Sri Lanka Needs Clean & Competent Political Candidates

By Jayadeva de Silva –May 24, 2015 

Jayadeva de Silva

Criminal politicians should go to jail, lose their seats and be disqualified from contesting for a substantial period of time. Sri Lanka’s wheels of justice grind slowly, common man lays the blame squarely on politicians and laments that ‘goondas’ are winnable candidates. But how did criminals come to dominate in the first place? Are there fundamental flaws in our political system that makes it favour the tainted over the sainted? Have civil society’s movements in courts only attacked the symptoms? Can we identify and attack the root causes instead?

Today, candidates typically start their parliamentary careers with monies obtained from big mafias. Candidates who cannot raise white money openly are at a disadvantage. Thereby, clean politicians are crippled by the system.

At the last presidential elections one candidate has spent Rs 43,000 per voter !

*Photo courtesy AP

Therefore, across the board, parties have tried to cope by favouring candidates with black money and the networks and capability to expend those resources. Such candidates, whose political foundations are built on lawbreaking, typically hijack the political system for private profiteering. The rare few get caught and eventually convicted.System should change so that cleaner candidates who can raise limited amount white resources will also be able to compete. Today when people want clean candidates but political parties shun them on the criterion of ‘winnability’. Campaign for clean and competent candidates (CCCC) has been initiated in Sri Lanka to find a solution to this pressing issue.Read More