Local government in the Arab Union

The Union of Arab Republics (UAR), informally known as the Arab Union, is a federation in North Africa and Western Asia. Administered as a union of 20 republics which share sovereignty with the federation, the Arab Union's system of local government is uniform in structure across all republics, and was last reorganised by the Municipalities Administration Act, 2000.

The federal government forms the first tier of government in the Arab Union, and is responsible for foreign relations, national security and defence, and other international matters, as well as domestic matters affecting two or more republics and/or territories. The republican and territorial governments form the second tier; republics and territories act as first-level administrative divisions of the federation. The third and final tier consists of local government, with any one local government's area of jurisdiction officially called a "municipality" (بلدية baladiyah; plur. بلديات baladiyāt). Unlike many other countries, local government in the Arab Union exists at a single tier, with no distinction such as districts, counties, cities or towns; all municipalities are equal to each other, and equally subordinate to the republican government. Depending on population and population density, a municipality can consist of a large rural area interspersed with villages, a group of towns, a small city and surrounding suburbs, a medium city, or part of a large city. For example, the city of Jerusalem is administered as a single municipality, while Damascus is administered as five.

Municipal governments can be one of two types: a mayor–council government, the more common type, consists of a popularly elected mayor who appoints from amongst his party/coalition or peer group a cabinet, formally called the "Municipal Council" (مجلس البلدية majlis al-baladiyah), which oversees all executive and administrative responsibilities of the municipality; the less common type is the council–manager government, which consists of a popularly elected Municipal Council responsible for formulating municipal policy and supervising the municipality's executive agencies, as well as appointing from amongst its membership a manager to handle daily executive decisions, similar to a mayor but answerable to the Municipal Council rather than vice versa. In both types, municipal governments can be dissolved and new municipal elections called by a two-thirds' majority in a public referendum. Public referenda may also be used to change the form of municipal government from one type to the other. As of 2020, the ratio of mayor–council governments to council–manager governments was roughly 10:3, making the mayor–council form just over three times as common as the council–manager form.