Majority of candidates enter Prez poll for petty personal gains – independent monitors

Scores of candidates not eligible to reclaim Rs.75, 000 cash deposit since 1982

• except for the winning and the runner-up candidates, none of the other candidates in total in any given election had been able to secure a voting percentage of 12.5%

 By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

Majority of contestants who enter the Presidential Election fray do so to seek petty and personal gains such as to become famous, to support another candidate or to apply for political asylum. Scores of candidates were not even eligible to reclaim their cash deposits since 1982, an independent monitoring body opined yesterday.   

People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) said the 2024 presidential poll would attract over 40 candidates making up the highest number of candidates for an election after the 2019 Presidential Election, which was 35 contestants.   

Since the first Presidential Election held in 1982 up to the last in 2019 more than 100 contestants have entered the fray except for the two highest voted candidates, by making cash deposits of Rs.75, 000 as independent candidates and Rs.50, 000 as those representing leading parties.   

Except for the winning candidate and the runner-up candidate, the number of all the rest of the other candidates of all eight presidential elections since 1982, 1988, 1994, 1999, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2019 were more than 100.   

Executive Director PAFFREL Rohana Hettiarachchi told the Daily Mirror that except for the winning and the runner-up candidates, none of the other candidates in total in any given election had been able to secure a voting percentage of 12.5%.   

“Any candidate to reclaim his or her cash deposit in a presidential election should gain a vote percentage of 12.5% or more. If a candidate fails to secure this percentage his or her cash deposit will be forfeited under the Presidential Election Act. This means that millions of rupees of public money have gone wasted and forfeited by the Treasury,” Hettiarchchi said.   He said a very few contestants enter the election fray to publicize their political agenda as an optional theory and by expecting no other petty gain.   

“However, the majority of candidates contest for petty gains such as to become famous, to support another main candidate like a proxy and then to secure a top state position or diplomatic position, to apply for political refugee status in a foreign country.   

They also abuse to make use of the stipulated number of representatives to be included in polling booths and counting centres to support another main candidate,” the Executive Director said.