Decisive role in local p generation of 700,000
Sirisena faces tough challenge to prevent SLFP from suffering defeat and being further weakened Rising living costs cause problems for SLFP, UNP; another major issue is the failure to bring corrupt VIPs to justice
Sri Lankans, 15.7 million of them countrywide, are eligible to vote at the February 10 local polls – 700,000 more than the previous August 2015 parliamentary elections – to pick 8,356 councillors. That a new generation has swelled the ranks of voters is significant in many ways. In early post-independent Sri Lanka, local polls were the nursery for national level politicians. J.R. Jayewardene, R. Premadasa, N.M. Perera and a host of others cut their teeth in politics in municipal elections. Later, local councils were to become a game of power play amongst local stalwarts of political parties. Issues have centred mostly on who can deliver and who is more popular, the doctor or the driver, the businessman or the bar owner, the lawyer or a landed proprietor, the warlord or the war veteran and so on. Party considerations have also been significant as voters began to align themselves with one party or the other.
This time, however, many factors have changed. For over two and half years, local authorities did not function. There were no elected representatives to service the needs of the people. Their role was placed in the hands of Special Commissioners. That it caused untold sufferings to the people is no secret. Special Commissioners were meant to take charge of councils that were riddled with corrupt politicians. Things changed when Special Commissioners themselves became corrupt -- and inefficient. This was clearly seen during the recent natural disasters where local politicians were outnumbered by bureaucrats. Another instance is the widespread outbreak of dengue, which among other reasons, was because drains were left unattended and most locations in local authority areas became breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Just two examples of the tales of woe of the people who are ratepayers give an insight. One struggled for months to have a building plan passed. Bureaucrats running the administration wanted to ensure every little detail required by law was adhered to, lest they be summoned before the Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID). In other places, an oiling of the palm got the job done.
Another found a street light outside his house at a junction had fused and spoken about it to his former member of the ward. It was of no avail for three long months. He had to work his way through the bureaucratic ladder to have it attended to. Earlier, as a witty former Urban Council Chairman declared, “You give them something.
The job is done. Both sides are beneficiaries.” That is paying a bribe to get matters sorted out. Not that it does not happen now but he says “most bureaucrats are now frightened.” Needless to say public discontent has grown deeper in the period when there has been a vacuum in local bodies with the absence of elected members. To put it plainly, democracy was not functioning at the grassroots level and the ‘yahapalanaya’ or ‘good governance’ was seemingly from the centre in Colombo.
New local government laws have been promulgated in an exercise where one draft law after another were introduced. It became patent as the months went by that other than updating laws, it was also a way of delaying the local polls. Added to that was the introduction of a new electoral system. Public discontent grew further and even political parties within the Government were frustrated. For Government leaders, particularly for President Maithripala Sirisena, it turned out to be a challenging task. He had regained considerable popularity after appointing a Commission of Inquiry to probe the Central Bank bond scam. Now, how does he avoid defeat and prevent a divided and debilitated Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) suffering further. Worse enough, what would be the party’s fate if it were to come a third or even a fourth in some areas?
The situation had been made difficult due to the strained relations Sirisena and his SLFP had with their major coalition partner, the United National Party (UNP). That appears to be the avtur or jet fuel that propelled him to try to mend fences with the feuding faction of the SLFP led by his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa. He sought the help of a number of persons, including the Buddhist clergy. He spoke personally to former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa who was in open to discussions on re-uniting. His emissaries shuttled between him on the one hand and with Mahinda Rajapaksa as well as Basil Rajapaksa on the other. The duo bluntly rejected Sirisena’s last minute desperate overtures. Gotabaya Rajapaksa flew to Los Angeles and vowed not to return until the local polls are over. The organisations he had formed will keep away from the campaign.
There is disappointment that the former Defence Secretary failed to deliver in re-uniting the SLFP. Sirisena trained his guns at Gotabaya Rajapaksa at the weekly ministerial meeting on Tuesday. He noted that some six billion rupees were being spent as rent every month to locate Army establishments in 15 different buildings in the City of Colombo. This, he noted, even posed a threat to national security. After the ministerial meeting, he urged Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe to hold a news conference that very day