Elections - Groundviews

Archive for the ‘Elections’

14 Oct, 2011
Gnana Moonesinghe
4 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Peace and Conflict,
Politics and Governance

The ghosts that continue to haunt us

“Democratic government is strengthened, not weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society.” Tocqueville The local government elections have been fought and won by the UPFA in 21 out of 23 Local Government bodies, an impressive result for an incumbent government in place since 2005. Contrary to normal response the incumbency factor worked for the government and not against it. One of the reasons given for the victory is the security factor – people’s abiding gratitude to a government that has given security by bringing to a close the thirty year war and successfully ending terrorism and their terror tactics under which all members of the Lankan polity were enslaved; no more deaths for young men and women soldiers; no more suicide bombers and ‘parcels’ exploding taking many lives and maiming many more. These have been high lighted before but each time people vote for the government it is clear that they recall them all and their vote becomes an…

11 Oct, 2011
Kshama Ranawana
18 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Features,
Human Security,
Peace and Conflict,
Politics and Governance,
Post-War

Employing thugs as Presidential advisors

Sri Lankan hospital staff carry an injured person following a shootout on the outskirts of Colombo on Saturday – AP, via Deccan Chronicle An advisor to the President is dead and a Member of Parliament is critically injured. Also amongst the dead and injured are supporters of the Presidential advisor and the parliamentarian. This incident, where the politicians and their henchmen openly resorted to a shoot-out in broad day light, only proves a common known fact; that Sri Lanka’s politics has, for the past several decades been taken over by thugs, criminals and drug dealers. What is interesting though, is that in this incident the two opponents belong to the governing alliance. Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra a long time UPFA member and former Member of Parliament was the Presidential Advisor for Trade Unions while relative newcomer to the UPFA, Duminda Silva, is the monitoring MP for the Defense Ministry. It also is evidence that some of the closest advisors to the…

10 Oct, 2011
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
45 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Politics and Governance,
Polls

Reading the results of the municipal elections in Sri Lanka

Is this a functioning democracy or what? The governing coalition’s sweep of the local authorities election, the UNP’s successful resistance in a tough campaign in Colombo, as well as the TNA’s impressive performance at repeated elections in the North, make nonsense of the dark pronouncements and forebodings of dictatorship. Homogenization leads to conformism, which crystallises into a monolith, which translates itself into a dictatorship of discourse and opinion, which straitjackets society and creates a de-facto dictatorship. The results of the local authorities election proves that Sri Lankan society will not allow itself to be straitjacketed into conformity. We are, in short, a democracy. The extrapolation by some commentators that the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration is somewhere along the trajectory of the recently overthrown Arab regimes is way of the mark because none of them permitted pluralist media (an important feedback loop), subjected their popularity to the test of authentically competitive multiparty elections. As Emeritus Professor of International Law at Princeton, Richard…

8 Oct, 2011
Austin Fernando
5 Comments
Colombo,
Development,
Elections,
Politics and Governance,
Polls,
Post-War

Developing the ‘Under served settlements’ in Colombo: An Open Letter

Photo courtesy Prevention Web October 8th 2011 Dear Mr. Milinda Moragoda and Mr. AJM Muzammil, I wrote this open letter before the elections, to be read after, to avoid political misapprehensions that would have caused, if published earlier. Since you two may remember me, I wish I receive your attention on a few guiding principles to achieve best results when fulfilling your promises to serve the USSs, repeatedly orchestrated during election campaigns. It was heartening because you both had a singular interest on developing ‘Under served settlements’ (USSs) in the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) area, though through different approaches, and this ‘letter’ is to motivate a singular groove. Recently I was perusing some reports and found two written by two consultancy teams, which I led, titled “Policy Framework for the Clean Settlements to Develop Urban Underserved Settlements” written in April 1997 for the World Bank and Ministry of Housing Construction and Public Utilities; and, “Environmental Profile under the Sustainable Cities Programme”…

7 Oct, 2011
Jude Fernando
14 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Features,
Politics and Governance,
Post-War

Local Government Elections: In sending the UNP and JVP to political oblivion the nation may find hope?

