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Delimitation issues: Committee on course to meet Jan 31 deadline
View(s):Amid a controversy over the uncertainty of the dates of the next local council elections, the committee set up to look into complaints arising from delimitation of new wards is confident that it can hand over its final report by the January 31 deadline.
Chairman Asoka Peiris, a former commissioner-general of lands, said the five-member committee had taken up more than 500 complaints of the 2,000 received and would put forward a series of recommendations.
“We will hand over our final report as mandated by the ministry. It is up to the politicians to decide when to hold the elections,” he said.
His remarks came against the backdrop of some opposition parties questioning the legality of the postponement of the elections to June.
Earlier Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had said local council polls, which would be held under the mixed system of first-past-the-post and the proportional representation, would be held before the National New Year in April.
Explaining the nature of the complaints, Mr. Peiris said most of them were about the boundaries of the new wards with issues such as ethnicity, caste and the names of the new wards being raised.
The Asoka Peiris Committee was appointed to solve problems relating to demarcation following the submission of the report by the National Delimitation Commission (NDC).
The committee was also asked to recommend whether the number of local representatives in highly populated areas should be increased.
Mr. Peiris said they were looking into a request that the number of councillors in the Sammanthurai Pradeshiya Sabha be increased as more than 60,000 people in the area had only 21 representatives. Similarly, the Kuchchaveli PS area had only 10 councillors for 33,000 people.
However, he said the committee had no mandate to propose the creation of new councils in highly populated districts.
“A council in the Nuwara Eliya district has a 200,000 population.
We feel it should be divided into two or three councils, but we have no mandate to propose such a change,” he added.
Apart from Mr. Peiris, the Committee includes A.S.M. Misbah from the United National Party, K. Saliya from the United People’s Freedom Front, Upul Kumaraperuma of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and Prof. B. Balasundarampillai of the Tamil National Alliance.
Following a meeting the committee had recently with political party representatives, it was decided to set up a technical committee each for every district to look into their complaints.
The technical committees are headed by the Assistant Elections Commissioner of the district.
Mr. Peiris said that in view of the appointment of the technical committees, a special conference which is to be attended by all Assistant Elections Commissioners would be held tomorrow with Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya presiding.