Recall of past general elections violence – CMEV

28 July 2015 07:58 pm Views - 2702

After introducing a new constitution in 1978, the seventh parliament has prematurely been dissolved this year. Although the government had the power to continue the Parliament for two years, as a result of distorted political space they were forced to dissolve it. The election campaign period for the parliamentary election this time can be identified as the lowest period when compared to the other general elections that took place in Sri Lanka so far. The decision to minimize the period was announced by the President, which is a decision that the Elections Commissioner cannot be involved in. There is a rising doubt held by the election commission in organizing such a large-scale operation that involves a large amount of human and physical resources in a short pre-election campaign season. When analyzing the past records, it can be concluded that the issue will not be critical since the Elections Commissioner has the legal authority to use the entire Government mechanism.  Since they are using the 2014 updated voters list, which they used for the presidential election this year, it is certain that the process has been made much easier.

There are more than 6000 candidates who have given nominations and out of that 196 will be selected to the eighth Democratic Socialist Republic Parliament of Sri Lanka from fifteen million voters.  Even though 225 ministers have to be selected, 29 will be selected according to proportions taken by each party through the national list. Due to lack of internal democracy in the parties, the opportunity to get selected to the Parliament depends on the decision of the party leader and the person with the most votes would cross diyawannawa. 

The percentage of rejected votes is an important issue that cannot be ignored. When analyzing the past reports from the 1947 general elections to the 2010 general elections, one factor that can be identified is that the number of rejected votes have increased in each election.  Among the rejected votes, there are some voters who have scribbled their ballot papers intentionally. But CMEV predicts that the number of rejected votes can be increased up to 90% due to lack of knowledge and carelessness.  The following table shows the number of rejected votes which have increased in each election so far. 

The Department of Elections is carrying out programmes on how to vote in order to educate voters on a regional level but it is not enough to simply focus on the majority group who needs it. Thus, the Elections Department needs the utmost support of civil organizations to make this a reality. The Elections Commissioner has also invited all the monitoring bodies to join this awareness programme and accordingly, CMEV has decided to conduct this programme in the Central province, Northern Province and North Central Province.There is one thing that must be reiterated in the light of these efforts; in these type of awareness programmes it is vital to tutor people on how to vote, not who to vote for. 

More than a week has passed after submitting nominations. The difference between previous general elections and this current one is the drastic reduction of violence. The practical measures implemented by the Elections Commissioner have resulted in such a situation. Police said that they have not received any sort of abusive orders from the politicians until now, prompting the assumption that after several years, the Police Department is acting as an independent body. Although the police have got the chance to act independently, certain activities done by them cannot be accepted, and there have been several incidents that prove this. An incident that has recently been reported stated that cut outs of candidates displayed in a campaign office of J.V.P in Badulla violates election laws and only one cut out of a candidate could be displayed in an office.This law is incorrect, and the actual law states that all registered campaign offices could display posters and vehicles with campaign stickers could be displayed only if the candidate is using the vehicle at any given point. Police also once arrested a vehicle that belongs to former Parliament Minister Sumanthiran, while transporting propaganda materials. The police conclusion was that the materials couldn’t be transported without the presence of the candidate. If we are to agree with the above statement, when contesting as a President, that candidate has to travel across the country with his campaign materials. An even more unfortunate incident is the police media spokesperson’s statement. It stated to the public to inform 119 if any incident occurs during the house-to-house campaigns. But this might lead to unwanted trouble to police during the election campaign season. If so this August will be the busiest period, as the police emergency call unit will be receiving a number of complaints, especially in a country like Sri Lanka where citizens work according to their lean needs and evade their responsibilities as citizens.  Fortunately, the Elections Commissioner stated that a group of 15 personnel could engage in house to house campaigns without the candidate or the relatives of the candidate. After two days he maximized it up to 25. 



Compared to the other elections, election violence is relatively low, but candidates are using intensive ways to mislead the voters.  Accordingly, monitoring institutions also need to change their operations as appropriate. But there is one factor that should be considered; candidates need to have a certain system to publicize their names and numbers. Equality is not given to candidates who do not have the ability to spend money on TV commercials, which is something that should not be seen in a democratic election.  Once the Elections Commissioner came to a decision, to display posters and other campaign materials of all the candidates in a particular place where 10,000 voters are living but the decision didn’t come into effect because of the unique negative attitudes of the political parties when there is no election. All the political parties should support the Elections Department for a quality electoral process rather than just focusing on their expected winnings over the elections. The way in which to support the Elections Department should be discussed separately.  The incidents that have been reported to the CMEV so far are relatively low when compared to the other general elections and that can be clearly illustrated by the following table based on the CMEV Records.