Polls today to elect a new Parliament. Curiously, voter enthusiasm has been at a low ebb- The Island Editorial

Happy voting!

The Island Editorial Thursday 14th November, 2024

Sri Lanka goes to the polls today to elect a new Parliament. Curiously, voter enthusiasm has been at a low ebb, compared to that in the run-up to the 21 September presidential election. It has been interpreted as voter apathy in some quarters, but whether it is so will be seen only when the total number of votes to be polled is announced.

Stakes are extremely high for all political parties in today’s contest. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has urged the public to ‘fill the tenth parliament with only NPP members’, and former Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa is seeking a mandate to control the legislature. Some political parties are asking the public to help them form a formidable Opposition. Whether their wishes will be granted remains to be seen.

President Dissanayake and his party, the JVP-led NPP, have embarked on a mission to ‘cleanse’ Parliament. Ironically, the JVP/NPP has been an integral part of the Augean stables it has undertaken to clean!

Steamroller majorities are jinxed in this country, for they result in corruption, overreach, abuse of power, attacks on democracy, especially the suppression of dissent, and economic mismanagement. They are a curse for the people. Hung parliaments are also detrimental to the country’s interests in that they lead to political instability as cooperation is something alien to the parties in contest; they subjugate their own interests to those of the people.

Most Sri Lankan electors let their rising choler get the better of them and resort to punitive voting to express their frustration with the incumbent rulers instead of making a careful and reasoned assessment of candidates’ policies, abilities and integrity. This results in massive waves of popular support and huge majorities much to the benefit of crafty politicians who make themselves out to be saviours.

Sunday, November 10, 2024 Sunday Times

 

In underdeveloped democracies, the basic law often becomes the first casualty of mammoth majorities, as they are misused to amend or replace it to consolidate the winner’s power. A huge majority in a weak democracy could also serve as a passport to autocracy. Examples abound in this country. There is reason to believe that but for its five-sixths majority, the J. R. Jayewardene government would have acted differently, mindful of public opinion, and perhaps savage attacks on democracy and bloodbaths which characterized that regime would not have occurred. It was the abuse of the SLFP-led United Front’s two-thirds majority to extend the life of Parliament by two years and other excesses that enabled the UNP to sweep the parliamentary polls in 1977. A two-thirds majority drove President Mahinda Rajapaksa to abuse power to his heart’s content and amend the Constitution to do away with the presidential term limit. The 18th constitutional amendment became his undoing. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa acted similarly; he misused the SLPP’s two-thirds majority to amend the Constitution and carry out disastrous experiments and in the process ruined the country and his own political career.

Obtaining popular mandates is one thing but delivering what they are given for is quite another. Sloganeering and empty rhetoric can help whip up public resentment to engineer regime changes when the people are desperate for change, but they alone cannot ensure the stability of any government. The fate that befell the Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration is a case in point. Those who infuse the people with hope and elevate their expectations beyond measure to capture power but fail to deliver run the risk of having to head for the hills with the irate public in close pursuit.

One can only hope that whichever party wins today’s election, economic recovery, battling corruption and strengthening the rule of law will figure high on the new government’s agenda; the escalating cost of living will be reined in; the doctrine of the separation of powers will be upheld; streets will remain peaceful and, above all, no need will arise for roads to be barricaded again near the President’s House and Temple Trees.

Perhaps, nothing exemplifies Sri Lanka’s predicament than the Brechtian aphorism—’Pity the land that needs heroes’. This country has had many bogus messiahs to contend with, but the search for new ones continues.

A country cannot be anything but what its people make out of it, and the people are said to get the governments they deserve. So, it is Sri Lankans’ call, today. Happy voting!⍐

• Voting in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary poll started November 14 Thursday, to elect 225(=196+29) members to the parliament with President Anura Dissanyake leader was elected on September 21  seeking a majority to govern the sovereign debt defaulted nation amid calls for a new political culture without corruption and misappropriation of public funds.
• The polls will see the election of 196 members through voting in 22 electoral districts and 29 members through national list, according to the number of total votes political parties and independent groups get in the election.
• The voting started at 0700 hours local time (0130 GMT) and will go until 1600 hours (1030 GMT). Over 17.1 million voters are eligible to cast their votes.
• The total number of polling stations is 13, 314. 
• Rohana Hettiarachchi, director of PAFFREL mentioned to the Daily Mirror that 5000 electoral observers will be deployed from which 3000 observers are to be stationed inside polling stations and 2000 observers will be on patrol outside the polling stations. A further 200 observers have been stationed for the counting process which starts after 4pm. 90,000 security personnel from the police and the military would be deployed island wide to provide security at the election as well as “there will also be mobile police patrols” the police spokesman Nihal Thalduwa said.
• A total of 3187 complaints have been received by the Election Commission of which 22 complaints were considered acts of violence and 3,130 complaints were violence against the law. The Election Commission hopes to take action against the complaints.
• Buttressed by a $2.9 billion bailout programme from the International Monetary Fund, the economy has posted a tentative recovery, but the high cost of living is still a critical issue for many voters.
• Of 17,140,354 registered voters, 13,619,916 (79.46 %) exercised their franchise at the presidential election held on Sept. 21. A staggering 3,520,438 or one fifth of the electors didn’t vote at the last election.
• Commissioner General of Elections Saman Sri Rathnayake requests all social media account holders and administrators to refrain from photographing or filming polling stations, marked ballot papers, and sharing them on social media platforms as such actions constitutes a violation of election laws.

 Source:ENB+Media