General election in the eyes of a voter
In the presidential election in November last year, 13.38 million or 83.72 percent of the registered voters cast their franchise. In the August 5 parliamentary election, only 12.34 million or 75.89 percent of the registered voters voted. The voter apathy is further vindicated by the number of rejected votes.
The number of rejected votes at the 2019 presidential election was 135,452. At the August 5 parliamentary election, the third highest polled was the rejected votes 744,373 (4.58% of the total votes). That is 600,000 more than the presidential election rejected votes. Effectively, 1.6 million voters ( 10 percent of total voters) who cast their vote in the presidential election chose to stay at home or spoiled their votes. Can this be due to: complications in the ballot
paper, deliberate manipulation too many independent
groups voters were unaware of how to cast their vote especially the elderly being at quarantine centres stuck out of the country
due to the pandemic protest vote – anti-govern
ment or anti-other parties? Electronic voting technology
In the August 5 general election, those in quarantine centres could not vote and, therefore, we should look at introducing a mobile voting system or an electronic voting technology. Electronic voting technology is ideal for Sri Lanka to speed up the counting of votes (especially the preferential votes) and to declare the results faster. This would reduce the cost of paying staff to count votes manually; provide improved accessibility for disabled voters; voters saving time and cost by being able to vote independently from their location. This may increase overall voter turnout and citizens living abroad will be enabled to cast their votes.
Proportional Representation system
With the PR system many small parties were formed based on race, religion, language and other identities. Currently it’s a norm that these parties contest as an alliance and go solo in areas they have a majority voter base. For instance, the SLMC and the ACMC contested alone in Batticaloa and Ampara districts respectively while being part of the SJB alliance in other districts; the SLFP which contested as part of the SLPP- led alliance in most districts contested separately in Jaffna and got a seat; the SLMC and the ACMC forged together the MNA and won a seat in Puttalam. This may be a way of collecting more seats and having an eye on a bonus seat.
Magical figure
The SLPP was fortunate to receive a strong electoral mandate in the recent parliamentary election. If by chance it fell short of the magical figure of 113 seats then the bargaining starts with loads of paybacks to buy over parliamentarians. In similar situations the minority parties hold the carrot to break or make g ove r n m e n t s . Parliamentarians too, once elected, forget to voice the aspirations of their vote bases and settle for plum luxuries.
In Sri Lanka, DNA studies reveal that the major ethnic groups in the island namely Sri Lankan Tamils, Sinhalese (Upcountry and Low Country) and Veddahs are genetically related. Therefore parties based on race, religion, language or other identities should be discouraged. Every citizen must breathe and think as Sri Lankans. In such inclusiveness, politics based on petty agendas that have sown division in our society will be a past and a national undertaking to develop our country will be visible.
In the parliamentary election, the people have spoken loudly and clearly and given the SLPP power with 145 seats. With power comes great responsibility and we hope that the President and parliament will deliver this to the people so that this victory sets the stage for an era of reviving the economy from the present plight and all citizens can enjoy a peaceful and prosperous life in Sri Lanka.