Achieve the objective of Local Govt. elections

With the handing over of the much-awaited ‘De-limitation Report’, small political parties have now renewed their clarion call to hold the forthcoming Local Government (LG) elections on the existing PR system, which is their last straw to ensure political presence in the locality. 

At the outset, politicians with people and country at heart must realise that the main objective of holding LG elections is not to test the popularity or unpopularity of  their party but to elect genuine, acceptable, decent individuals at ward/electorate  level, who can serve society as facilitators of solving  problems of  people in the locality relating to public service, local police and the judicial service in addition to facilitating the development of the area in conjunction with the Government and recognised non-Government bodies. 

This is a basic electoral reform that lays the foundation for a robust, productive, political administration structure that needs to be introduced by a ‘Yahapalanaya’ Governmnet to cut down wastage and corruption which have become the bane of ‘Good Governance’.

Recently, I happened to watch a late night, Sinhala TV talk-show on a local channel with the Minister of Local Government and Provincial Councils and three other parliamentarians representing the main political parties. According to what transpired, the application of the new ‘Mixed system’ (to which people have not given their consent at a referendum), will allow  70% to be elected on ‘First-Past-The-Post’ basis while the balance 30% would be elected on ‘PR basis’ after summing up losers’ votes. 

The proposed introduction of ‘Female’ and ‘Youth’ representation at Local Government level made the discussion more complex and the speakers couldn’t convince the viewers regarding the real operational methodology. However, it was stated that, there is a possibility of the present number of politicised Local Government members which presently remains at around 4,486 going up by another shocking 2,000!

It is pertinent to state that despite the absence of many ‘Pradeshiya Sabha’ and Municipal council politicians, the Local Government officials are now performing their duties to the public quite diligently.

When people ask for rationalisation of the existing political machinery to cut costs and improve productivity, the politicians simply ignore the voice of the people and engage in proliferation of the corrupt political industry. Our question is, can the taxpayer afford to sustain this unproductively bulging political fraternity?

People have already taken to streets for increasing the VAT from 11% to 14%.The country is bleeding, unable to bear the colossal debt burden left by the previous regime. In the melee, the politicians are hell-bent on adding insult to injury by increasing their lot who will eventually qualify for duty free, luxury, vehicles, pension after five years, personal staff and numerous other perks and allowances! 

In such a scenario, we as taxpayers, genuinely interested in the development of our country, exhort the authorities to consider the ‘not too late’ following steps to alleviate this pathetic development:

1.Depoliticise Local Government elections and allow apolitical, independent persons to contest as candidates for Local Government membership not exceeding the present islandwide figure of 4,486.

2. Since the objective is to provide facilitators/ombudsmen rather than politicians for the local people to resolve their aforesaid issues, we reiterate that the prospective candidates should be apolitical, honest, decent and social minded persons of high integrity acceptable to the people in the respective wards/electorates. 

3. Accordingly, they should register their nominations under the respective ward/electorate they want to represent and the people will vote for the best facilitator for their ward/electorate. 

4. Since, the political colour or hue will not come in to the picture, the small political parties need not make an issue and the entire LG election should be held on ‘First-Past-The-Post’ basis avoiding the determination of best percentage mix (which is always debatable) under the proposed ‘mixed voting’ system.

5. The office bearers at Pradeshiya Sabha, Urban and Municipal council level can be elected by the ward members by vote.

6. These facilitators will eventually graduate to become proven provincial councillors and MPs by becoming members of political parties of their choice.

In our view, election to next upper levels, namely Provincial Councils (PC) and National Parliament should be held purely on ‘Proportionate Representation’ (PR) system sans the optional ‘Preference Voting’ mechanism, enabling all voters in north, south, west and east to vote for only the party of their choice as Sri Lankans carrying a vote card of equal value untainted by race, caste or religion. Then only can we call ourselves a unitary country where Sri Lankans are its citizens.

This system will guarantee the representation of smaller political parties both at PC and national level. A further step to constitute the national Cabinet also on PR basis will make our country a model ‘five-star’ democracy!

Bernard Fernando,

Moratuwa.