Wednesday 27th May, 2026

The Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Reviewing Election Laws, which recently had its first meeting under the chairmanship of the Minister of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government, Prof. A. H. M. H. Abayarathna, has reportedly decided to seek public views on the election law review process. Reviewing election laws as well as modernising them to reflect present-day needs is a long-felt need. The PSC deserves the fullest public cooperation.

The PSC has been tasked with reviewing election laws, including the Registration of Electors Act, the Local Authorities Elections Ordinance, the Parliamentary Elections Act, the Presidential Elections Act, as well as amendments to those laws over the years and special legislative provisions relevant to their implementation. It will also evaluate the need to revise, amend and consolidate the laws and to recommend necessary reforms and amendments to the current legal framework governing elections. It has the authority to summon any individual, order the submission of any document or report and obtain evidence either in writing or orally.

Much is being spoken these days about law’s delays and ongoing efforts to clear a massive backlog of court cases. Of equal concern are the flaws in laws, and complaints abound that they even stand in the way of effective enforcement. There is a need for a wider public discussion on these issues. However, the focus of this comment is on some glaring deficiencies in election laws and how they have adversely impacted people’s franchise, a fundamental component of representative democracy.

An unauthorised change effected to election laws has had a corrosive effect on the Constitution itself. It has enabled the political parties and their leaders to circumvent the Constitution and abuse the National List (NL) mechanism to catapult persons of their choice to Parliament. There is hardly any political party that has not benefited from it.

Article 99A of the Constitution allows the persons whose names are included in the lists submitted to the Commissioner of Elections or in any nomination paper submitted in respect of any electoral district by political parties or independent groups at elections to be appointed to Parliament via the NL. This provision led to the sordid practice of many defeated candidates entering Parliament. One may recall that UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who failed to secure enough votes at the 2020 general election to represent the people of Colombo, entered Parliament via the NL, became President and exercised control over all three tiers of government, Parliament, the provincial councils and the local government authorities. True, he was instrumental in managing the worst-ever economic crisis, and the country gained from his NL appointment, which however is the exception that proves the rule. Even incompetent persons can enter Parliament via the NL.

A UNP government did something even worse in 1988, when a general election was held under the Proportional Representation (PR) system for the first time in this country. It introduced Section 64(5) of the Parliament Elections Act, inter alia, as an urgent Bill, severely eroding the essence of the constitutional provisions pertaining to the NL and people’s franchise. Parliament Elections Act, No 1 of 1981, as amended in 1988, allows ‘any member’ of a political party to be appointed to fill an NL vacancy. This section has enabled political parties to make NL appointments, as stipulated by the Constitution, and then engineer vacancies and bring in persons of their choice as NL MPs. It is now a fait accompli because there is no legal provision for post-enactment judicial review of legislation. Worse, it has been alleged that the words, “any person” were inserted after the ratification of the amendment Bill.

It is hoped that the PSC, tasked with reviewing election laws, will care to ensure that the Parliamentary Elections Act is rid of the questionable section that adversely impacts franchise and even undermines the Constitution.

There is also a need to overhaul the Provincial Council Elections (Amendment) Act, which was stuffed with unauthorised sections at the committee stage in 2017 to pave the way for the indefinite postponement of the Provincial Council elections. What Parliament passed was a textbook Christmas Tree Bill.

Tuesday 26th May, 2026

The Opposition derived perverse pleasure from the rupee’s tumble, which they apparently thought signalled the beginning of the end of the JVP-NPP rule. Its leaders gave ball-by-ball commentaries of the rupee depreciation in Parliament, apparently expecting the US dollar to rally to 370 rupees, the level associated with the peak of the currency crisis that preceded the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa (GR). These politicians have been labouring under the misconception that if the rupee weakens to 370 against the dollar, the incumbent government will collapse, and they will be able to return to power. They should check their math.

Exchange rate cannot be considered the sole economic health indicator. Foreign currency reserves dropped to USD 50 million during the GR government, which also faced a crippling rupee crisis. The situation is vastly different today although it is not as rosy as the government makes it out to be.

JVP/NPP politicians are on cloud nine as the battered rupee has recently staged a countertrend rally. Why they are over the moon is understandable, but it ain’t over until the fat lady sings, as they say. It is too early for the government to jubilate. If US President Donald Trump gets out of bed on the wrong side tomorrow, pulls out of peace negotiations and orders fresh military attacks on Iran—perish the thought—the whole world will be plunged into chaos again; the rupee will tumble, much to the glee of the Opposition politicians who are desperate to make a comeback and savour power.

There are some daunting challenges the JVP-NPP government has to overcome to keep the economy on track amidst external shocks. Foreign currency reserves must be shored up urgently, and the way to boost them in a sustainable manner is to curtail the forex outflow and increase the forex inflow, as is obvious. What needs to be done immediately is to reduce the national import bill. Fuel and vehicle imports have been draining foreign currency reserves, and huge increases in the global oil prices due to the West Asia conflict have worsened the situation. Operating oil-fired power plants to compensate for the generation loss at Norochcholai, caused by fraudulently procured low-grade coal has also caused a huge increase in the national oil bill.

