| by Kath Noble
( October 17,
2012, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) The Local Government Elections Act was
amended last week, with no debate either inside or outside Parliament. But was
the change genuinely uncontroversial? I don’t think so.
Given that the
process was initiated in the immediate aftermath of the passage of the 18th
Amendment, we should have been more suspicious. The 18th Amendment was part of
Mahinda Rajapaksa’s post-war strategy to tighten his grip on power. He was
thinking about how to make use of a moment at which he enjoyed unprecedented
popularity to achieve what is best for him. Are we really to believe that
reforms to the voting system announced just a few weeks later were about what
is best for the country?
People have a
general sense that Proportional Representation is problematic, which leads them
to assume that a mixture of Proportional Representation and First Past the Post
– the new legislation calls for 30% of seats to be decided using Proportional
Representation and 70% using First Past the Post – would be better.
The argument
goes as follows. The country is unstable with Proportional Representation,
since it is difficult for any one party to achieve a majority. Proportional
Representation also leads to violence during elections, as candidates fight
each other for preference votes. They have to spend more since constituencies
are larger and they have to cover a larger area, leading to more corruption.
And it is more difficult for voters to hold their elected representatives to
account. First Past the Post disadvantages minority parties, but what is being
proposed is a compromise.
Will the reforms
actually solve any of these problems? Are they even the problems that need
solving?
When it comes to
accountability, it seems to me that voters will have even less chance of
controlling politicians under the new legislation. At the moment, people can
choose between candidates while maintaining their allegiance to a party. This
is important. They need not vote for a party whose policies they don’t agree
with simply because they don’t like the individual the party has nominated in
their area. I bet plenty of UNP supporters stayed at home or even backed
Mahinda Rajapaksa in the 2010 presidential election rather than cast their vote
for Sarath Fonseka. That is what happens when choices are limited.
Electoral reform
as a means of reducing corruption is even more of a stretch of the imagination.
Are politicians compelled to steal in order to pay for election posters? Or is
it rather that they pay for election posters in order to be in a position to
continue stealing?
Meanwhile,
violence may or may not be reduced. Intra-party violence should be wiped out
with the abolition of preference votes. But this is not the only sort of
violence. Inter-party violence is already a problem, as we saw last month in
the Eastern Province – one of the most serious incidents reported was a knife
attack on SLMC candidate Azath Salley by supporters of Ameer Ali of the UPFA.
That had nothing to do with preference votes. With competition from within the
ranks of their own party eliminated, politicians could focus all of their
attention on their opponents.
The only real
solution is the empowerment of the Police.
Parties
themselves can have an impact. They don’t have to tolerate intra-party
violence, as the JVP has demonstrated. They don’t have to nominate thugs.
These days, much
more of a problem than violence is the abuse of state resources.
Parties must
commit themselves to a no-tolerance policy on all electoral abuses. They would
be substantially reduced almost immediately, without the need for any change in
the voting system. But the Government isn’t interested, since it knows that
without electoral abuses its performance would suffer.
The only
completely logical part of the argument is the bit about stability, but this is
a reason to oppose the reforms not to support them. Under First Past the Post,
a party can win representation far in excess of its vote share. It tends to
guarantee one party a majority, reducing the need for potentially destabilising
coalition building. But surely nobody in Sri Lanka believes that the country is
currently short of stability, electorally speaking? Mahinda Rajapaksa isn’t under
any pressure from the members of his coalition – on the contrary, he could
easily do without them. Does he need a guarantee? Even under Proportional
Representation he has managed to secure enough seats in Parliament to change
the Constitution, which was supposed to be impossible.
First Past the
Post is even more problematic than Proportional Representation.
What kind of a
compromise is that?
The new
legislation ignores genuinely popular and important electoral reforms, such as
a compulsory quota for women candidates. Women make up only 2% of elected
representatives at the local level. And according to a 2010 survey by the
Centre for Policy Alternatives, the vast majority of people from all
communities, including over 90% of Sinhalese, support quotas. They were even
promised in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s now forgotten Chintana.
If the voting
system is to be changed, the introduction of a compulsory quota for women
candidates should be the top priority.
I hope that
there would be at least some debate on the matter before the Government gets
around to extending the new system to the provincial and national levels, as it
announced following the passage of the amendment to the Local Government
Elections Act last week. The implications are bad enough at the local level.
But at the provincial and national levels, the reforms have even greater
potential for causing trouble. Minority parties, and in particular the JVP
whose supporters are spread relatively thinly across the country, will be badly
affected. Of course, this is hardly a coincidence, since it is the JVP’s seats
Mahinda Rajapaksa wants to take over, in case the UNP gets rid of Ranil
Wickremasinghe and starts to challenge him. Changing the voting system is just
another way of shoring up his position.
Given that
Mahinda Rajapaksa already holds the over-powerful Executive Presidency, shoring
up his position is not something we should encourage.
That the task of
defining constituencies in the new system is entrusted to the responsible
minister with little in the way of oversight is even more reason to be
suspicious of the move.
But such a
debate is unlikely to be initiated by the Opposition.
Ranil
Wickremesinghe has already indicated his support for the new system. Naturally,
since the amendment will result in an increase in the power of party leaders.
And when it comes to power, he is as obsessed as Mahinda Rajapaksa – only less
successful.
Party leaders
don’t like Proportional Representation because it gives some of their power to
voters. They make their nominations, but it is voters who choose which of the
candidates get elected. With First Past the Post, party leaders can give the
areas where the party has a strong base to their favourites and consign their
bĂȘtes noires to areas where they have absolutely no hope of winning.
It is obvious
why that is appealing to Ranil Wickremesinghe.
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