The coming colour

The forthcoming local government elections, widely considered a litmus test on the popularity, or the lack thereof of the government, weighs on the minds of the people or at least some of them. As many, or a greater number, cannot care less. As far as they are concerned, the means of surviving the day trumps all else. For the large majority, there is no lesser evil among the political contenders. In their view, all of them are as bad as the alternatives. Yet the conflicting signals now emerging on whether these long overdue elections will be held by March as required by law is a matter of both intrigue and speculation. Will they be held as scheduled or will they not? That is a big question in today’s politics.

The work involved in updating the electoral lists have now been completed. Nimal Punchihewa, the Chairman of the National Elections Commission, whose continuance in office was a matter of conjecture not so long ago, is firmly on record that the elections will be held on time as required by law. He gazetted the Returning Officers and their assistants a few days ago. No less than President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said that the enormous 8,000 or thereabouts of local councilors fattening on the public purse must be halved. Former Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya has been appointed to head a Delimitation Commission to re-demarcate local authority wards. Predictably, many regard this as an election delaying tactic though Deshapriya has done his best to debunk that suspicion.

The general public has been privy in recent days to all kinds of signals suggesting that these elections will not be held on schedule. There were reports that the ruling SLPP and the president’s UNP are in talks for an electoral alliance. SLPP Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam has confirmed as much. The constitution empowers Wickremesinghe to dissolve parliament after February 20 next year but he has made very clear that he is not going to do that. Parliament may also be dissolved by its own resolution carried by a simple majority. But nobody will be simple minded enough to expect that to be even a remote possibility. Too many sitting MPs await the passing of five years of parliamentary service to be entitled to a life pension which their wives will continue to draw after them. Many more fear the people’s verdict on their disastrous performance and an election is the last thing on their minds. So a parliamentary election is obviously a long way down the road.

Provincial Council elections, although overdue, and promised in the first quarter of next year by no less than Basil Rajapaksa before he quit the finance ministry, are very unlikely before local elections. This despite the anxiety of the Tamil parties to hold such elections and Indian pressure on the same matter. The local government minister has twice postponed local elections and according the law he is not empowered to do so again. The vast majority of Sri Lankans are familiar with the corruption within local bodies and the self-serving activities of their elected representatives. The councillors regard local bodies as the bottom rung of a ladder to parliament. The people would be happy to be relieved of half the burden of supporting local councillors. So the president’s proposal is surely a popular one although its implementation will require the postponing of elections.

The SLPP and UNP getting into an alliance must obviously be with an election in view. But which one? The pecking order as it now stands is first local elections, then provincial council elections and finally parliamentary elections. Beyond that, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, elected not by the people but by the Rajapaksa-led SLPP majority in parliament, must surely dream of winning a people’s mandate for himself and would look forward to becoming a president truly elected by the people. An SLPP-UNP alliance will serve that objective too. But the big question for now is whether we are going to have the local elections before next March or whether they will be put off sine die. We must hold these elections according to the law as it stands. The law, of course, can be amended and there are whispers this might happen early next year.

Within the last few days we have heard Mr. Akila Viraj Kariyawasam, once a cabinet minister and the UNP’s general secretary and then its assistant leader, now a defeated candidate (like all who ran from the green party in August 2020 not excluding the present president) saying that the local elections will cost billion of rupees. Do the people want such elections, he questioned, at the cost of power cuts, and scarcity of essentials down the road? SLPP functionaries too have been heard expressing similar thoughts. It was only on Thursday that the state-controlled Daily News gave front page prominence to an SLPP stalwart, former Bar Association President, UR de Silva, PC, saying that it was “not the correct time for LG polls.” He went on record saying that spending a huge amount of money for LG polls was a futile exercise at the moment and urged that first the prevailing law regarding such polls must change and there must be a right environment to hold them.

The SJB and other opponents of government are strenuously urging that the election be held and threatening to otherwise bring people on to the streets. They are super-confident that the government’s unpopularity will be crystal clear in the results. The SLPP showed Yahapalana the coming colour in the local election prior to GR’s November 2019 landslide. The SJB is now drooling at the prospect of doing likewise.