Despite the assurance given by polls authorities recently to hold the elections to provincial bodies dot on time, the yahapalanaya authorities are said to be miles away from any readiness or intent to hold either the local or provincial pools in the near future. The news coming down the grapevine says that strategies have been set in motion to further delay not only the local polls, but also the provincial polls.

These sources say that the political authorities are planning to justify further postponement of the polls on the pretext of seemingly attractive and positive reasons such as holding polls on one and the same day, increasing the women’s representation in all bodies and restoring the ward system. Further, moves are reportedly afoot to ‘manipulate’ the mass media to convey the message to the public that it is the civil society organizations responsible for the delay in holding the local and provincial polls and not the government. Five purohitas, two Greens, three Blues are to collectively head a propaganda campaign to disseminate the message that the postponement of the polls has resulted solely because of the government’s   commitment to hold them in the most democratic manner possible.