The government has imposed a 50% customs duty surcharge on vehicle imports, and the Central Bank has limited Loan-to-Value ratios for motor vehicles. Necessary as these measures may be, much more needs to be done to curtail the forex outflow caused by vehicle imports. When the government lifted the ban on vehicle imports, we stressed the need to strike a balance between increasing tax revenue and the forex outflow lest there should be a lot of new vehicles but not enough dollars to buy fuel.

Fiscal consolidation measures are necessary to overcome economic difficulties. Even India has opted for them despite its economic resilience. It has learnt from the crippling economic crisis it faced in 1991, when it was on the verge of defaulting on its external debt. Its foreign exchange reserves fell so low that they could barely cover about two weeks of imports. What enabled it to survive the crisis was IMF support among other things, and far-reaching economic reforms helped reshape its economy structurally to regain vitality.

Measures that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has adopted to overcome the current crisis are worthy of emulation. They include curbing fuel imports through conservation, efficiency improvements, pricing adjustments, diversification of energy sources, reducing official travel and shifting more meetings online. He has also taken steps to reduce non-essential imports, discourage spending on gold and overseas travel, tighten capital outflows and promote import substitution and domestic production.

It is imperative that Sri Lankan political parties and their leaders stop playing politics with the economy. The Opposition is amplifying domestic economic issues in a way that could lead investors to consider this country an extremely high-risk investment destination. The investors who are already here might consider voting with their feet, and others will be wary of setting foot here. The JVP/NPP did likewise during the previous governments, with their leaders gloating over economic setbacks the country faced. It went so far as to aggravate the economic crisis by urging expatriate Sri Lankans to stop sending remittances.

It behoves both the government and the Opposition to keep the economy out of their political battles.

Monday 25th May, 2026

Governments never postpone elections they are confident of winning. They devise ways and means of postponing elections and concoct various excuses for such shameful action only when they realise that their luck has run out and they cannot muster enough popular support to secure victory. The Yahapalana government postponed the Provincial Council (PC) elections in 2017 for fear of losing them, but badly lost the Local Government (LG) polls it had to conduct the following year. Its constituents have not yet recovered fully from that electoral debacle. The SLPP government also postponed the LG polls in 2022 and 2023. Now, the JPV-NPP government with a two-thirds majority in Parliament is doing everything possible to avoid the PC polls.

JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva has said it will not be possible to hold the PC elections this year. He is reported to have claimed, at the opening of an NPP coordination office in Jaffna, over the weekend that budgetary allocations were made for conducting the PC elections, but due to Cyclone Ditwah, the government was compelled to allocate Rs. 500 billion for disaster relief, and therefore it will not be possible to hold the PC elections this year. Electoral reform has also stood in the way of the PC polls, he has said.

The JVP-NPP government has reneged on another election promise. The NPP’s election manifesto, Thriving Nation: A Beautiful Life, makes a solemn pledge to hold the PC polls within one year of the formation of an NPP government. “Provincial Council and local government elections, which are currently postponed indefinitely, will be held within a year to provide an opportunity for the people to join the government” (p. 127).

The government boasts that the state coffers are overflowing, unlike in the past. If so, allocating funds for the PC polls should be child’s play. The government’s claim that it cannot allocate funds for the PC polls due the ongoing disaster relief programme is similar to the SLPP-UNP government’s absurd excuse for postponing the LG polls in 2023. The Election Commission was ready to hold elections, and the Supreme Court ordered the UNP-SLPP government not to withhold funds allocated from Budget 2023 for the LG elections, but the then President Ranil Wickremesinghe claimed that financial difficulties had compelled his government to prioritise expenditure on essential supplies required to meet the basic needs of the population over conducting elections. The JVP/NPP leaders seem to have taken a leaf out of Wickremesinghe’s book.

The JVP finds itself in a situation replete with irony. It went on a spree of violence to sabotage the first PC polls in 1988, but without success, and vowed to scuttle the PC system. But today a JVP-led government has undertaken to hold the PC polls albeit with some delay. The JVP vehemently opposed the postponement of the LG polls in 2023. But it has done exactly what it opposed tooth and nail about three years ago.

All political parties represented in the current Parliament, save a few, are responsible for the indefinite postponement of the PC polls. They either backed or refrained from opposing an amendment to the Provincial Council Elections Act, presented by the Yahapalana government in 2017 to put off the PC elections. They included the SLFP, the UNP, the JVP, the SLMC, the TNA and the current SLPP leaders, who were in the Joint Opposition at that time. The bill was stuffed with new sections, at the committee stage, to pave the way for postponing the PC elections; most of those additions were widely considered inconsistent with the underlying principles of the original bill, which was passed.

Electoral reform has necessitated the delimitation of electorates in view of the new mixed proportional system, and the process of redrawing the boundaries of constituencies is expected to take about one year. Parliament could have resolved this issue a long time ago. The JVP-NPP government has also dragged its feet on it for obvious reasons. Parliament can decide to hold the PC elections under the Proportional Representation system, pending the completion of the delimitation process. The Opposition is reportedly planning to push for this option. Hence, the government has come out with another excuse—funding constraints caused by disaster relief needs. It has unwittingly revealed its fear of elections.