• Rs. 6 b in addition to Rs. 2 b already approved in vote on account

The Election Commission (EC) has requested an allocation of Rs. 6 billion in the upcoming Budget for the Local Government (LG) Elections to be held this year (2025).

Preparations are underway to conduct the LG Elections, which were previously postponed due to the non-allocation of adequate funds by the previous Government, this year.

When asked by The Daily Morning as to whether the EC has requested that the necessary funds be allocated for election purposes through the upcoming budget, EC Chairperson, R.M.A.L. Rathnayake said: "A sum of Rs. 2 billion was previously allocated through the Vote on Account. In addition, we requested another Rs. 6 billion be allocated for the LG Elections through the budget."

The LG Elections were initially scheduled to be held on 9 March 2023, but the Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies Ministry and general Treasury did not release the required funds to the EC, which then was rescheduled to 25 April 2023. Since the funds were not released by that time too, the EC once again postponed the elections, indefinitely. Calling the non-holding of the LG Elections "a continuing violation" of citizens' fundamental rights (FR), the Supreme Court (SC) recently directed the EC to schedule the LG Elections 2023 at the earliest possible.

Meanwhile, following the EC's statements that holding the LG elections based on the then-called nominations would be an abnormal situation as some of the candidates were reported to have died, while some others have gone abroad and switched their political party affiliations, the Cabinet of Ministers recently granted their approval to cancel the nominations previously called for the LG Elections by amending the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Act No 16 of 2017.