The debate on the Elections (Special Provisions) Bill debate adjourned on Tuesday (5) was continued in Parliament on Wednesday (6).

While the voting on the Bill was put off for yesterday, the Government also agreed to appoint a committee to review the issuance of NICs for one year to monitor the progress made.

Prof. Wishva Warnapala — (Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs)

"It is a fact that minority communities live in North and East and the highlands of the country. A system of proportional representation was introduced because of this. However the government was now trying to modernise the electoral systems rather than hanging on to a proportional representation of communities.

The late Prime Minister Bandaranaike was the only one who was willing to modernise the electoral system in 1959.

The whole idea of electoral modernisation is to overcome corruption and impersonation at elections which is a result of the present proportional representation system which created weak governments.

Sri Lanka is a good example of political instability, proliferation of political groups and multiplication of political parties. It is a result of proportional representation, he said.

Party oligarchy has become the dominant factor of this system, he said.

proportional representation cannot work in the modern world. Opposition is most often weak in such a system. Some parties have only a regional agenda. They don’t have a national agenda.

Today the two party system is declining rapidly, he said.

Electoral sovereignty should be re-established. The plurality system should be re-established while democratic systems should be strengthened in order to modernise the electoral system.

He said that the introduction of the NIC to elections was one step forward towards making a better electoral system for the country.

G. L. Peiris – UNP Colombo District:- said that discussions among party leaders yesterday brought about some matters on the proposed legislation on introducing the national identity cards for voting. While agreeing that all corruption in elections should be stopped but the voters right to vote should be protected. That was the UNP stand on this legislation.

The law should not be enforced even after one year if it was found that all voters are not issued with NICs. That was the UNP’s position in this law. The Election Commission should be satisfied that all the voters had NICs before the NICs were made compulsory at elections for voters, he said.

Lakshman Yapa Abeywardhana (UNP) Matara District said the electoral reform bill of 1959 first introduced the identity card as a tool for identification of a voter, the law would not be enforced due to various reasons even up to the late 1980s.

There was a misconception that UNP was opposed to the NIC being required to vote. The only difficulty was, the UNP wanted the issuance of NICs to all voters and make the NICs compulsory by the year 2005. That was the agreement reached at the Dinesh Gunawardene select committee on Electoral Reforms, he said.

The UNP wished to know whether the Commissioner for Registration could issue identity cards to all voters. If that was possible the UNP was not against it but no voter should be deprived of his right to vote. That was how the UNP looked at this amendment, he said.

Padmini Sithambaram (ITAK) Wanni District- said that people of the Wanni District had to experience much difficulty due to the lack of an NIC. When the Tamil people lost an NIC they could not move about and had to be confined to their homes. The security forces which manned the check points were very harsh to the Tamil people.

Due to the lack of NICs vote rigging went on in the North. Therefore the people of the North have no faith that the elections could be held without corruption in the future too. The Tamil people of the North and East need to be given their rights like other citizens of Sri Lanka.

Rohitha Bogollagama (UNP) Kurunegala District. Said the UNP had praise for the Dinesh Gunawardena Committee on Electoral Reforms, and the recommendations make by the committee had made statutory recommendations in the right to vote.

However there were many matters that needed consideration before the law to introduce NIC for voting had to be enforced. There were so many laws in the country but it is found in practice that some laws are observed in the breach. It was the duty of this House to ensure that all citizens are given the right to vote without any difficulty, he said.

He said when Premier S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike introduced this proposal in 1959 for the first time he had in mind the necessity to bring impersonation during elections to a minimum but also prevent the voters from being prevented the disfranchised of a voter due to the lack of an NIC. Therefore we should consider what the late Premier said when he first introduced this law in 1959.

Mahinda Amaraweera (Deputy Minister of Urban Development and Water Supply) said that there were a large number of registration of voters falsely entered into the household lists by the UNP which used Grama Niladharis’ to register names of voters in more than one address. These registrations were used to get a majority of votes while depriving the bona fide voters to select a party of their choice. The UNP was well known for using the Grama Niladharis to register the same voter in two or three addresses to commit election fraud.

The UNP opposed the introduction of the law to enforce the NIC for voting since it will not be able to continue to commit organized election frauds against the wishes of the people. But the people are aware of the UNP’s past history and they do not object to the use of NIC to identify genuine voters.

R. Chandrasekar–(UPFA Nuwara-Eliya District). Said the necessary identification documents should be made available to people. None of the governments have made any attempts to fulfil this obligations for the people in the plantation areas.

Today the NIC is not just something that is only used for elections. You need it even to walk around the streets.

Why do some Tamil parties look at this piece of legislation with suspicion. It was because all pieces of legislation which have come out before have only caused great pain to minority groups of people.

What do we expect with this piece of legislation? The people in plantation areas should look at this piece of legislation as a good thing. Some of the up country people have no document to show that they are Sri Lankans. Therefore it is their duty to support this bill.

M. S. Sellasamy (Minister of Plantation Industry Information Development), said we know the hardship we had to undergo to get out voting rights. These are things which should be done with caution. Today 350,000 plantation people have the pride of having voting rights. The plantation workers were deprived of their franchise. There is a history of the voters losing their NICs from 1971, he said.

With the introduction of the NIC in this manner the possibility of our people entering provincial councils will be reduced.

Our students who have completed 16 years don’t have the NIC to sit examinations. What you give with one hand you take away with the other, he said.

We have great misgivings regarding this piece of legislation.

As long as all citizens of this country don’t have the NIC, this piece of legislation should not be implemented.