Questions over new electoral method

By Udaya P. Gammanpila-2017-10-01

The government introduced a new electoral method for Local Authorities on 24 August 2017. A similar method was introduced for Provincial Councils on 20 September 2017. There is only one difference between the two methods. When 60 per cent of members of the local authorities are elected from electorates, the balance will be appointed from a list on the recommendation of the party secretary. It is 50 per cent each from the electorates and the list for Provincial Councils. The government has envisaged introducing this method for parliamentary elections as well. Hence, let us be familiar with the new electoral method.

Let us take a hypothetical district of 100 allocated provincial councillors to understand the new law for the Provincial Councils.

Fifty members should be elected from electorates and the balance 50 members will be appointed from the list. For the convenience of calculation, let us assume that there are no multi-member electorates in the district.

Brown and Green parties have secured victories in 35 and 15 electorates respectively. Red and Blue parties failed to secure any electorate. The total number of votes received by Brown, Green, Blue and Red parties for all electorates in the district would amount to 55 per cent, 35 per cent, 5 per cent and 5 per cent respectively. The Proportionate Representation method presently available in the Constitution for parliamentary elections is used to determine the number of members entitled by each party.

Accordingly, Brown, Green, Blue and Red parties are entitled to 55, 35, 5 and 5 members respectively. Since Brown Party has already secured 35 members from electorates, another 20 members are allocated to it from the list. Green Party's entitlement is 35 members and it has secured only 15 members from electorates. Hence, Green Party also gets 20 members from the list. Although both Blue and Red parties are entitled to 5 members each, they have secured none from electorates. Hence, both parties get 5 members each from the list.

Female representation

Let us now look at the provisions for female representation. Every party should ensure 1/6 of its candidates for electorates are females. Further, 50 per cent of the list should be allocated for females.

As a result, 33 per cent of total candidates are females.

In the end, 25 per cent of members elected must be females. Hence, if there are no females elected from electorates, all female candidates in the list should be appointed to meet the 25 per cent minimum requirement.

There are several weaknesses in this method. Firstly, this method has weakened the people's choice and strengthened party leaders' grip. Party leaders will decide the candidates for electorates. They will prepare the lists. They will decide who should be appointed from the list. They can also appoint the defeated candidates to the council. Although people can defeat the candidates nominated for electorates, they cannot defeat the candidates in the list. The situation is worse in respect of Provincial Councils, since the members nominated from the list have been increased to 50 per cent from 40 per cent. Hence, democracy is the ultimate victim of this method.

Previous method

People had the authority to reject any candidate nominated by the party under the previous method. When Namal Rajapkasa contested Hambantota in 2010, he was a son of the then President. People still had the opportunity to reject him. Under the present method, if people want to reject the candidate, they have to defeat the party as well. Even after the defeat, he can be appointed to fill a slot reserved for the candidates in the list.

Secondly, this method leads to unstable representative councils. In order to ensure stability, two bonus members were allocated to the winning party in both local and Provincial Councils under the previous method. It helped the winning party to achieve a simple majority in councils and thereby make those stable. Hence, minor parties lost the opportunity to control major parties in a 'tail wags the dog' situation. Unfortunately, there are no bonus members in this method.

The government intends to introduce this method to parliamentary elections as well. There are 22 electoral districts for parliamentary elections. Under the present method, the political party which secures the highest number of votes in each district gets a bonus member. If the winning party secures the highest number of votes in 12 districts, it is entitled to 12 bonus members. Having bonus members, no party was able to secure the simple majority in Parliament under the present method except in 1989 and 2010. The government exploited the JVP terror to its advantage in 1989. People en masse supported the government in 2010 in gratitude for the military victory over the LTTE. Hence, the winning parties had secured the parliamentary majority in 1989 and 2010 under exceptional circumstances.

Greatest weakness

The greatest weakness of the present method is allocation of bonus members at district level. Different districts are won by diverse parties. Jaffna, Batticaloa and Vanni Districts are usually won by the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). Ampara and Trincomalee Districts are won by the party which receives the support of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC). Matara, Hambantota and Moneragala are known as the strongholds of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Similarly, Colombo, Kandy, Badulla and Nuwara Eliya are strongholds of the United National Party (UNP). Hence, district bonus members will be distributed among several parties. As a result, it does not help the winning party to secure a simple majority in Parliament. Hence, allocation of bonus members to the winning party at the national level should be considered in the new method to produce stable councils.