Electoral reforms should be based on good governance principles

By Bernard Fernando

As a passionate observer of the current debate in the mass media on electoral reforms, I wish to pen a few lines explaining my views based on good governance principles which every decent citizen in Sri Lanka would yearn for.

At the outset, it must be mentioned that the captioned ‘good governance’ is not an exclusive right of any one political party but a robust and a scientific management methodology solicited by the citizenry at large.

From what has transpired so far, we could discuss the electoral process under two headings.

1.Determining the total number of seats won by each party/alliance.

2.Nominating an individual to represent each such seat.

 

Determining the number of seats

There appears to be not much debate over applying the proportionate arithmetic to this process. In our view too, it is the most fair and equitable method. However, a consensus must be struck on the total Number of seats.

If we apply the principle of good governance, it should be the optimum number that ensures highest productivity in relation to the size and the population of a country. World examples can be quoted to justify it. Unfortunately, for a country of our size and population firstly we state that even the present number of 225 MPs is relatively high. It is quite evident from what we witness today in the Parliament. How many MPs perform their primary duty of attending Parliamentary sessions regularly?

Even if they attend, many leave after a few minutes to attend to their private business and other needs. Out of those who stay, only a handful of MPs rise up to speak and they have become permanent speakers for their parties. There are some MPs who have still not spoken a word during a session. Many are the times the bell is rung for lack of chorum.

On the other hand, the facility for nominating 29 National List members is used to honour artistes with grant of pension rights. In a doomed situation like this, the appropriate good-governance solution is to reduce the number of MPs and increase their productivity.

The unfortunate irony is, some narrow-minded politicians with vested interests to perpetuate their fraternity, bellow out their voices to increase the number of seats without a sound basis. We vehemently deplore such efforts to undermine the well intentioned public outcry.

Secondly, we recommend applying the proportionate arithmetic to the national level valid votes mustered under each party/alliance symbol. We say so, because the election is held for the National Parliament and not for any district or electorate level institution.

Other efforts create complex issues such as delimitation exercises leading to waste of time, money and energy. Thus, by approaching this matter of contention in a more objective manner than being subjective, we can clearly hold the elections at any time.

 

Nominating party representatives to each Parliamentary seat

At this stage, firstly, we exhort that the real public need is to ensure good governance in the Parliament through decent, honest, ethical and a principled set of professionals. What we witness to day is that wittingly or unwittingly some politicians and even some civil society activists are engaged in a ‘percentage debate’ of trying to assign MPs to electoral units at grass root level.

They conveniently ignore the role of some 455 provincial councillors and more importantly that of 4,486 local Govt. members whose main job is to resolve people’s problems at grass root level. In other words, under the existing decentralised political administration system, on average there are 25 politicians for each electorate! It is not good governance to duplicate functions and waste taxpayers’ money.

Secondly, to meet the aforesaid requirement, the respective parties should take the bull by the horns. Under good governance we cannot expect individual voters to screen even electorate level MPs for their credentials. Most of them even do not know the names of such nominees.

Anyway, as justified earlier, there is no necessity for MPs to maintain an umbilical cord connection with the grass root level voters. Therefore, it should be the sole responsibility of parties to introduce a robust, stringent and a very transparent system of selecting their nominees through a structured screening and interview system giving a score for each prospective candidate under different value criteria already set out by PAFFREL through their ‘March 12th declaration’.

Thirdly, each party/alliance shall finally prepare one national nominee list. It would assist the voter if this list is prepared on a district merit basis so that the voters can easily recognise the nominees in the order of their merit.

To overcome problems arising from deaths or disabilities of nominees before the election, the parties may be allowed to enter names of three additional nominees at the bottom of each district. It is their sole responsibility to abide by the eligibility criteria set out for nominees.

If they fail to do so, they will be digging their own grave as the names of such ineligible nominees will come under the ‘hammer’ of all the other contesting parties on the campaign stage. This developing new culture of rejecting undesirable elements coming in to the Parliament should be strengthened by the mass media.

Fourthly, in order to ensure a successful election of parties and MPs, we propose the following steps.

1.All contesting parties/alliances should tabulate the names of their district-wise nominees and extra names in one National List with separate columns for merit order no., full name, address, age, and a brief description of professional qualifications and contribution to the society.

2.Printed copies of the above nominee list together with a copy of the party manifesto (a legally enforceable document) should reach each voter well before the election date. This will complete 50% of the election campaign.

3.PAFFREL too should arrange to dispatch printed copies of the eligibility criteria for nominees, well before the election date. This will complete another 35% of the pre-election campaign enabling the voters to complete the major part of their decision process.

4.Allow balanced State and private, electronic and print media coverage for contesting parties. It should complete the voter decision making process.

Since the MPs will be elected from the merit lists of parties, the Elections Dept. will be relieved of counting ‘preference votes’ of individuals and the election can be held no sooner than the 20th Amendment is passed saving precious time , energy and money of the State as well as the voters.

Finally, we wish to further sharpen the good governance process by proposing to apply the proportionate arithmetic to the already specified number of Cabinet portfolios so that all parties will be represented at the highest level of administration. Thereby, it will answer the ‘+’ requirement of the ‘13+’ amendment which has already got internationalised.

We earnestly appeal to all the relevant parties to consider this proposal objectively in the name of good governance, which has become the public outcry of today.

(The writer is a retired Deputy General Manager of Bank of Ceylon and could be reached via [email protected].)