Hope springs eternal …

Tuesday 8th August, 2023

Former Chairman of the Election Commission (EC) Mahinda Deshapriya, who serves as the Head of the National Committee on Delimitation of the Divisions of Local Government (LG) Bodies, seems to be full of optimism. He is reported to have said he expects either the local government polls or the Provincial Council (PC) elections to be held before 15 September, when the International Day of Democracy Day falls. Does he think the incumbent regime is a respecter of democracy!

Deshapriya no doubt is a veteran of electoral affairs and did commendably well as the EC chief, but one wonders whether he is being overoptimistic; there is nothing that the current regime fears more than elections, which it needs like a hole in the head. There are reasons for its ‘poll phobia’,

Adversity made strange bedfellows of the UNP and the SLPP during last year’s popular uprising, but they are now at loggerheads. They are bound to take on each other in case of an election being held. The economic crisis is far from resolved, and the public is crying out for relief and resentful. The government cannot be unaware that, given its unpopularity, facing an election at this juncture will amount to political suicide.

Not that the Opposition has made much headway on the political front, but the government will have its work cut out to avert a crippling blow at the hands of Citizen Perera, whose patience has already run out. It is therefore not possible that the government will take a huge political gamble by holding an election anytime soon lest a midterm electoral debacle should mark the beginning of the end of its rule. This is the last thing any beleaguered regime wants.

The SLPP-UNP government, however, may not be able to go on postponing elections until the end of time. The UNP has sought to justify the postponement of the PC and LG polls by claiming that there will be a snap presidential election in a few months. President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s preoccupation with ‘the full implementation of the 13th Amendment’ has come to be viewed in some quarters as part of a strategy to enlist the support of the Tamil political parties for his bid to secure a second term. But the Constitution empowers only a popularly-elected President to seek a second term prematurely. President Wickremesinghe, elected by Parliament, is constitutionally required to complete the remainder of his predecessor’s term, which ends next year. The only way he can overcome this obstacle, if he so desires, is by changing the Constitution. But the government cannot muster a two-thirds majority in Parliament for that purpose. There’s the rub.

That the government is determined not to hold the PC/LG polls soon has become clear from its efforts to downplay the importance of elections. In June, President Wickremesinghe said at an event held by the Bar Association of Sri Lanka that the people, especially the youth, had lost faith in elections. Judges of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal were in the audience. He has drawn heavy fire for making such a statement pending a case against the postponement of LG elections. He has tried to justify his refusal to allocate funds for elections by claiming that the government is struggling to find money for the procurement of essential commodities; the most important task is to sort out the economy.

President Wickremesinghe is now in a position to dissolve Parliament. But he is not likely to resort to such a course of action although the SLPP-UNP relations have turned sour, with some SLPP seniors criticising the President in public; it will be tantamount to a political kamikaze attack.

Parliament can advance the next general election by resolving to dissolve itself. But the government, which fears elections, still has a majority in the House despite the Opposition’s braggadocio. So, given the fact that the current regime is wary of facing any election, the public is not likely to be able to exercise their franchise until next year.