Promises are being made in some quarters to introduce new laws to ban crossovers which have come to characterise Sri Lankan politics at every level. Political pole-vaulting is perhaps as old as the hills but the Proportional Representation (PR) system has precipitated the situation with weak governments desperate for raising the required numbers in Parliament with the help of defectors from the Opposition benches. Of late, however, there have been stable administrations at the provincial and Local Government levels but whether the next Parliament will have a strong government not dependent on defectors remains to be seen.

There are various reasons for defections and they are not always induced by the lure of pecuniary benefits or Cabinet portfolios. Personality clashes, ideological differences and resistance to dictatorial tendencies on the part of leaders etc, also make politicians vote with their feet.

However, the fact remains that defections make a mockery of people's verdicts at elections. The present Parliament is a glaring example. The government has within its ranks 43 MPs of a party the people voted out of power at the last parliamentary election! Most of them are holding ministerial portfolios. And two MPs the people voted to power on the UPFA ticket in 2004 broke ranks a few years ago. One is dead and the other is trying to topple the government. (A UPFA National List MP remains independent having left the government in a huff on a matter of principle.) This is nothing but a distortion of the popular will and something certainly needs to be done to rectify the situation.

But, banning crossovers, however compelling it may seem, is only part of the remedy. In some cases, it may even run counter to democratic principles such as one's right to act according to one's conscience free from duress.

Since it is only too well known that money is usually used to induce defections, what needs to be done immediately is to make all elected representatives declare their assets and liabilities before entering an election fray and to strengthen the anti-corruption mechanisms already in place to deal with the corrupt.

For this purpose, the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC) will have to be given back the powers to initiate its own investigations without waiting for complaints to be lodged with it. The SLFP, the UNP and the JVP shamelessly joined forces to strip CIABOC of those powers in the early 1990s under the Kumaratunga regime. In fact, that was the first of a few things the SLFP-led PA government did after its installation in 1994! It was a supreme irony that the PA had come to power promising to wipe out dooshanaya and Bheeshanaya (corruption and violence).

Another reason why some parliamentarians/

provincial councillors/local government members break ranks with their parties and switch allegiance to others is their aversion to a chronic lack of intra party democracy. The SLFP has been able to reduce crossovers to a bare minimum because it wields the State power, the main attraction in politics, in spite of criticisms of its leadership. The UNP has not been so lucky. It is not only out of power but also burdened with an undemocratic Constitution which prevents the removal of its leader or effecting democratic change. Perhaps, before trying to democratise national politics, the UNP ought to give serious thought to restoring its internal democracy by reducing the unbridled powers of its leader. The less said about the JVP’s internal democracy, the better! The JVP is campaigning for democracy in the country but the outfit's internal democracy is conspicuous by its absence. Little wonder that there have been defections.

The preferential vote or manape as it is popularly known has come under severe criticism as it often leads to intra-party fights. Nay, it is the mother of all battles. But, it is a mechanism introduced as an antidote to the so-called dictatorship of the party leadership. If not for manape, the voting public would have had to just vote for a party thus granting the party leader carte blanche to select his or her favourites by manipulating the party’s list of candidates.