Recent pronouncements by Government leaders regarding Provincial Council (PC) Elections raise more doubts than hope that the elections will be held any time next year.

The latest announcement came from Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, who told Parliament on 9 October, in response to questions raised by Opposition members Shanakiyan Rasamanickam and Jeevan Thondaman, that the Government intended to hold the long-delayed PC Elections by next year and that the elections would be decided once the current delimitation process was completed.

“We will decide later whether to hold PC Elections under the Proportional Representation (PR) system or the mixed electoral system. This can only be decided by Parliament. Talks will be held to decide on the electoral system,” he added.

It may be recalled that Herath had conveyed the same position on PC Elections while addressing the recently concluded 60th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and earlier, in response to the report submitted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on the situation in Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, Tilvin Silva, the powerful General Secretary of the flagship party of the ruling National People’s Power (NPP), the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), and key leaders of the Government, such as Leader of the House Minister Bimal Rathnayake and Cabinet Spokesman Nalinda Jayatissa also said that PC Elections would be held next year once the delimitation process was complete.

A long-delayed election 

The PC Elections will have to wait until the delimitation process is complete only if they are to be held under a mixed electoral system, which includes PR and the old First-Past-the-Post (FPP) method. 

Election Commission (EC) Chairman R.M.A.L. Rathnayake told the media a few days ago that they had not received any instructions regarding the formation of a new delimitation committee for the PC Elections and that the wait for the elections continued, as there was no clear decision on when the process would be carried out.

Earlier in August, the Cabinet had approved the appointment of a new delimitation committee to review the reports of the previous committees and provide guidelines regarding the PC Elections. However, despite earlier assurances that steps would be taken to hold the elections once the delimitation process was completed, no information has been provided by the Government on the progress of the process, according to the EC Chairman. 

Under the new law passed in 2017 during the ‘Yahapalana’ Government under Maithripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickremesinghe to conduct PC Elections under a mixed system, similar to Local Government Elections, a Delimitation Committee chaired by Dr. K. Thavalingam was appointed to demarcate the 2022 electoral wards and 222 list-based allocations in the PCs. 

The committee’s report, however, was submitted past its deadline in 2018 and subsequently rejected by the Cabinet.

There are provisions in the law ensuring that if the report of the delimitation committee is rejected, a committee headed by the prime minister will review it and submit a fresh report within two months. It was said that a committee led by then Prime Minister Wickremesinghe submitted a report to Parliament stating that it would not be possible to fully review the Delimitation Committee’s report in a short period of two months. 

More than 11 years have passed without PC Elections being held. The last Provincial Council Elections under the 13th Amendment of the Constitution were held in 2014.

The Govt.’s responsibility 

During last year’s national elections, the NPP promised that PC Elections would be held within a year of the new Government taking office. It is a well-known secret that the Government is reluctant to hold PC Elections after a significant drop in the votes of the ruling party at local elections.

While some leaders of the Government have already said that the elections would be held in the first half of next year, the Foreign Minister’s latest statement that the elections would be held within the next year has naturally given rise to doubts regarding the Government’s intentions.

If a new delimitation committee is appointed as per the approval given by the Cabinet in August, there is no possibility of holding PC Elections next year if it starts the process afresh.

The elections are likely to be delayed again for a couple of years. However, it is learnt from some political sources that the Government intends to set up a committee under the chairmanship of the incumbent Prime Minister to review the report of the Thavalingam committee, which was already rejected by Parliament several years ago.

If PC Elections are to be held expeditiously without further delay, the only practicable method is to hold them under the existing PR system.

In order to facilitate the conducting of elections under the PR system, during the previous Government, then Member of Parliament (MP) of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) M.A. Sumanthiran brought a bill in the form of a private member’s motion. However, it could not be passed in Parliament. At present, a similar private member’s motion has been brought by the ITAK’s Batticaloa District MP Rasamanickam.

If the Government is really interested in holding the PC Elections at the earliest, it should cooperate in passing Rasamanickam’s motion in the House. This can easily be done by using a majority of more than two-thirds of seats the Government has in Parliament. However, the Government has no such inclination.

It is entirely the responsibility of the Government to find a solution to the problems that stand in the way of holding the PC Elections expeditiously. The NPP, which promised to hold the elections in a fair manner without allowing for any delays, cannot be justified on any grounds in this issue. 

If it had won a spectacular victory at the Local Government Elections like during the 2024 Parliamentary Elections, the Government would have definitely held the PC Elections immediately thereafter.

No government can avoid a decline of votes by postponing elections. Delaying elections will only lead to a further drop in votes and will not increase popular support in any way. Today’s Government leaders must understand that all governments that postponed elections out of fear of defeat failed miserably.

Southern vs. northern political parties 

Be that as it may, a strange turn in the course of political events in southern Sri Lanka can be observed. 

The current Opposition parties, which have had no interest in PC Elections for more than a decade, have recently begun urging the Government to hold these elections as soon as possible. No one can have any difficulty in understanding that the concern for devolution of powers to the provinces is not the reason for it.

Emboldened by the reverses suffered by the Government at the Local Government Elections, the Opposition parties expect it to face a major setback in any future elections as the Government has not been able to fulfil most of the promises made to the people by the NPP during the national elections.

On the other hand, since there is no possibility of coming to power at the centre in the near future, these Opposition parties are keen to capture power in the PCs, the second tier of the governance system. 

If these already badly weakened parties are not able to hold positions of power at some level for a long period, it will be difficult to prevent further deterioration of their support and party network. This is the reason why these parties have dared to challenge the Government regarding PC Elections.

At a meeting convened a few days ago by the National Movement for Social Justice (NMSJ), led by former Speaker Karu Jayasuriya to coincide with his 85th birthday, Opposition parties and some civil society organisations discussed in detail ways to press the Government to hold early PC Elections without delay. They also demanded that the elections be held within this year without waiting for next year.

It is unfortunate that the Tamil political parties in the north and east have not shown much interest in exploring ways to pressure the Government in this regard when the Opposition parties are making similar demands of the Government regarding the elections in the south of Sri Lanka.

On the completion of one year of the NPP Government, the ITAK sent a letter to President Anura Kumara Dissanayake asking for time to have discussions with him, pointing out that it was now one year since the President took office, and while the resolution of pressing issues concerning the Tamil people had been promised in the NPP’s election manifesto, despite several announcements made by the President, no related action had been taken in the last year. 

However, only Minister Ramalingam Chandrasekar told the media that the President would soon call representatives of the ITAK. It is not known whether the party has received any response from the President himself. 

(The writer is a senior Tamil journalist based in Colombo)

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the official position of this publication)