Between voter fatigue and the need to fast-track promised development, the JVP-NPP Government has run out of new ideas to further put off the long-delayed polls to the nine Provincial Councils. In their place, they have now returned to the equally delayed ‘electoral reforms’, the ruse that successive Governments had floundered in their time, not to face the electorate at the intermediary level.
On every such occasion for a decade and more, the present-day rulers, then forming a minuscule minority in the Opposition camp, had run down the indefensible excuses for what they were worth. Now, they are in the driving seat, and have come to accept and acknowledge where the shoe actually pinches.
Plain and simple, the Government of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, too, is not sure of sweeping the PC Polls, at least in seven of the nine provinces, barring the Tamil North and mixed-ethnic East. This, despite hopes of continuing to make a dent in these two provinces, too, though not to the levels as seen during last year’s Parliamentary Polls.
The reasons for the delay are not far to seek, when ministers and other ruling combine stalwarts speak on the PC Polls, and justify their Government’s not honouring the promises made during the run-up to the presidential and parliamentary elections. It means that their strategists have studied the results of the recently concluded nationwide Local Government (LG) Polls threadbare.
It could thus be surmised that the ruling combine is unhappy with the LG Poll outcome, and seems to feel that their grassroots support may not be worth taking the risk of facing the electorate for a fourth time in over a year. The reference is to the presidential, parliamentary and LG polls. Yes, Governments before this one had used the excuse of ‘inevitable and imminent poll reforms’ for delaying elections to the PCs all these years. This one is following suit.
Intellect, integrity
It is here that problems arise for the JVP-NPP, because this is also one more occasion that they have gone back on their commitment to ‘change’ and to be ‘different’. It is so low that they don’t even possess the kind of intellect that people have come to associate with them – intellect and integrity.
Yes, the common voter may not be scanning the social media or the website of pollsters, who have begun measuring the Government’s commitment to their pronounced cause, tabulating deliveries against the promises made, especially ahead of the Presidential Poll. It is even more so in the weeks and months following the unprecedented Aragalaya mass movement that had the inherent capabilities to topple an elected President and his elected Government.
But the voter can relate to what is happening to him, his life, livelihood and lifestyle. It is here that he had hoped against hope that things would change for the better, when a new government ‘for change’ takes charge.
This has not happened, not at least thus far. While any new political combine or leader would have to be given time for understanding and learning things that were alien to them when in the Opposition for long years, the voters’ patience had run out very long ago. Hence, he has no time or patience for a longer wait. Hence, also the risk he took in handing over charge of the nation to a new grouping, despite accepted knowledge of their ignorance in matters of administration.
Nothing has changed
Today’s experience is that nothing has changed, not certainly for the better, purely from the voter’s personal perspective. Yes, in the past several months in office, the Dissanayake ministers have not been caught, stealing from the people, stealing from the Treasury.
There have been a few instances, however, like the controversial clearance reportedly granted for 300-plus containers – that’s a huge number – to be taken out of Colombo Port. The Government’s response, if there was any, has not convinced anyone.
Of course, this is a matter for the political Opposition and elitist citizens, particularly of the ‘rights’ type. But, prices, tariffs and availability of everyday food items and other goods certainly concern the common man. He does not care about the war in Ukraine or the war in West Asia / the Middle East. His life has been so very entangled in things that are personal for the past few years, he has no time for the rest of the world.
It is here that the low 43 per cent vote share of the ruling JVP-NPP in the recent Local Government Elections matters for the Government. Maybe, if they had held the LG Polls not long after the Parliamentary Elections, they might have obtained a favourable verdict, across the board.
To think that not a long time had passed since the Parliamentary Polls, and yet their stock fell steeply to the original level, from 61 per cent vote share to 43 – said a lot. Hence, their fear that they may not be able to win (one too many?) Provincial Councils from among the seven PCs in the ‘South’.
Mass moment
At a time when the Government admits to 66 shooting incidents in which 37 lives were lost so far this year, the voter cannot remain unconcerned. In a different way, though not a ‘mass moment’, when both during the two JVP insurgencies and later when LTTE terrorists hit, there is an apprehension that men (including women) who left home for the street-corner ‘boutique’ would return home safely.
Some of it is an inheritance issue, but this Government too has not been able to change or control or reverse the situation, and has not helped matters. If there has been progress in the promised investigations, that serving personnel of the armed forces and the Police acted as ‘hired guns’ for goons, to neutralise their enemies in broad daylight, the people have not been made aware of it.
If all those weapons, including T-56 assault rifles that otherwise have no role in civilian clashes and went missing from the armouries of the armed forces, have been recovered, again, the people have not been updated. Instead, whatever news that comes out on gangs, their leaders are either operating from distant West Asia, or closer home from within the prison.
Suffice it to recall how the ‘system’ together manipulated the President’s list of pardoned prisoners without anyone knowing. Maybe, they were at it all through the past years and past Presidents, but here is an incumbent who was expected to correct the very same system, by his very election and consequent presence. It did not happen, either.
Convincing reason
Where does it all lead to? Now that the Government is using the very same trick of ‘electoral reforms’ to delay PC Polls, which have been rendered redundant for over a decade, even while they are on the statute book, what do the incumbents plan to do next? That is a million-dollar question for which they themselves may not have answers.
Ironically or otherwise, if the Government is able to delay it by another year, and convince the Supreme Court, if moved, they will have even more of a ‘convincing reason’ next year. That will be President Dissanayake’s third year in office, when he has promised to kick-start a national discourse on constitutional reforms, rather.
It is for a new Constitution. Surely, there are ‘majoritarian, Sinhala-Buddhist nationalists’ who happily want the PCs to be struck off the books, and forever. The same applies to many in the political and bureaucratic administrations, who need not be ‘nationalists’ of the kind. Both camps seem to be convinced of their decision.
For the JVP’s part, it’s the party that obtained a Supreme Court verdict as far back as 2006, de-merging the North and the East under 13A and the accompanying Provincial Councils Act, both of 1987 vintage. The current essay of the Government could well be that the nation does not require PCs, and successive Governments have shown that the common man has not lost anything in its absence.
The chorus on the PCs and 13A, mostly against them from vocal sections in the South, can drown out the call for early elections to the Provincial Councils. That is, unless the Higher Judiciary intervenes, here and now – and directs the EC to what needs doing. It was thus and thus alone that the EC’s hands were empowered to conduct the LC Polls.
Who then said that the Government is not justified in reviving the talk on ‘poll reforms’ before ordering/facilitating early elections to the nine Provincial Councils?
(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)
