The Cabinet of Ministers announced a meeting with party leaders of parties and groups represented in the Parliament to decide on the nomination list for the Local Government (LG) Elections amidst candidates nominated in the 2022 list changing political affiliations since.
“We need to finalise the nomination list and we will have a meeting with the party leaders in order to finalise the list,” Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa told the media yesterday (26). “After we have decided on the nomination list, we will announce the LG Elections soon.”
These comments come after an announcement by Minister Vijitha Herath that the LG Elections would take place next year (in 2025).
“We have not allocated enough money to have another Election this year (2024),” Dr. Jayatissa said. “However, we are preparing to have the LG Elections, hopefully during the beginning of next year.”
The Election Commission (EC) stated that in line with the recent Supreme Court (SC) ruling, they are only required to hold the LG Elections as soon as possible, and cannot alter the LG nominations called in 2022, even if the candidates have since changed political parties. It was recently reported that there is a problematic situation over the nominations submitted for the LG Elections as there have been changes in the political affiliations of the candidates. When queried about the issue, the EC Chairperson R.M.A.L. Rathnayake said that they are only left with the option of holding the LG Elections considering the nominations submitted in 2022 for the same, and that there is no possibility to make any change to it unless there will be an amendment to the related legislation. He noted that while there have been recent discussions about introducing a Bill to cancel the 2022 LG nominations, revisions would be possible if such a reform is implemented before the Elections are declared.
The LG Elections were initially scheduled to be held on 9 March 2023, but, the Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies Ministry and general Treasury had not released the required funds to the EC, which then rescheduled the Elections to 25 April 2023. Since the funds were not released by that time too, the EC once again postponed the Elections, this time indefinitely.
Calling the non-holding of the LG Elections “a continuing violation” of the citizens’ fundamental rights, the SC recently directed the EC to schedule the Elections at the earliest possible.