Political dynamics shift as mini polls draw near

by Vishvanath

It seems that Lady Luck has ceased to smile on the NPP government since its spectacular victory in the 2024 general election. The prices of essentials have are increasing; farmers are protesting against guaranteed prices for their paddy and threatening to stage street protests unless the government grants their demands; they are refusing to sell their produce to the Paddy Marketing Board; state employees are demanding a substantial pay hike; the IMF wants the state revenue to increase at least to 15% of GDP immediately; doctors are demanding that they be allowed to utilize their duty-reduced vehicle import permits; the Opposition is making various allegations of corruption, and there were power cuts for several days recently. Thus, the government apparently has more than its share of problems. Worse, it has had to face an election while struggling to tackle numerous problems and meeting targets set by the IMF for releasing the next tranche of the Extended Fund Facility. It has had no time to settle down.  

The Local Authorities (Special Provisions) Bill is to be taken up for debate on Monday (Feb. 17) with the agreement of all parties represented in the parliament. This is something overdue. Speaker Jagath Wickramaratne announced the Supreme Court (SC) determination on the bill during a special parliamentary session on Friday. The apex court has held, in a split decision, that some sections of the local government (LG) elections bill are inconsistent with the Constitution and therefore requires a special majority for its passage. One of the three judges of the SC bench, which heard the petitions challenging the constitutionality of the bill, has ruled that it can be passed with a simple majority.

The LG elections bill is bound to become law, given the government’s supermajority. There is no requirement for it to be approved by the people at a referendum in addition to being ratified by a special majority, and therefore the government can easily secure its passage with a two-thirds majority, with or without amendments. It will be politically embarrassing for the Opposition to vote against the bill on any grounds, for such action will be seen as an effort to delay the LG polls, and therefore the signs are that the bill will be passed unanimously with some cosmetic changes at the committee stage.

A need arose for the existing LG elections laws to be amended because the Election Commission (EC) had to be empowered to call for fresh nominations for the LG polls. It received nominations for the LG polls, which were to be held in 2023. The LG elections laws do not provide for receiving nominations twice for an election.

Last month, the Cabinet approved the cancellation of the 2023 LG polls nominations, and there were as many as 80,672 candidates in the fray, but the elections never took place, as is public knowledge. The then President Ranil Wickremesinghe refused to allocate funds for the EC on the grounds that expenditure on meeting the basic needs of the people had to be prioritized over everything else. It was obvious that Wickremesinghe and the SLPP did not want to face an electoral contest and suffer a defeat before the 2024 presidential election. The previous nomination lists cannot be used for the upcoming LG elections. Many of the candidates have either returned to their jobs in the state sector or lost interest in contesting elections or gone overseas for good. Hundreds of them contested last year’s general election and scores of them have entered the current parliament. There are said to be more than 50 former LG candidates in the NPP’s parliamentary group, which consists of 159 members. SJB MP Mujibur Rahman resigned from the last Parliament to contest the LG polls as his party’s mayoral candidate for Colombo. He fell between two stools when President Wickremesinghe caused the election to be postponed indefinitely. Subsequently, he re-entered the parliament, making use of a National List vacancy. It will be interesting to see if he will resign from the parliament again to contest the upcoming LG polls. Deputy Minister Sunil Watagala (NPP) was also to contest the LG polls, which were postponed.

SJB MP and SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem rightly pointed out in the parliament on Friday that the duration of the judicial scrutiny of the LG election bill could have been shortened if the government had undertaken to amend the sections of it that were challenged and later found to be inconsistent with the Constitution. Why the government did not try to expedite the process of enacting the bill may be anybody’s guess, but now it is in a hurry to conduct the LG polls. The Opposition has urged the EC to delay the elections until late April 2025 so that the upcoming budget debate will not hinder its election campaign. A group of representatives from the opposition parties met the EC members on Thursday and requested that the LG polls be held after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year and the GCE O/L examination. They have gone on record as saying that the NPP government is planning to prevent the Opposition MPs from taking part in their parties’ election campaigns by making them attend the budget debate.

Both the government and the Opposition have already launched their LG election campaigns in all but name. They have been vying at the grassroots level to secure the control of cooperative societies; the SJB, the SLPP and the UNP have beaten the NPP in quite a few areas, causing much concern to the government.

It can be reasonably argued that the 2025 budget will be as good as passed, once presented to the parliament, because the government has 159 MPs on its side. So, the NPP is likely to do its best to have the LG polls held as soon as possible after the presentation of the budget, which is expected to give a fillip to the government’s LG election campaign. However, if the budget falls short of meeting the expectations of the public, the NPP will have its work cut out to maintain its winning streak in the LG elections.