Former Chairman of the Election Commission (EC) Mahinda Deshapriya and incumbent Commissioner General of Elections Saman Sri Ratnayake are emphatically calling for a reversion to the old electoral system for Provincial Council (PC) Elections.
This comes as the Delimitation Report’s failure continues to deadlock the process, pushing the polls further into uncertainty. Deshapriya went on to boldly state that “postponing the election is a crime”.
Ratnayake articulated the urgency of this fallback plan: “If the delimitation and legal amendments remain stalled, we must consider going back to the previous system to hold timely elections. It may not be perfect, but it’s legally viable and immediately implementable.”
Unanimous rejection and elusive clarity
The Report of the Delimitation Committee for the Delimitation of Electorates in Provincial Councils was unanimously rejected by the Parliament, with 139 votes against and no votes in favour. This outcome, described by Deshapriya as a constitutional failure, highlights a significant and protracted hurdle in Sri Lanka’s electoral reform efforts. The report required a two-thirds majority for approval in terms of Section 3A (11) of the Provincial Councils Elections Act, a threshold it failed to meet decisively.
Despite repeated attempts to obtain direct comment from the incumbent Minister and Deputy Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government on ongoing election delays, clarity has often been elusive. However, Deputy Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Prabha Ruwan Senarath recently offered insights into the Government’s current stance.
The Government has ruled out holding PC Elections in 2025, citing unresolved legal and technical issues, with delimitation remaining chief among them. Senarath confirmed that elections would not be scheduled until these challenges were adequately addressed and the legal framework governing provincial governance was stabilised.
Senarath was particularly critical of past actions. “They brought a delimitation report, tabled it, and then they themselves voted against it. They made it a complete joke,” he stated, referencing the turmoil caused when former Minister of Provincial Councils and Local Government Faiszer Musthapha tabled a delimitation report for the PC Elections and subsequently voted against it. Senarath added: “That signifies significant flaws in the delimitation system.”
Ratnayake addressed the delay, noting that while elections were initially expected by the end of this year, they were now likely postponed to next year due to these unresolved legal and procedural challenges. He stated: “The core issue is the failure to pass the Delimitation Report that was submitted to Parliament. That report, which was meant to guide the conduct of elections under the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system, was neither debated nor approved.”
He further highlighted that Parliament had the opportunity to appoint a review committee, chaired by the Prime Minister, but noted: “Unfortunately, there is no record that such a committee ever met or produced a report.”
Historical context
Deshapriya traced the origins of this protracted impasse, recalling that after a Supreme Court ruling (SCFR 35/2016) declared governance by unelected officials unconstitutional, the then ‘Yahapalana’ Government moved to amend the Provincial Councils Elections Act in 2017. This amendment introduced an MMP system, aiming for a 50:50 split between proportional and first-past-the-post components.
As per the new act, a Delimitation Committee was appointed in October 2017. The committee was legally mandated to submit its report within four months. It completed its task and handed over the report in February 2018, which outlined the re-demarcation of 2,022 electoral wards along with another 222 list-based allocations.
However, in what Deshapriya termed an “apparent act of political negligence,” the report was not tabled in Parliament on schedule by then Minister Musthapha. He revealed that the EC repeatedly urged then Speaker Karu Jayasuriya to ensure its submission, invoking the Supreme Court’s ruling on unelected governance violating fundamental rights. Eventually, the report was tabled in August 2018, well beyond its stipulated deadline.
When the report finally faced Parliament, it proved impossible to gain the necessary two-thirds majority, especially when Musthapha himself voted against the report. This effectively nullified the effort, with even Government ministers who had initially backed the report voting against it.
Concerns over minority representation were a significant factor in the report’s rejection. Then Minister of City Planning and Water Supply Rauff Hakeem asserted that the Delimitation Committee had not adequately considered the interests of minorities, particularly the Muslim community, in demarcating constituencies. He called for the creation of multi-member constituencies to benefit minor and minority party candidates.
Delimitation Commission Chairman Dr. K. Thavalingam had acknowledged these concerns in a confidential letter to the Speaker. He had highlighted that while the committee aimed to create electorates based on “communities of interest,” there was limited scope to further increase the numbers for Muslim and Tamil communities under the existing act. He had also presented a comparison showing that, based on ethnic ratios, there was an “excess” of Sinhalese representation and a “deficit” for Tamils and Muslims in the newly-created electorates.
To address these imbalances and safeguard against instability, Dr. Thavalingam had proposed increasing the number of bonus seats per PC from two to five. He had projected that this change would increase the total number of members and provide “an opportunity of getting a few more minority members through the proportionate representation system”.
