Features

Dire need to review LG elections system

Published

3 years ago

2023/03/10

By C. A. Chandraprema

The local government elections that were scheduled to be held on the 9th March will not be held and the alternative date proposed is 25 April. Since the delay in holding the elections is due to what the government claims to be a shortage of money, whether the election will be held even on this date is uncertain. Be that as it may, to equate the postponement of the local government elections with the end of democracy in Sri Lanka, is clearly an exaggeration. This is not the first time that a local government election has been postponed and it will most certainly not be the last time either. The LG election which was due to be held around March 2015 was finally held only in February 2018 but that delay did not result in the end of democracy. LG elections have been delayed or postponed under several previous governments as well.

What is of greater concern is not the postponement of the LG election but the system under which these elections are to be held. Today, everybody seems to have forgotten the complaints and criticisms made about this new elections system after the LG elections held in 2018. It would be a bad mistake to complain only about the postponement of the LG elections without discussing the totally dysfunctional nature of the present LG elections system. On 26 August 2017, the yahapalana government brought in a large number of committee stage amendments to a Bill that had been tabled in Parliament to rectify some technical issues in the local government law and thereby completely changed the system of elections to local government institutions.

Nobody wanted a pure PR system of elections

The demand in the country was for a mixed constituency and proportional-representation-based elections system which will give a winning party working majorities to carry forward the work of the LG bodies. While the new LG elections system of 2017 may on the face of it appear to be a mixed constituency/PR system, it is really a pure proportional representation system. The number of LG members a party is entitled to is determined on the basis of a qualifying number obtained by aggregating the valid votes received by all political parties contesting in a given LG institution and dividing that aggregate by the total number of LG members to be returned by that LG body. The total number of seats each political party is entitled to is determined by dividing the number of votes received by each political party by this qualifying number. Hence this is a pure proportional representation system and nothing else.

Even though the popular demand was for a mixed constituency/PR system what we have got now is a pure proportional representation system infinitely worse than the J. R.Jayewardene era PR system it replaced. This is one issue that will need to be looked into in order to avoid a lot of trouble after another election is held under this system. Due to this pure proportional representation system, after the LG election of 2018, the winning party had a working majority only in 141 of the 341 LG institutions. If another election is held under this elections system, the result is going to be even more uncertain and there is a risk of giving rise to a very large number of hung councils full of bickering political parties, factions and groups. This is why it will be necessary to bring the system of elections also into focus when discussing the postponement of the elections.

One of the most negative features of the new elections system introduced in 2017 was the doubling of the total number of LG members countrywide from over 4000 to over 8000. There is some discussion of the need to reduce the number of LG members before the next local government election and the Delimitation Commission headed by former elections commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya is working on the issue. However, this not the only issue that needs to be sorted out. Under the new elections system, due to the possibility of ‘overhang’ the total number of LG members elected will be known only after the election has been concluded. After the first elections held under the new system in 2018, the media reported that 97 out of the 341 LG institutions had overhang seats and that the total number of LG members elected had gone up by a considerable number as a result of this.

Under the new elections system created in 2017, each LG institution will return 60% of its representatives from territorial constituencies (wards) on a first past the post basis and the remaining 40% on the basis of proportional representation. The 341 LG institutions countrywide will have a total of 4919 constituencies with 165 of these being multi-member wards returning two members each while there will be four wards returning three members each. The winners in these wards will be decided on a first past the post basis with the party that gets the highest number of votes getting all the members in the multi-member seats.

Every political party contesting an LG election will have to submit two nomination lists. The constituencies list will need to have a number of candidates equal to the total number of members to be returned from the wards. If for instance a particular LG institution has 14 single member wards and one multi-member ward returning two members, the constituencies nominations list for that LG institution will need to have 16 candidates. The number candidates to be elected on the basis of proportional representation in a particular LG body will be decided by multiplying the total number of members to be elected from the wards by 40 and then dividing that number by 60. When this is applied to an LG body returning a total of 16 members from the wards, the resulting number is 10. Thus, the proportional representation list for this LG institution should have 10 plus another three candidates – a total of 13.

