the municipality or the city authority and has no idea whether she or he is approaching the local or state authority. People do not even ask any more: they just run the errand. Not even the one who happens to convey their case at the moment knows whether she or he acts as a councillor or as an officer. Often times, it is both at the same time.

However, the term ‘self-government’ means that people manage their affairs locally; that the state can only have a say in the form of general binding rules. It is, if you wish, one of those ever harped-on European values. One of the freedoms from the always and everywhere stretching state.

It may never mend. Even so, this historical reminder makes sense. At least as long as the elected representatives withstand tendencies of further government agendas to descend onto their loins – so that they could tell the citizens (where possible): ‘This is us, the ones you have elected, and that is the State.’

Just as it does now, self-government is going to need defence even next time.