Squandered Chances

The ruling parties’ defeat in local polls has dealt a blow to Sri Lanka’s hard-won democratising process

 

- Tisaranee Gunasekara

On 10 February, Sri Lanka held elections for 341 local government institutions. The polls were the freest and the most peaceful in living memory. The newly established Election Commission managed the polling process. The police implemented the law with a level of impartiality unfamiliar to Sri Lankans. No one died and there were no major outbreaks of violence, before, during or after the voting. This, too, was unprecedented for the country.

In many ways, this should have been a moment of triumph for the unity government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The United National Party, or UNP, and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, or SLFP, assumed office with Sirisena at its helm in August 2015, after Sirisena defeated the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s attempt to win a third presidential term a few months before. After delaying it for over two years, the government finally delivered on the implementation of a new hybrid electoral system, which combined both proportional representation and the first-past-the-post system. The passing of the nineteenth amendment to the constitution—arguably the most democratising piece of legislation enacted in the country till date—is the greatest achievement of the current administration. Some of the amendment’s key stipulations ensure the creation of a new presidential term limit and independent commissions to oversee public service, police, human rights, as well as to manage elections.