LG elections only next year says Mustapha
LG elections only next year says Mustapha
Local government elections will be held next year because the damage caused to the Local Government electoral system by the Jayalath Dissanayaka National Delimitation Commission is so vast that the five-member committee appointed to rectify the errors will take several months to complete its work, Local Government and Provincial Councils Minister Faizer Mustapha said yesterday.
He said the shoddy work done by the Dissanayaka Commission has raised concerns among the political parties, the voters and the media.
“I appeal to those who make various unfounded and illogical comments on the postponement of the LG polls to read the LG Electoral Reforms Act of 2012. Under this Act, the government can only hold elections after delimitation is completed. The huge blunder and the low-quality work of Dissanayaka Commission to satisfy the ruling party has created this extremely unsatisfactory situation. The stakeholders are unhappy with the recommendations and that is why I appointed the fivemember committee to inquire into the petitions, complaints and grievances,” the minister said.
He said the members of the National De-limitation Commission had compiled their report without visiting the grassroots level.
“It appears that they have spoken only to the District Secretary and other top officials at district level. I have instructed Mr. Peiris to go to the grassroots level, meet voters, political party organizers, prospective candidates, Grama Niladaris, officials, district and divisional secretaries and give me an acceptable report that addresses the grievances and complaints by the stakeholders. It can’t be done overnight,” the minister said.
He said the Asoka Peiris committee has so far visited the districts of Gampaha, Kurunegala, Kegalle, Puttalam, Kalutara and Anuradhapura out of 25 districts. It will take six more months to visit the other districts.
Mr. Peiris said the Dissanayaka Commission was unconcerned about the ground rules on which the Commission report had to be compiled.
“The Commission should have taken into account the demography, population and ethnic concentration before demarcating the boundaries of the wards. The Commission had recommended the amalgamation of different ethnic pockets. It had also recommended the same number of elected members to two different Pradeshiya Sabas with a huge disparity in the number of votes. For instance, it has recommended 22 elected members to Sammathurai with 60,000 registered voters while recommending t he same number of members to Dehiattakandiya Pradeshiya Saba which has 20,000 voters,” Mr. Peris said.