20A Must Have A Referendum

By Kusal Perera –June 10, 2015 

Kusal Perara

After a long battle fought hard with his own men, President Maithripala Sirisena finally had 20A approved by the Cabinet on Monday 08 June. This incidentally was a special cabinet meeting convened by the President himself for the special purpose of forging consensus among quarrelling party leaders on 20th Amendment. The irony was, he only wanted “20A” and did not have any serious stand on what electoral reforms should be in 20A. It now goes the 20A approved by the cabinet had compromised on PM Ranil Wickremesinghe’s formula of sticking to the 225 MP parliament with 125 elected on FPP system, 75 on proportional representation and the balance 25 from the national list.

Immediately, one of the self appointed electoral reform “experts” from CaFFE brayed its dissatisfaction and proved how wrong it had been in understanding electoral reforms. Issuing a statement CaFFE says though happy 20A finally came, this cabinet approved reform proposal has 03 major flaws. One, it would take a long time to re demarcate the 160 working electorates that now exist into 115 to 118 new electorates including multi member seats. It adds, all through history, all de limitation commissions have added and not reduced seats.

The absurdity of this argument is that CaFFE thinks taking time to do a good and a fair job in re demarcating electorates is bad, as reforms should be limited to easy and quick work. Therefore no serious reforms are necessary, goes the implied argument. Also, these “experts” don’t even know why previous de limitation commissions increased seats. It was to give better representation to the people in a single governing assembly the parliament then, with increasing number of Citizens counted after every 10 year national census. Now, with the 13A in place, responsibilities of the 225 member parliament had been reduced with a second tier representation of people in PCs, responsible for provincial rule. Such constitutional change that reduced responsibilities of the parliament demands a decrease in numbers at the apex assembly, not an increase. Therefore the past necessity of increasing is no more a necessity.

Two, CaFFE says, this will have adverse effect on minority parties. It argues, except by increasing numbers, small political parties cannot be adequately represented. This goes to prove how damningly stupid the “experts” have been in proposing increases. Electoral reforms are not meant to satisfy political parties. They are meant to strengthen people’s representation. Political parties will have to win the confidence of the people, if they want to have their nominees elected. In 1952 the SLFP won only 09 seats, a “small” party then. In 1960 July it formed its own government with 75 MPs. Having formed governments in 1947 and 1952 the UNP was reduced to a “small” party in 1956 with just 08 seats, “smaller” than the LSSP that won 14 seats. Again in 1965 election it won 66 seats to be the largest single party in parliament. How permanent are “small” parties ?

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