by Vishvanath
The prolonged drought of elections has come to an end, and we are now experiencing the onset of an electoral monsoon, in a manner of speaking. There have already been two elections since last month, with parliamentary polls slated for next month. The local government elections are to be held countrywide thereafter.
The outcome of Saturday’s election to the Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabha (PS) came as no surprise. Nobody doubted that the JVP-led NPP would emerge victorious. All eyes were on that electoral contest, which arguably assumed the same importance as a national election, given its occurrence in the run-up to a general election.
The NPP was expected to sweep the polls on Saturday because it won last month’s presidential election upending Sri Lanka’s electoral politics, as never before, and the Opposition parties were in disarray, as is usually the case after every presidential election. In fact, the Opposition had given up the fight in Elpitiya for all practical purposes. It is doubtful whether any of the national level leaders of the Opposition parties, especially the SJB and the SLPP, campaigned in Elpitiya during the past several weeks. However, the NPP reportedly left no stone unturned in its efforts to bag the Elpitiya PS. It could obtain only 15 out of 30 seats in the Elpitiya PS although it won15 out of 17 wards. Thus, it lacks a working majority in the council. This is a cause for concern. The election results are as follows (See table):
ELPITIYA PS ELECTION (2024) FINAL RESULTS
National People’s Power ??– ?15 seats (17,295 votes)
Samagi Jana Balawegaya ??– ?06 seats (7,924 votes)
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna ??– ?03 seats (3,597 votes)
People’s Alliance ???– ?02 seats (2,612 votes)
Independent Group ???– ?02 seats (2,568 votes)
People’s United Freedom Alliance ?– ?01 seats (1,350 votes)
People’s Party????– ?01 seats(521 votes)
The number of seats assigned to the Elpitiya PS is 28 (17 members elected on the ward basis and 11 others appointed from the list under the proportional representation (PR) system). But there were 29 members in the last council, and 30 in the current one. This has happened because under the current mixed-representation system, (which is a combination of the first-past-the-post and PR systems, the number of seats could vary due to ‘overhang seats’, which come about when a political party/independent group wins more wards than the number of seats it is entitled to, on the basis of its second votes (under the PR system). Even in the German parliament (Bundestag), to which members are elected under the mixed-electoral system, there is no specific number of members; the Bundestag only has a general minimum number of seats (598).
The JVP had only 02 seats in the last Elpitiya PS, and it has succeeded in improving its electoral performance hugely, as it did in the presidential race, where its vote percentage increased to 42 from a mere 03 in 2019. What it has achieved in Elpitiya isno mean achievement, but its political rivals are sure to use the fact that it could not secure an absolute majority in the PS to detract its victory, the way they are using Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s failure to obtain 50% plus one vote to clinch an outright victory in last month’s presidential contest, to take the gloss off his victory.
The NPP can justifiably be happy that the number of its seatsin the Elpitiya PS has increased by seven and a half times. It is sure to flaunt this fact in the run-up to next month’s general election, where its stakes are extremely high. However, the outlook does not look all that positive for the NPP, given its failure to trounce the Opposition in Elpitiya.
It may be recalled that the SLPP obtained 17 out of 29 seats in the previous Elpitiya PS a few weeks before the 2019 presidential election, but its administration collapsed owing to the defeat of its council budget four times in 2023, and the PS was placed under a Special Commissioner before its subsequent dissolution. Its term in fact expired in 2003, but was extended by the Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe administration, which was wary of facing local government elections.
The mixed representation system was introduced at the local government level as an experiment to reduce campaign expenditure and ensure that the wards in local council areas had representatives directly responsible for them. But candidates contesting local government polls reportedly spend a lot of money. The mixed representation system was also expected to help form stable local government administration unlike underthe PR system. However, it is doubtful whether those objectives have been achieved; candidates continue to throw money around to garner votes; following the 2018 local government polls, a councillor in the Monaragala PS was unseated after being found guilty by a court of bribing the people in the ward he won to the tune of Rs. 40 million. Many of the previous local councils were hung. The new electoral system also led the number of council members to more than double to 8,327, making it impossible for most of the councils to accommodate all their members at their meetings. There was a proposal to amend the new electoral system to reduce the number of councillors, but nothing has come of it.
There will be various interpretations of the NPP’s victory in Elpitiya, and attempts are bound to be made to use the outcome of Saturday’s election to make predictions about the upcoming general election. What the winner and the loser should bear in mind is that the voting patterns do not remain static at different elections. Most of all, parliamentary polls are conducted under the PR system, which throws up surprises.
It is said that the parties of the winners of the presidency wenton to capture power in the parliament with comfortable majorities, as in 2010 and 2020, but there have been situations where the parties that won presidential elections have failed to secure parliament majorities, as in 2000 and 2015. Chandrika Kumaratunga won a second term in 1999, but her alliance could not obtain an absolute majority in the parliament the following year. A similar fate befell the UNP-led UNF alliance, which secured the presidency and faced a general election, in 2015.
Signs are that no political party will be able to obtain a working majority in the next parliament mostly due to the way seats are allocated under the PR system. As we pointed out in a previous column, 10 political parties that polled between 34,000 and 68,000 votes each at the 2020 general election obtained 12 seats whereas the UNP, which received about 250,000 votes,was left with only a single National List slot. (The Jathika Janatha Pakshaya, or the People’s Party, which obtained only 521 votes in Saturday’s PS election won a seat!)
So, anything can happen in next month’s general election with the possibility of unforeseen factors changing the dynamics of the contest. The recent warning of possible terror attacks in the Eastern Province is a case in point; it has led to a security scare and concern about national security among the people.
