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Less than 50 percent chance for
Prospects of holding Provincial Council elections next year were “less than 50 percent,” Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya said yesterday.
The reason: The proposed Delimitation Committee under the new Provincial Council Elections (amendment ) Law would have to finish its task of carving out electorates. Thereafter, he said, the entire process would have to be reviewed. It would also involve amendments to the law to correct any defects, he said.
“Therefore I would place the chances of having the PC elections next year at less than 50 percent,” Mr Deshapriya said.
His comments came as the terms of three provincial councils – North Central, Sabaragamuwa and Eastern — ended this week. Additional Elections Commissioner M.K.S.S. Ratnayake, who is also the Secretary of the National Delimitation Commission, told the Sunday Times that in the event the President decided to assign the task to the the current National Delimitation Commission to mark out boundaries of constituencies, two more members needed to be appointed.
He said they could start work with the three provinces where the terms of the councils had ended.Mr. Ratnayake said that after the appointments were made, newspaper advertisements would be placed granting time to submit proposals. “A report can be completed by December and the final report ready by March, if there are no objections,” he added. Mr. Ratnayake said each district would have a technical committee and a period for review.
He said he believed it would take longer to complete this process in other provinces.Meanwhile, Provincial Councils and Local Government Ministry Secretary Kamal Padmasiri said that until the next elections, the Governor would have the power to administer the province and the Chief Secretaries would head the administration.
He said provincial ministers would have to return their official vehicles and vacate official residences given to them with the councils’ terms coming to an end.