New Local Government Bill – No Panacea Unless….

By Sujata Gamage -October 18, 2012

Dr. Sujata Gamage

Last week, a Local Government Elections Reform Bill was passed in Parliament by a unanimous vote. As I have argued before, the problems with violence in elections or lack of accountability afterwards is not really about the system of elections.

The problems are due to the abuse of the electoral process for personal gain. As long as politics is viewed as a way of making a better living, come next election, we may find that we are no better under the new system.

The violence, and the greed which is the cause of the violence, will manifest in other forms. To flog a dead horse, the new system actually had buried away a good system that went bad due to bad politics. What is done is done. Let us look at the positives of the new.

The ward system

The new system is based on smaller units within a local authority called wards. I see a ray of hope in the ward system, in that politics can be influenced by grass-roots organizations in each ward, if the voters , middle class voters in particular, do their part. It is not too early for a few committed voters in each ward to understand the new system and get ready to change the culture of politics, one ward at a time.

According to the new system, a party or an independent group still has to put up a list of candidates for the local authority area as a whole. Unlike before, each name on the list has to be now assigned to a ward. The size and shape of a ward is to be determined by a delimitation commission. Political parties have always made political calculations based on their strengths in smaller units in a local authority. More often than not, these smaller units were remnants from the ward system we had prior to 1987.

The number of councillors in a council was also more or less based on the old ward system.

That means the Colombo Municipal Council, likely will be divided into nearly 50 wards more or less equal to the number of councillors we have now.

The ballot paper is simplified. A voter will see only the symbols and names of the parties contesting the election.

During the campaign each voter will have been informed about the face behind the symbol for each ward. Hopefully, elections laws will be obeyed and you would not have to ward away candidates’ faces on every fence and wall in your neighbourhood. Candidates will make themselves known at town meetings and visits to homes. With your vote, you will be voting for a representative for your ward as well as for a party.

Selection of additional councillors Read More