Vulpine praise for a Trojan horse?

Wednesday 27th March, 2024

The mere sight of a notorious pickpocket usually prompts people to check for the safety of their wallets or purses even if he is not looking for prey. The SLPP-UNP government has the same reputation as a cutpurse, and therefore the public tends to view everything it does with a jaundiced eye. Its recent undertaking to introduce electoral reforms has therefore triggered howls of protests from those who cherish franchise. The Opposition has accused the government of trying to put off national elections on the pretext of introducing electoral reforms.

Government politicians are full of praise for the proposed electoral reforms, which are widely seen as a Trojan horse. Minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Dr. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has sought to dispel doubts and suspicions in the minds of the public about the proposed electoral reforms. He has said they will not cause elections to be postponed. He may be telling the truth, but Sri Lankans usually do not believe anything until it is officially denied. So, the government will have a hard time trying to convince the public that it is not trying to postpone elections again. It ought to explain why it announced its decision to reform the parliamentary electoral system ahead of the coming presidential election.

The blame for postponing elections should be apportioned to all self-righteous members of the current Parliament as well as President Ranil Wickremesinghe. They have suppressed the people’s franchise on several occasions.

In 1975, an SLFP-led government postponed a general election by two years. It abused its two-thirds majority in Parliament for that purpose, and dealt a severe blow to democracy; resentful electors voted overwhelmingly for the UNP at the 1977 general election. President J. R. Jayewardene abused his steamroller majority in Parliament to cause a general election to disappear in 1982 by conducting a heavily-rigged referendum. He did so because he feared that he would lose his five-sixths parliamentary majority if a general election was held. Wickremesinghe was a Cabinet minister in that repressive regime.

In 2017, the UNP, the SLFP, the TNA, the SLMC, etc., voted for the Provincial Council Elections (Amendment) Bill, which helped postpone the PC polls indefinitely. UNP leader Wickremesinghe was the Prime Minister and SLFP leader Maithripala Sirisena the President at the time. The incumbent SLPP government postponed the Local Government (LG) polls, in 2021, on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s watch. The SLPP dissidents cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for that poll postponement, for they had not broken ranks with the SLPP administration by that time. The SLPP and the UNP postponed the LG polls last year by claiming that funds could not be allocated for an electoral contest owing to the country’s pecuniary woes.

In a previous editorial comment immediately after the announcement of the government’s decision to bring in new laws to elect 160 MPs under the first-past-the-post system and 65 MPs under the Proportional Representation, we pointed out that electoral reforms could entail long-drawn-out delimitation processes. Fear that it may not be possible for a general election to be held until the conclusion of the delimitation process pertaining to the proposed electoral reforms is therefore not unfounded.

The People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) has warned of the possibility of such a situation coming about. A government that fears elections will do everything in its power to postpone them. The SLPP-UNP regime is no respecter of public opinion and has no sense of shame; it therefore does not scruple to safeguard self-interest at any cost.

If the government is serious about allaying the people’s doubts and suspicions about the proposed electoral reforms, it will have to give a legal assurance that they will not lead to poll postponements. PAFFREL Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi has rightly called for the incorporation of a specific clause into the electoral reforms draft Bill, which is said to be on the anvil, to enable the Election Commission to conduct a general election under the existing PR system in the event of the delimitation process dragging on indefinitely. Nothing else will do.