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Election Chief announces polls to 93 local councils
View(s):The Election Commission will go ahead with the polls for 93 local councils where there are no multi- member wards, it was announced yesterday.
The three-member Commission decided on this last evening to ensure polls are not delayed any further.
Polls to the remaining local bodies, those with multi-member wards, now await the determination of the Court of Appeal. Six electors have petitioned the court, challenging the legality of the Local Government Minister declaring numbers for the multimember wards. They argue the minister’s action is illegal.
Election Commission Chairman Mahinda Deshapriya told reporters yesterday the Commission had instructed Returning Officers of local councils that have not been affected by the Court of Appeal interim injunction, to announce they were calling for nominations from tomorrow.
Mr Deshapriya said if the amended gazette notification regarding 40 other bodies is issued tomorrow or on Tuesday, nominations for those councils could be called on Wednesday. He noted that the petitions in the Court of Appeal had been filed over the creation of multi-member wards and stressed it was up to the court to determine if this applied to all such bodies.
“If the Appeal Court dismisses the petitions on December 4, we are confident that the election for all local councils can still be held on the same day. However, if this does not happen, this may be difficult,” he said. He added that holding the local council elections on a staggered basis was not unusual for Sri Lanka and cited numerous occasions when it happened from 1991 to 2011.
Meanwhile, yesterday, both Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and Speaker Karu Jayasuriya were engaged in separate crisis sessions for the conduct of local polls early. Premier Wickremesinghe met with Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya. Speaker Jayasuriya had meetings both with the AG and Mr. Deshapriya.
It has been agreed that the Attorney General will move a motion before the Court of Appeal tomorrow to advance the hearing of the case and an early determination. This is while some groups are to make contact with the petitioners to ascertain whether they could reach a settlement and thus withdraw court action.
Several other options were also further discussed by the Prime Minister and the Speaker yesterday. However, most political parties were not in favour of them. One such option was to resort to the earlier electoral system of proportional representation. Another was to introduce legislation to give legal effect to the creation of multi-member wards.
Speaker Jayasuriya has summoned a meeting of party leaders tomorrow to discuss any further action necessary.