ISSUE No. 11/1999

Government And Citizens: Face To Face

by Dimiter Rouskov, TV journalist

Every wage increase is automatic; salaries go up by a fixed percentage. This further deepens the differences between the individual categories of servants. In the process of forming new wage rates the respective material and financial responsibilities for each position are not considered - for example, a cook, an office manager or the head of the administrative unit at a municipal kindergarten would get equal pay for equal educational qualifications. Who are the people who receive an average salary in Plovdiv?

These and many other questions and implications heat up the telephone lines of the public TV in Plovdiv on a July evening. The TV broadcasts live the "Government and Citizens: Face to Face" program. The host of the porgram, Evgenii Todorov, has invited Stoyanka Bagryanova, Alexander Konstantinov and Andrey Zahariev, municipal councilors from the former Municipal Council of Plovdiv. The debate is on the recent salary increase in the budget sphere. Ex-Mayor Spas Gurnevski also participates through a live phone call. The focus of the discussion is on whether the fixed-percent increase of budget salaries is real, and if the Municipal Council could assume it. Those who govern stand face to face with the citizens of Plovdiv. The latter act as a corrective to the decisions of the former.

The above-mentioned TV approach was a novelty. The program "Government and Citizens: Face to Face" is regularly broadcast twice a month.

The program was launched in June 1999, in partnership with the Municipal Council, the local district councils and "Lawyers for Civil Rights"[1]. It is financed by the Foundation for Local Government Reform (FLGR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The need for the project came as a result of the scarcity of information about the sessions of the Municipal Council, the decisions taken by the Council, as well as of their implementation. Thus, a large number of citizens were unable to exercise their right of initiative and of active participation in the process of democratic governance. The TV project enhances the meaning of the all-too-familiar sentence of art. 27, par. 2 of the Local Self-Government Act, and offers a novel interpretation. The above-mentioned article reads as follows: "any resolution shall be made public". Consequently, thanks to the TV project "Government and Citizens: Face to Face", broadcast by the public TV in Plovdiv and "A & K Television", a number of issues of significant interest to the citizens were discussed and, thus, people were made aware of these. The topics include: the failed gazification of Plovdiv; the problems of the city's public transport; the municipality's financial statement over the first nine months of the year; debates in the local parliament on the issue of awarding the builders of the "Rhodopi" highway overpass; etc.

Krassimir Obretenov, Chair of the Municipal Council at that time, was guest at the first show of the program. Since then, until the last day of the term of the former legislative body of the city, guests to the program have been: Spas Gurnevski, ex-Mayor of Plovdid; Valentina Semerdjieva, Head of the Municipal Finance Department; distinguished local legislators of different political parties. In the course of several months, the live broadcasts always preceded the sessions of the Municipal Council, highlighted a topic on which the guests stated their views, and the citizens acted as a corrective by TV polls or by proposals and questions they asked on the hot line.

In this way about 200,000 viewers of Plovdiv's public TV, cable and air, have been informed in advance of the points of view of every political power on a certain problem of the city, and have been direct participants in local self-government.

The main idea of "Government and Citizens: Face to Face" TV programme was to focus on the progress and development of local self-government in Plovdiv. In fact, it allows an audience (TV-viewers), which is much larger than the members of the Council, to get acquainted with the policy, style and methods of work, the importance of the discussions, and the implementation of the decisions adopted by the local parliament. The possibility for greater publicity and transparency of these processes gave citizens the necessary information, and provoked their thinking and personal initiative.

It is no accident that when expressing their opinion on the debates so far, Krassimir Obretenov and ex-Mayor Gurnevski said: "The inherent objectivity of the "Government and Citizens: Face to Face" program turns it into a corrective to the people who govern the city of Plovdiv, and into a mediator between them and the citizens. In this way, the project has given sufficient proof of its necessity with respect to the relations between the Municipal Council, the municipal administration and the citizens. The "Government and Citizens: Face to Face" project is a major media solution and a factor for the development of civil society."

The team, which implements the project, has a significant TV experience in working in similar topics. The program is always hosted by Evgenii Todorov jointly with Dimiter Rouskov. Petko Shoilekov is Project Coordinator. The Program is directed by Peter Alexiev who is assisted by cameramen Rumen Nemski, Kostadin Savov, Todor Daskalov, Alexander Alexiev and other TV specialists, all of whom are practitioners with long experience. The specialists from the Foundation for Local Government Reform (FLGR) and partner organizations from Plovdiv also formed part of the team, and contributed with their correctness and assistance to the implementation of the project. The team of the "Government and Citizens: Face to Face" program shoots each session of the Municipal Council. The most interesting parts are being covered in one-hour broadcasts. These broadcasts offer to the public an impartial coverage of the statements made by representatives of different political parties. The team abides by the principle that the coverage of municipal sessions should contain as little author's text as possible. As a result, local legislators have the floor, which allows viewers to feel the ambience in the local parliament and to witness its work on the TV screen.

The local parliament sessions often turn into an arena of personal confrontations and "washing of dirty linen in public". It is common practice for municipal councilors to exchange acrimonious remarks; however, true to its "face-to-face" principle, the team releases these to the viewers. The team believes that the citizens of Plovdiv have the right to be informed about the activities of the local government and about the existing relations.

The members of the project team believe that the project presents a new approach to public life, to transparency and to enabling a dialogue between the local government and citizens. TV broadcasts under the project continue in partnership with the newly elected municipal councilors. The project team believes that the program will continue to cover the sessions of the newly elected Municipal Council in the way that it presented the work of the former Municipal Council, as it has proven its importance to the citizens and the local authorities. It also helps to promote the development of civil society. Another reason for the firm belief of the team of journalists at the "Media with a Human Face" is the fact that at the first sessions of the present local parliament councilors, municipal administration, citizens and the media have been able to engage in a constructive dialogue.