President Maithripala Sirisena has quite rightly welcomed the reintroduction of the old electoral system, where parliamentarians and local government representatives were elected by majority vote, or, first past the post system, as is commonly known. Addressing local SLFP organisers of the North Central Province, the President said the proportional representation system has bred a brand of politicians who were selfish and worked to foster their own self interests rather than for the country. He said he was happy to see the introduction of electorate-based voting system, fulfilling the people's expectation, under his leadership, disregarding protests by certain disgruntled factions. Reverting to the old electoral system was also a pledge made at the election by the Common Candidate.
The PR system, no doubt, has its pluses. Minority political parties and those parties on the fringes of power largely benefited from the system. It is such parties that want the status quo to prevail. The PR voting system, no doubt, vastly benefitted the JVP, which managed to secure nearly 40 seats at the 2004 General Election, contesting under the banner of the UPFA. Had this been an election held under first the past the post system, the JVP members, who, eventually got elected to parliament, would have been elbowed out by the SLFP candidates, or, in a most unlikely scenario, field their candidates under a No Contest pact with the UPFA.
Minority parties were the other beneficiaries under the PR system, facilitating their entry to parliament in their numbers. Had it been the old system, no member of the CWC would have entered parliament, testified by the fact that only Thondaman senior got elected to the legislature at the 1977 election, and, that too, as third member, behind Gamini Dissanayake and Anura Bandaranaike. (In the case of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, and the TNA, the situation was somewhat different, contesting as they do, under religious or communal labels, where Muslims (in the East) and Tamils (North) are contiguous). Hence, it could be seen why minority parties are loath to see the exit of the PR system.
On the other side of the coin, PR has promoted, not only a murderous political culture in the south, but also facilitated the entry of undesirables and the uncouth into the supreme legislature of the country. The cutthroat competition, at the elections, has pitted, not only members of one political party against rival party members, but also led to home and home matches, where, contestants of the same party went for each others’ jugular. Candidates who are unable to muster massive financial resources, given that the orbit is the entire district, rather than a single electorate, have as much chance of getting elected as a snowball in hell. What is more, the system had spawned the entry of bootleggers, drug lords and shady businessmen, into the equation, to bankroll candidates, in return for the usual quid pro quo.
That is why the President said the system has bred a brand of politicians, who are selfish and content at only massing wealth, leaving the public in the lurch. The PR system also left a swath of electorates sans a representative, such as the Colombo district, which has 15 electorates. Even the Moneragala district, which has only three electorates, although the largest district in the country, area wise, more often than not is bereft of representatives for any one among the Moneragala, Wellawaya or Bibile electorates, either from the governing party or the opposition, leaving the people a neglected lot.
On the other hand, the old system had the local man, or, gamey miniha, representing both parties, to choose from, and whoever wins the electorate is guaranteed of a people's representatives in parliament to serve their needs.
The return of the old electoral system, hopefully would see the entry of professionals and the educated into the political arena. Needless to say, the cultured and decent shunned electoral politics, given the cesspit into which present day politics had plunged into. True, there was the National List to accommodate eminent personages. But with rare exceptions such as Lakshman Kadirgamar, Prof. G.L. Peiris Malik Samarawickrama, Tilak Marapana et al. the National List had all along been abused, to accommodate political rejects and clowns.
Be that as it may, measures should also be taken to ensure minority parties are not excluded from the legislature as a result of doing away with the PR system. Some form of mechanism should be brought in not to entirely deny these parties parliamentary representation. The proposed mixed system to go hand in hand with the old electoral system could well be the solution. It should be borne in mind that the JVP staged it's second uprising after JRJ's referendum denied it the opportunity for parliamentary representation. The party, certainly, would have returned quite a few MPs, given the dynamics of the PR system and the bloodbath that followed could have been averted. The same goes for parties such as the CWC and Up Country Peoples’ Front, that command a sizable vote in the plantations. All measures should be taken to ensure no party, community or political group gets alienated from the political mainstream.
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