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Photo courtesy Sunday Leader “The starting point of [progressive] politics and the state is its categorical rejection of this view of the state as the trustee, instrument, or agent of this society as a whole…In class societies, the concept of the society as a whole and of the ‘national’ interest’ is clearly a mystification” - Ralph Miliband Another humiliating defeat for the United National Party (UNP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in the forthcoming elections would certainly improve the country’s future prospects for democracy with equality and justice. A UPFA victory could be celebrated with a sense cautious optimism: perhaps it will enable the evolution of a democratic space where we can imagine alternatives to the status quo. But the UNP and JVP (along with TULF, LSSP, CP and JHU) represent the very forces that they name as evils, and are ideologically and programmatically bankrupt. The contemporary political scene only gives the illusion of democracy, but it co-opts dissent and…

26 Sep, 2011
Sanjana Hattotuwa
0 Comment
Colombo,
Elections,
Peace and Conflict,
Politics and Governance

Milinda Moragoda’s ‘Right to Information’: A sordid record of its real nature and limits

The Hansard of 20th September 2011 records a question posed by Dr. Harsha de Silva in Parliament over the campaign finances and the asset declaration of Mayoral candidate Milinda Moragoda. See high resolution image here. Download the Hansard from 20th September as a PDF here. Dr. de Silva flags questions repeatedly via Facebook and Twitter Groundviews posed to the Moragoda campaign on these issues, all to no avail. Milinda Moragoda: The gap between promise and reality catalogues the disconnect between what Moragoda says and actually does in more detail. In Why is Right to Information in the Moragoda Mayoral Manifesto? Prof. Rohan Samarajiva, the Head of the Policy Planning Group, Milinda for Mayor Campaign, flags Moragoda’s commitment to the Right to Information (RTI) and ends with a plea to support him on this score. Dr. de Silva, who at the time of writing is the head of the Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte Municipal Council (SJKMC) campaign committee for the UNP notes in Local…

26 Sep, 2011
Sanjana Hattotuwa
7 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Politics and Governance

Fundamental questions for AJM Muzammil and the UNP

Last Friday, I was slated to interview the UNP’s Mayoral candidate AJM Muzammil on public television. After his media manager expressed a keen interest and confirmed his participation, Muzammil backed out the morning of the interview giving no reason at all and asked it to be rescheduled for the following week. This mirrored the behaviour of the UPFA’s candidate Milinda Moragoda, who also promised an interview and at the last minute, cancelled without giving any reason. It’s almost as if they both were advised that hard questions, for which they would have no easy answer, would be asked. Though no coherent answers are, to date, forthcoming, questions directed at Milinda Moragoda are public. Critical questioning of Muzammil’s policy statement has been comparatively less visible and sustained, but also because Muzammil’s presence on the web is far less adroit than Moragoda’s. His Twitter account for example incredibly has just a single tweet to date. This is, politely put, is deeply embarrassing. His…

25 Sep, 2011
Sanjana Hattotuwa
6 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Features,
Politics and Governance,
Post-War

Hacking mayoral campaign promises

Photo from Asian Mirror In Open-source policy formulation for Sri Lanka’s capital, an article published on the Lanka Business Online website recently, the Head of the Policy Planning Group, Milinda for Mayor Campaign and renowned policy analyst Prof. Rohan Samarajiva looks at how mainstream politics can be made more participatory. The promise is of a direct democracy model with the aid of web, mobile and Internet technologies. Prof. Samarajiva captures well the shortcomings of a traditional approach to manifestos and public policy, “The traditional approach is to rely on expertise. Experts formulate policy. Other experts debug it. Not very different from what goes on at the Redmond Campus of Microsoft.” It is a beguiling vision. Co-creating public policy transparently is infinitely better than codifying in closed groups. This is the Wikipedia model, adapted to fit a political campaign. Experts, like Prof. Samarajiva, assume a curatorial role in the campaign – sifting through citizen-generated ideas, refining and combining them to create a…

14 Sep, 2011
Sanjana Hattotuwa
32 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Features,
Peace and Conflict,
Politics and Governance,
Post-War

Milinda Moragoda: The gap between promise and reality

Milinda Moragoda’s on-going mayoral campaign is interesting on many counts. Particularly appealing to me is that it is extremely web media savvy. The campaign’s central website, http://www.ourcmb.com, is leagues ahead of what any candidate, at any election in Sri Lanka has produced. Aimed to elicit public feedback on a 12 point, 100 day plan for Colombo, the website is a model for how politicians can use the web to co-create policy in what is promised is an open, transparent manner. Milinda’s Facebook group, growing apace in the number of fans, is something other candidates have done in the past, but not to this degree of curatorial prowess. He also has a presence on YouTube and Twitter. All this would prima facie suggest a politician unafraid of public scrutiny, genuine engagement on critical issues and uses these tools to be the change he proclaims he wants to see. Sadly, not so. In an article titled ‘Open-source policy formulation for Sri Lanka’s…

