Much-maligned manape

Thursday 13th October, 2022

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has, at a recent discussion with a group of professionals, stressed the need for electoral reforms, and frowned on the preferential voting system or manape, which, in his opinion, has to be done away with. He is not alone in advocating the abolition of the preferential vote to solve election-related problems.

The preferential voting mechanism is generally made out to be the mother of all election law violations. But the fathers of these problems, as it were, have got lost in the shuffle; they are the political party leaders who handpick the lowest of the low in politics to contest elections.

When political dregs enter the fray, they turn electoral contests into fierce turf wars, and throw truckloads of black money around to influence voters, and unleash violence to intimidate their opponents. Among these anti-social elements are chain snatchers, cattle rustlers, rapists, fraudsters, and even killers. No wonder most MPs go on the rampage in Parliament at the drop of a hat, and trade raw filth and heavy blows, making schoolchildren who watch them from the public gallery think the Dehiwala zoo is a much better place than the national legislature.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the preferential vote. The manape battles are due to the impotence of party leaders and indiscipline among their candidates who must be kept on a tight leash. The JVP is free from manape disputes because its candidates put the party before self. Even the worst critics of the JVP will agree that it conducts its election campaigns in a very democratic manner, and is worthy of emulation. Curiously, some JVP seniors have added their voices to the chorus condemning the preferential voting system!

Instead of getting their act together, political leaders continue to field the offscourings of society at elections. The way out, in our book, is for them to nominate only decent men and women to contest elections so that the latter will behave before and after elections.

It needs to be added in the same breath that people should also share the blame for the presence of riff-raff in political institutions. They do not scruple to vote for undesirables who, they think, will serve their interests. They are swayed by various factors such as patronage and caste. It may be recalled that a notorious drug dealer called Kudu Lal was once elected to the Colombo Municipal Council from an independent list. Thankfully, he fled the country.

Not that the party leaders are unaware that they are barking up the wrong tree; they are doing so deliberately. The preferential voting system is the most effective antidote to the dictatorship of party leaders. What would be the situation if the Proportional Representation (PR) system was retained in some form or another and the preferential vote abolished? The party leaders would be able to catapult their favourites on the lists of candidates to Parliament, etc., at the expense of the popular and deserving ones. There are allegations that even at present they manipulate the process of counting preferential votes to ensure the election of their favourites. How bad the situation would become in case of the abolition of the preferential vote mechanism is not difficult to imagine.

Strangely, President Wickremesinghe, or any other political leader for that matter, has not found fault with the National List (NL), which lends itself to abuse thanks to a section smuggled into the Parliamentary Election Act in 1988 to enable party leaders to engineer NL vacancies and appoint persons of their choice to Parliament. This electoral smuggling tunnel, as it were, has to be closed once and for all.

It is also said that the PR system necessitates huge campaign expenditure. But politicians such as Dullas Alahapperuma have given the lie to this claim. Alahapperuma has proved that one can win elections without incurring unnecessary expenditure on posters, cutouts, bunting, handbills, liquor, etc. If he can do so, why can’t others?

If new laws are introduced to regulate campaign finance, and the existing ones enforced without fear or favour, election malpractices and clashes among candidates could be overcome.