The likely cancellation of this year's Norfolk County Council elections has been criticised by Reform, who say the public should not be denied the chance to go to the ballot box.
Nick Taylor, chairman of the party's Norwich branch, branded the probable postponement of May's County Hall elections, ahead of a local government shake-up, as "gerrymandering".
Gerrymandering is the manipulation of an electoral constituency's boundaries to favour certain parties and Mr Taylor said he believes that is what is happening in Norfolk.
He said: "This is nothing more than gerrymandering. The Conservatives here in Norfolk are trying to cling to power for as long as they possibly can.
"So they want to kick the democratic can down the road. This is bad news for the electorate of Norfolk."
The Labour government wants to see local government reorganisation as part of devolving powers from Whitehall, along with an elected mayor for Norfolk and Suffolk.
The changes would see all nine of Norfolk's councils abolished and replaced by new unitary authorities, which would provide all services.
Council leaders have been told they must work to come up with proposals for how that would work in the county.
But the Conservative-controlled county council, which holds elections every four years, is due to hold the next ones in May next year.
Leader Kay Mason Billig has arranged an extraordinary meeting of the authority on Thursday, January 9, where all 84 councillors will be asked to agree to ask for those elections to be suspended.
The idea is that doing so would allow the focus to be placed on putting together proposals for how local government could be redrawn.
"Under current polling, if there were elections tomorrow, we would be the second biggest group on the county council.
"I believe that, by May, we might even have a chance of being the biggest group.
"We think reform of local government is long overdue. We are in favour of change, but that should come after the election, so those making the decisions are doing so with a political mandate from the voters."
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