News
Deposit for candidates remains unchanged despite concerns over costs
View(s):By Kasun Warakapitiya
Despite repeated appeals by the Election Commission to the government to increase the cash deposit for the presidential elections to reduce the number of candidates, it remains unchanged.
In April, the Cabinet approved a proposal by the Justice Minister to increase the deposit of a candidate representing a recognised political party to Rs. 2.6 million and an independent party to Rs. 3.1 million.
At present, a candidate from a registered political party will have to deposit Rs 50,000 and an independent candidate Rs 75,000.
Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapakshe pointed out that, on the instruction of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, the Cabinet proposal was made to reduce the number of candidates contesting the presidential election.
“There were people who couldn’t even get 20,000 votes by giving nominations for election even for fun; as the nomination list gets longer, the expenditure increases. As a measure to cut the number, the Cabinet decision was taken,’’ he said.
Last year, the electoral list had 36 candidates.
Minister Rajapakshe said that even though the cabinet approval was granted in April, there was too little time to implement the increased deposits for the September presidential election.
He said the process would have even exceeded the time frame of the election.
The justice minister added that they did not rush to implement the proposal closer to the election, as some candidates could accuse the government of trying to prevent them from winning the election.
At the 2019 presidential elections, the three top candidates accounted for 97.40% of the vote, and 33 other candidates shared 1.59% votes among them.
The candidate who came last managed only to get 976 votes, or 1.01%, while 21 candidates received less than 10,000 votes each.
Election officials have expressed concern over rising printing costs.
The best way to say that you found the home of your dreams is by finding it on Hitad.lk. We have listings for apartments for sale or rent in Sri Lanka, no matter what locale you're looking for! Whether you live in Colombo, Galle, Kandy, Matara, Jaffna and more - we've got them all!