Wednesday, 19 March 2014 00:15
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MANY headlines have been dedicated to violence connected with elections. At the end of last week, election monitors were tacking up nearly 800 complaints, the largest amount seen in a poll since 2008, with worse expected to come as the days tick down. Overwhelmingly the numbers point to fights for preferential votes, most between the ruling party candidates.
In most instances, the public as well as the media focus on deaths or incidents involving firearms, but what needs to be noticed are the small incidents. During every election, polls monitors add up hundreds of violations that are put into reports, sent to top officials and subsequently forgotten by everyone including the Elections Commissioner. But what needs to be emphasised is that these little ‘events’ undermine the election process just as much if not more than the major events that get front page coverage. The normalisation of such violations hurts the election process severely because they are usually ignored.
Weekend reports were also bursting with instances of candidates continuing to misuse State assets and flout election regulations. Monitoring organisations had advised candidates contesting seats in the Western and Southern Provincial Councils to refrain from misusing State assets during the pre-election period in order that a free and fair election is conducted. However, all major parties have violated election laws by using public assets to conduct their election propaganda campaigns and are also alleged to have distributed goods and rations to people to influence them to vote for their parties.
People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL), for example, records at least one complaint each day regarding misuse of State property. Many candidates have been making use of State vehicles, buildings and officials and initiating development projects to boost their campaigns. Contestants from the ruling party have used their influence to utilise State assets for canvassing purposes, with the help of the relevant ministers.
PAFFREL had received a complaint that the Ministry of Construction, Engineering Services, Housing and Common Amenities – whose Minister is Wimal Weerawansa – had decided to give away laptops to development officers of the Kaduwela Divisional Secretariat recently. Minister Weerawansa is also the chief organiser of the Kaduwela electorate for the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). PAFFREL will advise the Ministry and the Minister to postpone the event till the conclusion of the elections, though it is unclear how successful such an appeal would be.
This is of course nothing new. In fact higher officials within the Government have been known to flaunt multi-billion dollar projects and manipulate international forums for their benefit. This is borne out by the opening of the Southern Highway extension recently and the poll itself being held on 29 March, just a day after the fateful vote of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Sri Lanka. With such machinations taking place at the highest level of governance, expecting smaller officials to behave within the law is pointless.
As observers noted during the previous round of elections in September, the entire mechanism needs to be changed to empower the Elections Commissioner but as the violations mount up it seems the adage ‘small is beautiful’ has changed to ‘small is ugly’.