Unbelievably complicated elections system

Under the new system, members are elected to LG bodies on the basis of proportional representation according to a very complicated process. The votes received by all the political parties contesting that LG body is added together and divided by the total number of members to be returned by that LG body to arrive at a qualifying number. Then the number of votes received by each political party is divided by this qualifying number to arrive at the total number of members each political party is entitled to. Once the total number of members a particular political party is entitled to is calculated in this manner, the number of members elected from the constituencies is subtracted from that number to arrive at the number of seats from the PR list that political party is entitled to. For example, if a particular political party is entitled to a total of 10 seats on the basis of the votes it has polled in that LG institution and it has won 6 seats from the wards, the number of proportional representation seats that political party is entitled to will be four.

Since candidates win in the wards on a first past the post basis, there could always be situations where a political party wins more seats from the wards that it is entitled to on the basis of the number of votes it has polled – a phenomenon called ‘overhang’.

The provisions aimed at increasing women’s representation in the LG bodies has added to the complexity of this elections system. There is a mandatory requirement that a minimum of 25% of the members in each LG body should be women. To facilitate this there is the stipulation that 50% of the candidates on the proportional representation list should be women. The number of women candidates on the constituency-based nominations list is 10% of the total number of members in that LG body.

The manner in which political party is required to nominate women candidates as members of the given LG body is as follows: the votes received by parties that have polled less than 20% of the valid votes cast and of the parties that have won three seats or less are set aside and the valid votes polled by all other political parties are aggregated and divided by the total number of female representatives that LG body should have (i.e. a number equal to 25% of the total number of members in that LG body) to arrive at a qualifying number. Then the total number of valid votes polled by the political parties included in this calculation is divided by this qualifying number, to arrive at the number of women candidates who should be nominated to the council from the proportional representation lists of these political parties. This convoluted elections system is nothing short of plain insanity. The female candidates on the nominations lists at the first LG elections held under this system in 2018 were for the most part, not individuals who showed any interest in politics but family members, friends and well-wishers picked up from here and there to fulfill the legal requirements pertaining to the nominations lists.

After the first LG election in 2018, the people were distracted by a whole series of cataclysmic events and nobody has had the time to sit back and take a good look at the insane LG elections system that was foisted on this country by the yahapalana government. Most people have forgotten the complications that arose in 2018 after the LG elections. If the delay in holding the LG elections can be made use of to review the entire LG elections system or at least to restore the old JR era system, that will save all parties concerned a great deal of post-election trouble and anguish. There is also the fact that the people are entitled to properly functioning LG institutions. If another election is held under the present system and the result is a whole lot of hung councils full of bitterly divided political parties, groups and factions, that is going to erode even the little confidence that people still have in our political institutions.

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Features

Proactive peacemaking becomes a paramount need

Published

14 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Wasting wars: Some war-displaced people in Lebanon. BBC

It may be some time before the full impact of food inflation is felt in the West. Until such time the world would continue to keep itself in suspense over whether the Trump administration is in earnest when it seeks to convey the impression that it is backing a negotiated solution in West Asia.

As is usually the case, consumer stress would be one of the final determinants of political change. To the degree to which the average US consumer somehow ‘muddles through’ and puts the food on the table, to the same extent would the Republican sections of the US public in particular be tolerant of the Trump administration’s inconsistent handling of the West Asian war and the main issues stemming from it. That is, there would be no grave popular disaffection and a demand for political change in the short term.

However, the indications are that the Trump administration’s support base is suffering some erosion in the wake of the current economic crisis. While reports indicate that Democratic sections are firming-up their opposition to the political centre, Republican support for Trump is also showing signs of waning, we are given to understand.

The above developments are probably why Trump is on record as having given Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘dressing down’ recently on his seeming intransigence on the question of giving negotiations a chance in West Asia. The show of displeasure could be really aimed by Trump at containing the impatience of the American public.

However, the current ground situation in the Middle East, particularly the uncontained bloodshed, is likely to impress on the thinking sections of the world that more than temporary political change is needed in West Asia and the US.

A well thought out political solution that addresses all the contentious issues at the heart of the Middle East conflict is what enlightened opinion would demand, and very rightly. Right now, the ‘peace efforts’ initiated by the Trump administration give the impression of being piecemeal solutions at best.

There have been, of course, numerous initiatives in the past aimed at bringing permanent peace to the Middle East. These failed mainly because they did not address in full the root causes of the conflict.

