CHAPTER THREE: DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE Decentralisation and local democracy 167. Decentralisation is enshrined in the Constitution, which considers communes (municipalities) and wilayas to be decentralised entities, and also in several pieces of legislation, including the 2006 City Act. The country is subdivided into 1541 communes falling under 48 wilayas, the intermediary level between the communes and the state. They have legal personality and financial autonomy and their powers are protected by law, which confers on them the authority to manage local or wilaya affairs with the support of the state. They may also establish partnerships and contractual programmes with the state and other partners for the administration of the territory or the development of the city. 168. The Popular Assemblies of the Communes and the Wilayas are democratically elected. They deliberate on and adopt their budgets and development plans. Their own resources, derived from local taxation and investments, are used to develop these plans. They also enjoy government subsidies and are able to borrow finance. 169. Assessment of decentralisation highlights certain achievements, including promotion of the politically plural nature of local assemblies, improvement in local governance as a result of successive elections, and the progressive involvement of civil society in assuming responsibility for services in the area. The assessment also highlights problems such as the insufficient financial resources of decentralised communities, poor implementation of legislation, ineffectiveness of decentralisation, the limited role of local assemblies, lack of monitoring and assessment of activities and accounting. These problems are related to the implementation of actions initiated at the different decisionmaking levels (commune, wilaya and central government). 170. An opinion survey revealed that 33.68 per cent of the people interviewed believed that the elected members of the Popular Assembly of the Communes (APC) “never act in the interests of the electorate” – 31.46 per cent in the case of the elected members of the Popular Assembly of the Wilaya (APW); 41.08 per cent of the interviewees believed that the elected members of the APC “only sometimes acted” in the interests of the electorate (38.68 per cent in the case of the elected members of the APW), whereas only 3.23 per cent maintained that the APC always acted in the interests of the electorate (3.30 per cent in the case of the elected members of the APW). The same survey nonetheless indicated that decentralisation was viewed favourably by the interviewees. 171. Reform of the decentralised system is envisaged, in order to achieve greater participation by the citizenry, closer alignment between the administered and the administration (although stakeholders remain deeply divided on the matter of regionalisation), improved allocation of national resources and improved local governance. 70