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All eyes on SC

19 Aug 2019

The provincial council (PC) elections saga reached a crescendo last week when President Maithripala Sirisena sought the Supreme Court’s (SC) opinion on which electoral method to hold PC elections under; and with the presidential election also scheduled for this year, Sri Lanka may have to start gearing up for back-to-back elections by year-end. PC elections have been delayed for almost two years now with eight of the nine provincial councils being officially defunct as their terms have expired. On 20 April, the term of the Western Provincial Council expired and the term of the last provincial council to expire – Uva – will end on 24 October. Apart from various allegations of intentional delays by the Government, the reason officially given for the holdup in conducting PC polls is the contentious new electoral method that was brought into effect in 2017 and was used to hold the local government election in 2018. In order for polls to be held in accordance with the new system, which is a mixture of the first-past-the-post and preferential representation methods, various demarcations were established through a government delimitation unit. The report of the Delimitation Committee has to be passed in Parliament with a two-thirds majority in order for the contents of the report to become law, thereby enabling the holding of PC elections. The delimitation report was presented to Parliament on 6 March 2018 by then Minister of Provincial Council and Local Government Faiszer Musthapha. On 24 August 2018, 139 parliamentarians voted against the delimitation report while none cast votes in favour, effectively defeating the vote on the report. Thereafter on 28 August, a five-member review committee headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed to review the delimitation report and submit a separate report within a period of two months ending 28 October 2018. Nonetheless, up to date, no such report from the review committee was released. As a result, the process of even calling for PC elections has come to a complete standstill. President’s request On Tuesday (13), President Maithripala Sirisena sought a determination from the SC on whether PC elections can be conducted in line with the proportional representation system, which existed before the Provincial Councils (Amendment) Act was passed in 2017. The questions posed by the President to the SC are as follows: •In view of the review committee failing to submit its report in accordance with Subsection (13) and (14) of Section 3A of the Provincial Council Elections Act No. 2 of 1988 as amended by Act No. 17 of 2017, (I query) whether I, as President, by proclamation forthwith publish the new number of electorates, and the boundaries and names assigned to each electorate so created in terms of the report of the Delimitation Committee submitted to the minister assigned the subject of provincial councils? •Whether, the PC elections can be held under the Provincial Councils Election Act No. 2 of 1988 as amended by Act No. 17 of 2017, once the proclamation referred to in (a) above is published? •Whether in the absence of such inability to hold such PC elections in terms of the present law, the said PC election can be held under the law that was in force prior to the enactment of the Provincial Council Elections (Amendment) Act No. 17 of 2017 in view of 6 (2) of the Interpretation Ordinance?

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