At bottom the Middle East conflict is mainly about race and religious hate bred by socio-economic and material inequalities. For instance, if the Palestinian people were not displaced and deprived of land occupied by them at the time of the founding of the Israeli state, ethnic enmities would not have grown to the current unmanageable proportions.

When addressing the above questions, though, it must be remembered that the Israelis too were a displaced people who were entitled to land and a state of their own in the Middle East. Basically, out of these seemingly irreconcilable and conflicting demands have grown the Middle East imbroglio.

Middle East peace is considerably about reconciling these demands and arriving at a solution that would ensure the creation of two states that would opt for peaceful co-existence thereafter.

As long as the US does not see the need for a non-partisan solution that addresses the needs of both ethnicities and religions and goes all-out, as it were, to have it implemented, the Middle East would continue to bleed.

However, staunching the blood flow through the creation of two states would be only half the job done, though a very important part of it. More pernicious, pervasive and difficult to remedy are the inter-ethnic and inter-religious hatreds that have been unleashed over the decades.

However, if substantial, long-lasting peace is to be fostered in the region the latter ‘demons’ would need to be exorcised from the hearts and minds of the communities concerned. No doubt an uphill task but one that must be undertaken by those who wish the region well.

The UN would need to put its ‘best foot forward’ in such undertakings but it is time that it dawned on the international community and other caring quarters that Middle East peace, and all other such uphill challenges, require proactive peacemaking on the part of all civilized sections for their effective management. That is, public involvement in peacemaking too is a must.

Since hatreds are harboured in the human consciousness the enmities embedded in the latter need to be managed and defused judiciously alongside other undertakings in a peace process. In the case of West Asia, such enmities could be even spread globe-wide besides being multi-dimensional. For instance, it ought to be thought-provoking that Iran is insistent on a peace initiative that would also include Lebanon.

Besides security considerations it is also ethnic and religious affiliations that account for Iran making this demand. For instance, the Shias are a numerically important religious community in Lebanon and they provide a significant number of Hizbollah fighters, who are in a vital sense carrying out a ‘proxy war’ for Iran. It also needs to be factored in that Iran is a Shia-majority country.

Thus trans-border religious affiliations could add to the complexities and enormity of ethno-religious conflicts. However, the task of managing centuries-long enmities needs to be launched and prodded on with by peacemakers since a downing of arms alone would not guarantee substantive peace.

It is not realized sufficiently that the process of ending hatreds begins with mutual apologies by antagonists to a conflict for the harm inflicted on each other. This would be anathema in some ears but there is no getting away from the requirement. It is the vital first step to permanent peace anywhere.

In fact there could be no reconciliation worth speaking of without such mutual apologies. It is a point worth re-iterating in these times when even the government of Sri Lanka is voicing the need for national reconciliation. Well, without the words, ‘I am sorry’, there could be no permanent end to enmities – they would do well to remember.

The above requirements may not go down very well with governments, but they resonate in the hearts and minds of most people, since they are inheritors of religious traditions of some kind.

This is a principal reason why peacemaking works well when publics too are involved in them. The effectiveness of such campaigns increases several fold when they have a Mahatma Gandhi or a Jawaharlal Nehru at their helm. A strong proactive involvement by the public in peace could lead to the emergence of such leaders at some point in these campaigns.

Features

Dialog Brings Sri Lanka’s Largest Digital Vesak Experience to Matara

Published

14 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

From left to right: Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, and Lasantha Theverapperuma experience the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered VR tours.

Official Digital Partner of the 2026 ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone

Dialog Axiata PLC, Sri Lanka’s #1 connectivity provider, collaborated with the Ministry of Buddha Sasana, Religious and Cultural Affairs to bring one of Sri Lanka’s largest and most technologically advanced Vesak experiences to the ‘Dakshina Prabha’ National Vesak Zone. The three-day celebration, in Matara attracted more than hundred thousand visitors, who engaged with a series of innovative digital activities powered by Dialog 5G Ultra, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) experiences, digital pandols and a Data Dansala. The opening ceremony was attended by Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development and Hon. Saroja Savithri Paulraj, Minister of Women and Child Affairs, along with distinguished guests and Dialog’s senior management.

One of the key attractions at the venue was the Dialog 5G Ultra-powered Virtual Reality (VR) experience, which attracted more than 35,000 participants. The activation enabled devotees to virtually visit and pay homage to sacred Buddhist sites, including the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in India and the Atamasthana in Anuradhapura, directly from the Vesak zone in Matara.

