Today’s elections: Free poll or farce - Editorial

After a campaign during which more than 300 incidents of election law violations and violence were reported, elections will take place today to the Eastern, North-Central and Sabaragamuwa Provincial Councils.




Opposition leaders and independent analysts believe that most people -- struggling for survival because of the soaring cost of living and the devastating drought – did not want these early elections. Opposition leaders and even countries like India and the United States have called for elections to the Northern Provincial Council to discern the will of the people there and the validity of the Rajapaksa Government’s claim that rehabilitation, resettlement and development of the North have taken place rapidly. The Tamil National Alliance says besides other conflicts there is a massive land grab and militarisation in the North and the people are so desperate and destitute that most of them might support a campaign by the international Tamil Diaspora for a separate state.

In response to these demands, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said elections to the NPC cannot be held until September next year because the clearing of land mines needs to be completed  and electoral lists redone and finalised because of the massive displacement of people during the war.

Whatever the causes may be, most independent observers including the social justice movement led by the Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Nayaka Thera believe that free and fair elections cannot be held because the powerful executive presidency has been given absolute power with the implementation of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. This movement and other civic action groups campaigning for accountability and good governance, the rule of law and transparency insist that the executive presidency must be abolished if democracy is to be restored and free and fair elections held.

What happened in the three provinces during the campaign provides proof that under the existing system elections are not free or fair but a farce. State funds and human resources are openly and blatantly used and abused for the benefit of candidates of the ruling alliance. The police to a large degree were unable or unwilling to act independently because there is no independent police commission and any police officers who act in an impartial manner could be politically victimised. Without an independent public services commission hundreds of graduates were given pre-dated appointments after nomination day in an open violation of election laws. In the absence of an independent election commission, Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya himself said he was helpless to stop the hundreds of violations of election laws.

With all these crises and abuses, the elections will be meaningless though more than Rs.1000,000,000 was spent to hold them. President Rajapaksa now needs to rise to the level of a statesman and take a bold initiative to abolish the executive presidency so that genuine democracy and free elections could be restored and consolidated.