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Using aid to gain votes, charge polls watchdogs
View(s):The Government has “systematically politicised” the distribution of the Rs 5000 allowance to benefit from it at the parliamentary election, polls watchdogs have alleged.
Rohana Hettiarachchi, Executive Director of the People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) told the Sunday Times that problems started from the moment the Government decided to involve local government politicians in the allowance distribution mechanism.
Aside from government officials, the village committees set up to select those eligible to receive the allowance includes the elected local government member of the area.
Mr Hettiarachchi said that they have received complaints that in the Hambantota district, application forms distributed to apply for the Rs 5000 allowance had the SLPP’s lotus bud symbol printed on them. “The Government would anyway earn publicity and praise for giving aid to people at a time of national crisis such as this. However, with a parliamentary election coming up, we can see that some are trying to gain extra mileage by using aid to gain votes.”
Meanwhile, some Government and Opposition party candidates contesting the parliamentary election are also distributing relief items such as dry rations. Certain chairpersons of local government bodies, who are candidates at the upcoming parliamentary polls, are also using resources of the local government body to distribute relief, though the Election Commission had instructed them to take leave of their posts.
Mr. Hettiarachchi noted the extent of politicisation depends on how independent local officials in the area are and if they can resist pressure from local government politicians. “In some area, the officials themselves are politicized while in others, they do their jobs and don’t care about pressure from politicians.”
Manjula Gajanayake, National Coordinator for the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) pointed out that village committees were set up at the ward level. With the SLPP having swept to victory at the last local government elections, the political representative on most committees are from the SLPP. “However, we have received complaints that in some areas where the UNP won, the losing SLPP candidate had been included in the committee while the member was excluded. We have highlighted such issues and got them rectified.”
On the other hand, Mr Gajanayake pointed out that the current set up was also disadvantages to many local politicians given that only a limited number were part of the committees.
“In many instances at the last local government polls, the winning margin between candidates in wards was 10 votes or less. There were instances where chairpersons and even members of local government bodies were chosen by the toss of a coin after two candidates polled the same number of votes. If you are going to have politicians on committees, it is terribly unfair that we have people denied the opportunity to serve on these committees based on a technicality.”
Given this situation, Mr Gajanayake said they were proposing that both the elected member and the candidate who polled the next highest number of votes should be on the committees.
He also argued that the composition of the committee negatively affects 1382 female local government councilors. This is on the basis that only 537 of the 1919 female local government members won their wards at the last election. “The others have no place in the committees. They have become politically irrelevant,” he stressed.