Yesterday's Provincial Council election results will be out by today. The outcome was a foregone conclusion given voter lethargy, the understanding that governments can't be changed in these elections, that voting against the government is detrimental to the voters themselves, the government hitching its political wagon to the military successes, and the Opposition's long neglect of the rural vote base and its fast saturating human and financial resources.

We have long pointed out the utter futility of the Provincial Councils that have served neither man nor beast. The candidates thrown up by all parties show a clear trend of once respected figures in the provinces -- professionals, men and women of standing -- withdrawing from the political canvas and increasingly, candidates who have at their command undeclared wealth and vicious ruffians who use firearms and engage the 'enemy' with poles, entering the fray.

This is the nursery, so to say, of Parliament - the supreme body that makes laws in this country. Unfortunately, the same political parties and their leaders who opposed these councils, burning buses and electric pylons, when they were forced down Sri Lanka's throat under the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987, were seen campaigning furiously to get their candidates elected to these same councils these past few weeks.

We have advocated that the Government have a referendum on the efficacy of these councils, now 21 years in existence, by having a separate column in the ballot paper asking the voter whether he or she wishes to continue with these councils. Let those who advocate devolution through these councils campaign for a YES vote, and let the voters decide, not the decision-makers in New Delhi or Colombo.

Yesterday's Provincial Council election and those to follow shortly in the Western Province etc., have nothing to do with devolution, but everything to do with politics. They are a tool in the hands of the ruling party to create the platform for a victory in the next election - the General Election to Parliament.

The Government can decide when to dissolve a council and hold elections. That is why we have urged the Government and the Opposition to study the need for fixed term elections similar to the elections in the United States. There, the terms of office of the President, Senate and House of Representatives' members, and the election dates are fixed. Even, the date of the Presidential inauguration is fixed. Some might argue that this puts the incumbent government in a straitjacket, but it does give some measure of stability. The US has not seen governments crashing down mid-term like in many other countries.

The 1978 Constitution tried to bring some stability into the country through the Executive Presidency, but the way it has evolved over the years, the office has only given rise to authoritarianism, and rule by diktats. But it gave a fixed term for the President, even though one holder of the office tried to be too smart and lost a year by her attempts at gerrymandering with the Constitution. This week, the Elections Commissioner complained that he could do with some of the powers of his counterparts abroad, among them the power to refuse to hold an election.

This could prevent a government merely manipulating elections to stay in power perpetually, which ultimately, and understandably, is their end-game. With fixed term elections, such machinations will not be required. In India, the Elections Commission is already empowered with advisory jurisdiction to disqualify an elected member, for instance if he or she fails to provide proper accounting of his or her election expenses. Significantly, the Indian Election Commission has the power to ensure inner party democracy, something none of Sri Lanka's political parties are known to practise.

The Elections Commissioner was critical of the Constitution's 17th Amendment that is meant to oversee the appointment of an Independent Elections Commission in Sri Lanka. He said appointees to the Constitutional Council under this law are recommended by political parties, and therefore, not independent. That is true, in a sense, as the public could perceive them to be political appointees.

However, the fact is that, unless the parties had a hand in these appointments, the 17th Amendment would never have seen the light of day in that fractious, fragmented Parliament of 2001, and in many ways, there is no other ready-made mechanism by which upright individuals could be picked to serve not only on the Constitutional Councils, but through it as Elections Commissioners, Police Commissioners, Chief Justices etc.

That was to digress a bit. Yesterday's elections, no doubt, were clouded under the feel-good effect of military victories in the Wanni. But that is not to overlook the fact that overall, there is a paucity of good governance, and institutions are groaning and faltering under the weight of political interference. This is something for those at the apex to mull over.