Local polls

The local government elections have been postponed by one year according to the Minister of Provincial Councils and Local government, Nandimitra Ekanayake. The reason given is that the proposed reforms cannot be effected before the elections. The UNP, he says, has said that it sees no point in having elections without the four independent commissions (elections, police, public service and judiciary) it has called for, in place.

A parliamentary select committee, he has said, will examine and report on the reforms proposed by various parties.

The people are so election weary that the government’s decision may be welcomed by some. Elections in Sri Lanka are far from being a democratic exercise where the will of the masses determines the outcome. Instead, they are a dog fight where politicians, money bags and goons wage war for power. It may be this kind of antipathy for elections that prompted George Bernard Shaw to say as far back as 1921, "An election is a moral horror, as bad a battle except for the blood: a mud bath for every soul concerned in it." (Back to Methuselah).

Yet, what this great man has said notwithstanding, elections have come to be a necessary evil in a modern democracy. However rigged they may be, it is always far better to still have them than to do without them or postpone them under various pretexts. We in this country have seen the adverse impact the postponement of the general election under the United Front government (1970-77) and the replacement of the general election with a referendum under the UNP of President J. R. Jayewardene in 1982, had on democracy. Such actions may have served the purpose of the rulers of the day but they created precedents detrimental to the well being of the country’s democracy.

Apart from the proposed reforms and the UNP’s demand for the four commissions, the huge cost of the exercise that the government can ill-afford at this hour, the security situation and so on may also be cited as an excuse for the postponement of the mini polls.

The four commissions that the UNP demands before the elections are still in the embryonic stages and whether they will be stillborn or see the light of day is yet to be seen.

The government’s decision to appoint a parliamentary select committee smacks of an effort to drag its feet on the matter. The UNP’s protests are also unlikely to reach fruition with the government so stubbornly clinging to the select committee process. It all looks that the establishment of these four commissions which are of crucial importance to the country in safeguarding democracy will take a very long time despite the timeframe of one year implied by the minister. Does this mean that the country will have to wait that long for mini polls?

As much as the UNP is on the right path today demanding these four commissions, it cannot absolve itself of the blame for having failed to set up the same when they were in power. It is a matter for happiness that at last they are now crusading for the independence of these four vital institutions. It is imperative that the government comply immediately with the UNP’s proposal - or is it the government’s own proposal as it claims? - for setting up of the commissions.

The PA and the UNP between them have the two-thirds majority that may be required for the purpose. And there is unlikely to be any opposition to these four commissions from any other party. The government’s hesitation if not refusal to meet the UNP’s demand, it could be argued, amounts to its aversion to the independence of the four institutions in question.

Postponing an election cannot be countenanced under any circumstances however justifiable the reasons given for it may seem. A democracy derives sustenance from people’s participation in governance and only an election provides the opportunity for this. It, therefore, behoves the government to hold the local government elections on schedule with or without reforms. The opposition must step up pressure on the government to stick to the election schedule.

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