President Anura Kumara Dissanayake met the Provincial Governors and Secretaries on Thursday (11) to discuss matters related to finance, development projects, etc., in the provinces, according to the Presidential Media Division. The President/the Finance Minister meets the representatives of the Provincial Councils (PCs) before preparing the annual national budget.
Ideally, President Dissanayake should have been able to meet the Chief Ministers (CMs) of Provinces at the pre-budget discussions, for it is they who actually represent the people. The Provincial Governors are the President’s representatives, and they do as he says. But the PCs have remained unelected for eight long years, and there are no CMs. Therefore, the President can meet only Provincial Governors at present.
There have been eight nationwide elections since the last PC polls in 2014, and the country has had five governments (including the interim one formed by the NPP in 2024) and five Presidents. When the PC polls will be held is anybody’s guess.
President Dissanayake has said his government does not use the PCs as political instruments to advance his party’s agenda. Ironically, he is exercising control over the PCs through the Governors appointed by him. Until the Local Government polls were conducted in May 2025, after a delay of three years, the Presidents had kept all three tiers of government under their control for three years; besides holding the executive presidency, they controlled the legislature through the ruling parties and the PCs through Provincial Governors and the LG institution through Special Commissioners under the Provincial Governors.
The PCs have been under the Executive President since 2017, when the UNP-led Yahapalana government postponed elections to them indefinitely by amending the PC Elections Act. The Opposition parties, including the JVP, did not vote against the PC Elections (Amendment) Bill introduced for that purpose. In fact, they helped the Yahapalana government secure the passage of that Bill. The SLPP government did not hold the PC polls and postponed the LG polls for fear of losing them. The NPP administration said it would hold the PC polls after the 06 May LG elections. But it has since remained silent on that pledge.
President Dissanayake, at the aforementioned discussion, stressed the need for close coordination between the government and the PCs to implement development projects smoothly. There was absolutely no need for him to make such a call as the PCs are run by his appointees—the Governors. The NPP is running the PCs to all intents and purposes. The situation may change if the delayed PC polls are held.
Government politicians prevaricate when they are asked when the PC polls will be held. Cabinet Spokesman Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa provided an evasive answer to a question about the PC polls, at a recent post-Cabinet media briefing. He said he could not specify a timeframe for the PC elections, but they would be held. Perhaps, the considerable setback the NPP suffered in the LG polls has prompted the government to delay the PC elections further. There is reason to believe that if the NPP had won the LG polls comfortably, it would have gone on to hold the PC elections immediately afterwards.
It behoves the government to reveal when it is going to hold the PC polls, which must not be subjugated to the interests of the NPP. True, the PC system has become a white elephant—a very expensive one at that. But the government should hold elections to the PCs or decide whether to retain or scrap them, as polls monitors have rightly said.