Money power and runaway spending ahead of April’s general elections has raised serious concerns about the way party candidates are conducting themselves on the campaign trail.
Observers, including political parties and election monitoring bodies, are talking about the astronomical sums of money some candidates are spending on their propaganda work. What is even more interesting is that despite all the heavy spending, only four out of the approximately 7,500 candidates in the coming elections have actually declared their assets and liabilities, a requirement under election law.
Disproportionate spending on election campaigning reflects badly on the country, said Minister of Urban Development and Sacred Areas Development, Dinesh Gunawardena, who is also the chairman of the Select Committee on Electoral Reform.
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| No-limit spending on election campaign has people asking questions. |
“This rampant spending is a serious matter, and it should be looked into immediately,” the Minister said. “Also, the public should think very hard about the kind of people they are thinking of sending to Parliament. These candidates are not just candidates but people who are prepared to spend any amount – millions – on their political campaigns.”
Minister Gunawardena said this was not something the authorities could afford to be silent or passive about. “When we tried to bring about electoral reform, the Opposition blocked us with trivialities,” he said.
In a step to check excessive spending at elections, Parliament’s Select Committee for Electoral Reform has recommended that all political parties recognised by the Elections Commissioner publish their accounts annually, and these accounts be audited by parties nominated by the Elections Commissioner. No individual or association working for a candidate may incur election campaign costs without the written permission of the candidate concerned or his election agent. All such expenditure should be declared in the election expenses returns.
The committee has also recommended that any candidate who failed to file election expenses returns before a given deadline be automatically disqualified from entering elections for a period of seven years, and that the candidate be disqualified from being a Member of Parliament for a period of seven years.
Dr. Anura Karunathilake, Secretary for Political and Civil Rights, Network for Election Monitoring, points out that the present Elections Act has no maximum expenditure limit for election campaigning.
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| Excesses all the way. |
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“Those who spend big sums during campaigns have an advantage,” he said. “If you study the Provincial Council elections, you will see a clear pattern of big spenders getting elected to the Provincial Councils.”
If the heavy spending pattern is allowed to continue, the genuine politicians will not be able to continue their work and represent the public, Dr. Karunathilake said. Regional neighbours such as India and Bangladesh have set limits on the amounts of money that may be spent on election campaigning, and Sri Lanka should do the same, he added.
According to Shan Wijetunge, spokesman for corruption watchdog Transparency International of Sri Lanka, the public had a right to know how their candidates were being funded. “We are scrutinising the spending of certain candidates, and we will announce our findings very soon,” he said.
Candidate and former Member of Parliament Wijedasa Rajapakse is one of the few candidates to have declared his assets and liabilities. He says many excellent candidates with a genuine desire to work for the public good were not in a financial position to compete on the campaign trail.
“We should have a mechanism to make candidates accountable to the public, or at least to the Elections Commissioner,” Mr. Rajapakse said. “You would certainly want to ask questions when a candidate who has been in Parliament for six years and earns about Rs. 4 million a year is found spending Rs. 400 million on his election campaign.”
According to Mr. Rajapakse, many Ministers and MPs were spending lavishly on billboards and posters and media campaigning. He said he feared that a number of dubious persons who did not deserve to be in Parliament could enter Parliament after the election.
“Vote-buying is rampant,” he said. “Some candidates are trying to get votes by handing out food parcels and dry rations and even money. This has become accepted practice. The authorities should act fast.”
According to People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) director Rohana Hettiarachchi, some candidates were spending up to a million rupees a night putting up posters and using fleets of 30 to 40 vehicles to do their campaign work.
“Billboards and illegal propaganda offices are a big problem,” Mr. Hettiarachchi said. “Only about 10 per cent of candidates have registered their party offices. The authorities are doing nothing. Candidates are allowed only one campaign office per electorate, but some have several offices in each electorate, some within a few hundreds yards of each other.
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) Member of Parliament Vijitha Herath said independent Elections and Police Commissions should be set up to deal with violations of election laws.
“Some parties follow the rules and do not stoop to corrupt practices, while others – candidates who are not affluent and who are or business people, are spending astronomical sums on their campaigns. We have serious doubts about how they are being funded,” Mr. Herath said.
According to Additional Commissioner for Elections, W. P. Sumanasiri, the Elections Act does not cover election campaign costs. “This is a weakness in the electoral system,” he said. “There’s no spending limit.” |
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