Proposal to reduce the number of seats in Parliament for the Jaffna district will aggravate the situation further

An Open letter to the Commissioner of Elections Elections,

by V. Anandasangaree

(July 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) I am surprised at your decision to reduce the number of seats in Parliament for the Jaffna District, from nine to six. Let there be no confusion in this matter. I am sure you are referring to the Jaffna Electoral District which is comprised of both the Administrative Districts of Jaffna and Kilinochchi and not the Jaffna District alone.

Before Kilinochchi was carved out of the Jaffna District, it had eleven electorates. The number came down to nine at one stage and no one took serious note of it due to the adverse situation prevailing in the North, at that time. Your decision to bring the number further down from, nine to six, is totally unacceptable. The irony is that in the preparation for Independence in 1948, the first parliament was constituted in 1947. It had seven members out of 95 members elected on first past the post system and six other nominated members to represent the unrepresented interest, totaling 101. Apart from the legality of this matter, how ridiculous it looks for the Jaffna Electoral District to have only six elected members out of 196 elected and 29 selected on the National List. If the number of elected members come down to 6 in 2011 from 7 in 1947, 64 years back, we should concede that something had radically gone wrong. It is your duty to bring it to the notice of His Excellency the President, with your recommendations, to take remedial measures to set things right.

The following factors should be taken into consideration:-

1. Due to displacement, people have settled in various places in the South and have just started returning to their homes.

2. When the voters list, on which you propose taking action, was prepared most people had not returned to their houses.

3. Many are still reluctant to move back for various reasons such as fear, lack of facilities in their homes most of which are still not fit for habitation, failure to resettle in high security zones and houses retained by the army for various reasons by force, refusing permission for the owners to resettle.

4. Many have no means of living and none had been compensated for any of their losses including for lives lost.

5. No statistics are available about the people who died during the war and of those missing and abducted persons etc. These details would not have been available when the voters’ lists were prepared.

6. The chief breadwinners of many families are still in detention resulting in people showing reluctances to get back home, without proper security.

7. Since steps are being taken to have a general census, a delimitation commission can follow as provided in the former constitution and the decision can be left in the hands of the commission.

8. Above all your proposal will only aggravate the situation and will distance finding a solution to the ethnic problem.

Therefore I strongly urge you to recommend to the Government to have the status quo maintained till absolute normalcy is restored and the unauthorized settlements are withdrawn. The best and the most reasonable solution is to maintain the status quo and to recommend to the Government for sealing of the number at 225 until next delimitation takes place following the census.