Making costs count

Elections Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya on Friday said that the Presidential Elections could end up costing a whopping Rs. 5 billion in public funds. This is the latest in a whole list of reasons as to why the public must not only come out and use their franchise on 16 November but also continue to engage on vital topics and demand better governance once the people have made their decision.  

Democracy is clearly an expensive system. Presidential, Parliamentary and Provincial Elections that are now essentially lined up will cost the taxpayer a pretty sum. This is on top of the costs of the Local Government election. Each election cycle costs billions of public funds. In the case of these Presidential Elections, as of Friday morning the candidate count was up to 23 presidential hopefuls, which is part of the reason the costs are increasing. 

Understandably, taking into account the principals of inclusivity, which are integral to a democratic system, the opportunity to be a presidential candidate cannot be restricted. That is in itself moving against the ideals of people-centric politics. However, this needs, for practical reasons, to be counterbalanced with the cost. 

A pluralistic system requires that there be a diversity of discourse and options available to the public. But at the heart of the matter is the political system, which stipulates that one candidate needs to get 50% and one vote to be the winner. In this situation the field of candidates widening vastly is not practical as essentially, regardless of the number of candidates, there will be two frontrunners and one of them will be declared the winner. The rest are merely “also rans”.

In the current instance of a wider number of candidates, while the vibrancy of interest and discourse is valuable and essential in a democratic space, there is also the need to understand the numbered reality behind more candidate. Outside of the fact that having two dozen or more candidates creates a logistical nightmare for the Elections Commission where even vote counting and monitoring of the election will become challenging due to the need to accommodate candidate representatives, there is a somewhat complicated process that the voter will also have to understand before they head out to mark their carpet-like ballot paper. 

As this is a Presidential Election, the voters have the right to decide that all three of their preferential votes go to one candidate, or they are divided among the options. Many experts are of the view that this time, perhaps for the first time since Independence, no candidate will get the standard 50% and one vote. This means the Election Commission will resort to a complicated mathematical formula where the preferential votes for the two frontrunner candidates will be taken into account and whoever edges head in that will be declared the winner. 

Given the dissatisfaction openly displayed by the public and the demand for more accountable and progressive leaders, it could be that the taxpayer will have to fork out funds to create a wider space for this political evolution to take place. But the sheer enthusiasm shown by candidates is perhaps a silver lining of sorts to show that politics and governance is still a priority for the public and they are willing to go the extra mile to speak their mind, engage and form new front in an ever-changing political landscape.