Duplicity of the Commissioner of Elections

Statement by Karu Jayasuriya, Deputy Leader UNP,on the decision taken by the Commissioner of Elections to postpone elections of 60 local government bodies

(February 21, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) We express our displeasure regarding the decision taken by the Commissioner of Elections to postpone elections of 60 local government bodies indefinitely, even prior to an order is made by the Courts, where 60 petitions have been filed challenging the rejection of nominations.

Already an order has been made by the Appeal Court preventing the conduct of elections for 3 local government bodies, namely, Akuressa, Akmeemana and Moneragala. We consider the decision of the Commissioner of Elections, as a pronouncement made before hand, since he has taken the decision even prior to an order made by a Court of Law.

The present Act for Local Government Elections does not provide powers to the Commissioner of Elections to postpone elections of the relevant local government bodies. Having taken this decision, we doubt whether the Commissioner has taken the law unto himself.

The above decision of the Election Commissioner has provided an opportunity to the Government to avoid a defeat in the present local government elections.

Although the opposition agreed to support the amendments to the Local Government Elections Act, where provisions have been incorporated to conduct local government elections under the first past post electoral system, the government avoided this opportunity despite the previous agreement.

We could have avoided a confusion of this nature if we were able to conduct the present local government elections under the first past post electoral system.

The government which was lamenting without election slogans to go before the voters was looking for a way to conduct local government elections on a scattered basis.

The decision taken by the Commissioner of Elections to postpone the conduct of elections of 60 local government bodies, even before an order is made by the Court of Law, will provide the opportunity the government was waiting for to conduct elections on a scattered basis.

We made a public statement requesting the Commissioner of Elections to conduct a fair and free election and safeguard the honour of his position prior to his retirement. We wish to reiterate this request.