The question of whether Parliamentary Elections will be held before the Presidential Election or whether the elections will be delayed to make changes in the parliamentary electoral system is causing confusion among the people.
Although President Ranil Wickremesinghe recently asked the Cabinet to prepare for the Presidential Election, the Rajapaksas are insisting that the Parliamentary Election should be held first.
President Wickremesinghe’s initial talks with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his younger brother Basil Rajapaksa did not lead to any agreement regarding the formation of an alliance or the elections.
While the President seems determined that the Presidential Election should be held before mid-October according to the Constitution, a majority of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MPs are said to want Parliamentary Elections first – a demand that has intensified since Basil’s return from America. However, the important question is whether the Rajapaksas will be able to prevail upon the President to comply with that request.
When Basil Rajapaksa met the President for the second time, he presented to him the party’s demand regarding the Parliamentary Elections. He told the media that before meeting the President, he had consulted MPs from his party and its allies and did not expect an immediate determination from the President on holding the Parliamentary Elections first. He had also said that they needed to have discussions again.
The next Parliamentary Election should be held between August and September 2025. However, the House can pass a resolution with a simple majority support to request the President to dissolve Parliament immediately to facilitate the holding of Parliamentary Elections before the Presidential Election. Yet the President is not bound to dissolve Parliament on account of that request.
Although the President now has the power to dissolve Parliament at any time, he is not likely to agree to dissolve Parliament because of his emphasis on the Presidential Election.
Meanwhile, since a significant number of current MPs were elected to Parliament for the first time in the 2020 General Elections, it is certain that they will not support a dissolution, because if Parliament were to be dissolved before the end of the five-year term, they will lose their chance to get pensions.
Politics of expediency
The Rajapaksas, who had always held Parliamentary Elections after the Presidential Election during their rule, have now come up with a strange reasoning to justify their current position.
In an interview with a private television channel recently, Basil said that if the Parliamentary Elections were to be held after the Presidential Election, the people would give their overwhelming support to the party of the new president. Therefore, he said that Parliamentary Elections should be held first to ensure that the people voted rationally.
By means of this argument, he indirectly acknowledged that the people of the country had not voted intelligently at the Parliamentary Elections held after the Presidential Election during their rule.
Furthermore, he is speaking now as though he has forgotten the key role he played in encouraging party crossovers to secure a two-thirds majority in the House in order to introduce constitutional amendments and anti-democratic laws aimed at strengthening his family’s interests after the 2010 and 2020 Parliamentary Elections.
At the same time, Mahinda Rajapaksa has also voiced his support for the demand that the Parliamentary Elections must be held before the Presidential Election, adding: “If our proposal is not accepted, the party of the winner of the Presidential Election will win the Parliamentary Elections overwhelmingly. It is not good for the country. It is important that there should be a fair situation in the country after the elections.”
It is clear from the comments of the Rajapaksa brothers that their desire is that no party should obtain a clear majority in Parliament.
It seems that the Rajapaksas do not want a strong successor government as their party is unlikely to win the Parliamentary Elections. For that very reason, they think that the party of the next president should not win a big victory at the Parliamentary Elections.
However, the President’s United National Party (UNP) does not want Parliamentary Elections to be held first. The party strongly believes that Wickremesinghe has a chance of winning the Presidential Election as a result of the economic restructuring that the Government has been carrying out with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The UNP, being organisationally very weak, is not in a position to face Parliamentary Elections at the moment. Party stalwarts believe that if Wickremesinghe wins the Presidential Election, they will be able to face the Parliamentary Election with confidence.
The President has so far not expressed any opinion publicly regarding the Rajapaksa brothers’ demand on Parliamentary Elections. It seems that the Rajapaksas do not have an option besides supporting Wickremesinghe at the Presidential Election even though they have disagreed with him on many issues, including the elections. Even if Wickremesinghe (with their support) becomes president again, the Rajapaksas will not want his government to be stable.
Although they say that they want a fair situation to be maintained in the country after the elections, they seem to think that it is in their best interest to have a fragile government in office.
Claiming that the SLPP and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) had robust organisational structures and that the SLPP and Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa’s Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) had sufficient popular support, Basil said in a television interview that the UNP lacked strong structures and popular support but had the best presidential candidate.
These comments are a clear indication of his belief that if the SLPP and the UNP work together at the Presidential Election, it will be beneficial for both parties. At the same time, however, he wants the Parliamentary Election to be held first so that the UNP does not obtain a big victory in it. The Rajapaksas want all circumstances to be favourable to their interests at all times.
Electoral reform
It is noteworthy that most of the recent opinion polls have shown that it will be impossible for any political party to get an absolute majority if the Parliamentary Elections are held in the present political situation.
Meanwhile, with the Presidential Election six months away, Cabinet approval for a proposal to change the parliamentary electoral system recently has raised suspicions.
According to reports on the Cabinet resolution on electoral reforms, laws will be introduced to elect 160 MPs on the basis of the First-Past-the-Post (FPP) system and the remaining 65 members on the basis of Proportional Representation (PR).
A similar proposal was said to have been submitted to the Cabinet by Justice, Prison Affairs, and Constitutional Reforms Minister Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe in the latter part of last year. He denied reports that the Government was also considering holding a referendum to seek the people’s approval for abolishing the executive presidential system along with electoral reforms. In any case, the proposal for electoral reforms has been brought forward again and the Cabinet has approved it.
It is also noteworthy that late last year, President Wickremesinghe appointed a commission led by former Chief Justice Priyasath Dep to completely review all the processes related to the elections and submit a report within six months.
Election watchdogs, civil society organisations, and Opposition parties have expressed fear that the proposed parliamentary electoral reforms could lead to the postponement of elections. However, Minister Rajapakshe has stated that the new system will not be applied in the coming elections.
The electorate delimitation process is crucial for the purpose of electoral reforms. Dealing with various procedures associated with this process takes a long time, even several years.
Provincial Council Elections have not been held in many years due to a glitch in the delimitation process after a law was passed in 2017 during the ‘Yahapalana’ Government to hold the said elections under a mixed electoral system.
Despite reports that President Wickremesinghe had told Basil Rajapaksa last week that he had no intention of postponing elections under the guise of electoral reforms, there is a strong suspicion among the public that this Government will do anything to effect such a postponement at any time on account of their experience of having local elections postponed indefinitely.
However, many political observers say that under the Constitution, Parliamentary Elections cannot be postponed and therefore speculations in political circles about the postponement of the 2025 Parliamentary Elections are unfounded.
(The writer is a senior journalist based in Colombo)