Failed review and political quagmire
Following the report’s rejection, the act stipulated that a Revising Committee be appointed within two months to address concerns and resubmit a corrected version. This committee, chaired by then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, included Hakeem, a representative from the TNA/ITAK, and current EC Chairman R.M.A.L. Rathnayake, who was nominated by Deshapriya to represent the commission. However, Deshapriya lamented that this Revising Committee only convened once and ultimately failed to deliver a revised report.
Commissioner General Ratnayake corroborated this, adding that during the political crisis of 2018, notably the 52-day Government crisis, the matter received little to no attention. “There was neither political consensus nor sufficient public discourse on the delimitation process. No media or parliamentary feedback was forthcoming, which caused a complete standstill.” He added that holding elections under the MMP system without a valid delimitation was not legally feasible and that the necessary law was still not in force.
Amid this delay, the political landscape further complicated matters. Then President Maithripala Sirisena removed Prime Minister Wickremesinghe in late 2018 and appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa to the post, plunging the process into political chaos. Deshapriya termed this period a “Gordian knot” that, in his view, could only be resolved by Parliament passing a new amendment or reverting to the pre-2017 electoral system. While a short-lived Cabinet under Rajapaksa briefly considered holding PC Elections under the old Proportional Representation (PR) system, this plan was abandoned when Wickremesinghe was reinstated.
Throughout this turbulent period, Deshapriya said that he, as the Chairman of the EC, wrote over 10 letters urging action and warning of the constitutional consequences of delaying elections. In a powerful act of protest, Deshapriya even offered his resignation as Chairman of the EC in 2019: “I said if the PC Elections are not held by the end of 2019, I will resign. I sent my resignation letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, but it was not accepted.”
Ratnayake further emphasised the complexity of delimitation, describing it as a highly complex process where various ministries, including Justice, Agriculture, Public Security, and Provincial Councils, had overlapping jurisdiction and authority in this matter. This makes coordination difficult and often leads to political gridlock. He stressed that delimitation was not merely a technical task but one with “wide-ranging political implications,” noting: “We do have a framework for conducting the elections. However, without the passage of the required legislation and the acceptance of a valid delimitation report, we are unable to proceed.”
Govt.’s current stance and future outlook
In light of the delimitation failure, the Government is now considering a reversion to the earlier electoral system and delimitation for PCs. However, Deputy Minister Senarath had recently emphasised that this would only happen once the Local Government structure was strengthened and empowered to manage grassroots public services more effectively.
“People generally tend to connect more with the localised representatives, like the grama niladhari, the divisional secretaries, and local authority representatives. We want to empower the local authorities further so that people have better access and more power,” he explained. “Only after setting up this mechanism properly will we turn our attention to the PCs.”
Senarath also outlined a broader strategy of prioritising infrastructure and development over immediate elections, particularly in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. These initiatives are part of a collaborative effort with India to launch targeted development projects starting in August this year. “We are planning to do most of our developmental work in the north and east. We have asked the relevant authorities not to approve any more funds until the project starts in August. The next six months are going to be dedicated to developmental work, so we cannot move for an election at this juncture,” he stated.
Subsequent attempts to resolve the impasse have also failed. TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran tabled a Private Member’s Bill to revert to the old system, which received Supreme Court approval for constitutionality, but Parliament was dissolved before it could be passed. A new draft bill with similar provisions was later brought forward by then Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe. Deshapriya further noted that in 2021, a Parliamentary Select Committee, chaired by then Leader of the House Dinesh Gunawardena, had also recommended reverting to the old PR-based system to break the deadlock.
The Government expects to revisit the question of PC Elections in January 2026. By then, Senarath hopes the legal, administrative, and delimitation-related shortcomings will be resolved. “We will need to ensure all these problems in the law are fixed before we can go for PC Elections next year. Preliminary discussions have started, but there are many other matters to resolve before we hold the elections,” he said.
Deshapriya acknowledged that the Government was now once again considering reintroducing the old system via fresh legislation, which would bypass the need for delimitation and allow for elections to proceed. However, a confirmed timeline remains elusive, with a recent discussion with the Deputy Minister suggesting the Government is eyeing early 2026 for the next PC Elections.
The call for accountability
Ratnayake expressed his concern about the lack of accountability and political will, urging that if the present Government was serious, it had to appoint a new, credible committee capable of arriving at a consensus within Parliament. “If such a committee is appointed and works with determination, a solution could be reached within two months.” He warned of long-term implications, stating: “If this continues without resolution, we are essentially abandoning the PC system for nearly 8-10 years. That’s a dangerous precedent. This could create a governance vacuum at the provincial level.”
He called for decisive leadership and public accountability, asserting that denying the public their right to elect representatives was a failure of political leadership. Reflecting on the prolonged struggle, Deshapriya lamented that despite various efforts, “no one really wanted to hold the election”.