Visitors receive complimentary mobile data through Dialog’s QR-powered Data Dansala.

Dialog also conducted an AI Digital Vesak Greeting Card Competition from 21 May to 01 June 2026, attracting numerous entries from across the country. The shortlisted designs were showcased across 20 large LED screens throughout the venue and across Matara City, and were also made available for download via mobile devices. Further, through the use of AI, traditional Jathaka Katha were reimagined in a digital format, demonstrating how technology can be used to preserve and enhance cultural and religious heritage. Together, these initiatives blended traditional Vesak celebrations with emerging technologies, offering visitors a unique and immersive way to engage with Vesak traditions.

Extending the spirit of Vesak through connectivity, Dialog conducted a special Data Dansala powered by its QR Reload platform, enabling visitors to receive complimentary mobile data by scanning QR codes placed across the venue. In addition to the Matara National Vesak Zone, similar Data Dansala activations were also conducted at the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones in Colombo.Visitors also had the opportunity to create personalised Vesak-themed digital photos through an AI Photo Booth, generating AI-enhanced portraits using their own photographs and adding a contemporary digital element to the Vesak celebrations.

Visitors watch AI-generated Jathaka Katha

Commenting on the initiative, Hon. Sunil Handunnetti, Minister of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development, said, “The 2026 Dakshina Prabha Vesak Festival marked the first time AI-powered digital innovations were incorporated into a National Vesak Festival in Sri Lanka. Presenting Buddhist stories and teachings through technology created a new and engaging way for visitors to connect with these traditions. We thank Dialog for supporting this initiative and for working closely with us to bring our vision to life. Their contribution played an important role in making this first-of-its-kind event a reality.”

Lasantha Theverapperuma, Group Chief Marketing Officer of Dialog Axiata PLC said, “We thank the Government of Sri Lanka for the opportunity to support the 2026 Dakshina Prabha National Vesak Festival and for embracing technology as part of this year’s celebrations. As the Official Digital Partner, we were privileged to contribute through our Dialog 5G Ultra and AI capabilities, creating new ways for visitors to engage with Vesak traditions while preserving their cultural significance for future generations.”

Beyond supporting the National Vesak Zone in Matara, Dialog also enhanced the Gangaramaya and Bauddhaloka Vesak zones through a range of digital activations during the Vesak season. The company additionally continued its sustainability initiatives, including the Thirasara Aloka Poojawa, which illuminated rural places of worship through solar-powered lighting solutions.

Features

Beauty, elegance and talent…for women

Published

14 hours ago

2026/06/4

Sahan Weerasooriya

Universal Woman is an international pageant focused on “beauty, elegance, and talent” for women, positioning itself as a platform to shape global ambassadors. The 2026 edition will be held in Cambodia, and Sri Lanka will be there, as well.

According to reports coming my way, contestants, at the international event, will work with industry trailblazers, under international standards.

Sri Lankan supermodel, runway and pageant trainer Chulpadmendra Kumarapathirana, is the National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026.

With over two decades in the industry, Chula was crowned Miss Sri Lanka 2006, and has since shaped the next generation of titleholders through her Colombo-based Chulpadmendra Catwalk Studio, widely regarded as one of the country’s leading modelling academies.

The team behind Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026

A former host of Derana Miss Sri Lanka for Miss World 2008 and a judge for Miss Universe Sri Lanka 2025, Chula now serves as National Director for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026, leading the franchise’s search for Sri Lanka’s delegate to the international final in Cambodia.

Applications for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 are being taken, via WhatsApp: 077 659 4994, says Chula.

The judging panel for Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 includes Senaka De Silva, Pageant Aesthetic Advisor & Chairperson of the Judging Panel, Angela Seneviratne, Caroline Jurie, Rozelle Plunkett, and Suraj Mapa.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka 2026 officially began its journey with a first round of auditions, held in Colombo, marking the start of an exciting new chapter in Sri Lanka’s pageant industry.

Launching the first round of auditions

The platform aims to empower women while selecting an intelligent, confident, and inspiring representative to compete at the Universal Woman International Pageant 2026 in Cambodia, this September.

Universal Woman Sri Lanka now moves forward with the vision of creating one of the country’s most prestigious and empowering pageants while preparing to crown a queen who will proudly represent Sri Lanka on the international stage.