27 Jul, 2011
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
9 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Features,
Jaffna,
Peace and Conflict,
Politics and Governance,
Polls,
Post-War,
Reconciliation

Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Morning After Thoughts and The Local Authorities’ Elections in Sri Lanka

Photo courtesy Eranga Jayawardena/The Associated Press President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga always wrote well and spoke eloquently when she resisted a propensity to be overly loquacious. While her recent peroration contains many intelligent and valid points, her credibility and their validity comes into serious question because she is not an independent observer or a reformist leader –in-waiting, but precisely a two term president who won by record majorities, and was indeed the immediate predecessor of the present incumbent. Most ironic is the fact that many of the ills she identifies or attributes to present day Sri Lanka stem directly from her political sins of omission and commission. What is conspicuously lacking in her discourse, is any sign of reflexivity; of self-criticism. My criticism pertains to four vital spheres (including those of her current concern), namely viable devolution, a less discriminatory society, the role of radical Sinhala nationalism/ultra-nationalism and of course defeating terrorism and reunifying the Sri Lankan state. Having been elected…

25 Jul, 2011
Groundviews
102 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Features,
Jaffna,
Peace and Conflict,
Politics and Governance,
Polls,
Post-War

TNA MP Suresh Premachandran on the result of the Local Government elections

Photo from Wikipedia Updated, 27 July 2011: Listen to exclusive interview with Suresh Premachandran here. This statement on the results of the recently concluded local government elections (covered in detail by Groundviews here) was issued originally in Tamil by Tamil National Alliance MP Suresh Premachandran. Download PDF here. Only brief excerpts in English have been picked up by domestic and international media. In order to stimulate wider debate over its content and points, we’ve translated Premachandran’s full statement in English. Though we’ve checked it for accuracy twice, a note from our translator is worth keeping in mind, “The meaning [of the statement] is captured though every subtle nuance and emphasis is not. The entire thing is written in free flowing passive voice Tamil which while lyrical, is difficult to translate.” We also encourage our readers to suggest better translations of key phrases and words through comments. In a closed email exchange with colleagues, we wondered if a more conciliatory approach,…

23 Jul, 2011
Groundviews
3 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Features,
Jaffna,
Peace and Conflict,
Politics and Governance,
Polls,
Post-War

Northern Local Government Elections

135383-wo-boys-walk-past-local-government-election-campaign-posters-in-jaffna

(Photo: Reuters, from International Business Times) Groundviews is curating news and updates from the ground, as well as domestic and international media coverage on the historic local government elections in Jaffna. Polling started at 7am today. In addition to @groundviews, Follow #NLGE on Twitter for updates from Jaffna, in addition to the usual #lka and #srilanka. In addition to our own curation, we are following: @anuradhakherath (on the ground updates) @dinidu (on the ground updates) @perambara (on the ground updates) @apelankawe (on the ground updates) @nirananketell (expert opinion / analysis) @rkguruparan (expert opinion / analysis) @lankasol (for interesting updates with international focus) @DMbreakingnews (mainstream media updates) Subscribe to #NLGE’s RSS feed here. There’s also a hashtag for other local government election news, #SLGE. Subscribe to its RSS feed here. Groundviews also maintains two key curated Twitter lists. One for leading bloggers, the other for Twitter accounts related to media and journalism. Both will invariably feature updates on the elections. Our…

15 Apr, 2011
Groundviews
3 Comments
Colombo,
Corruption,
Development,
Elections,
Features,
Politics and Governance,
Post-War

In conversation with Nelum Gamage: Does anyone give a damn about corruption?

Nelum Gamage, a Director of Transparency International Sri Lanka, was an erstwhile Director General of the Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption (CIABOC), established in 1994 to direct the institution of prosecutions for offences under the Bribery Act and the Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Law, No. 1 of 1975. She is also Director/Consultant at the Legal Aid Commission at the Ministry of Justice. The conversation began by asking Nelum why even with so much of information on corruption in the public domain, people still didn’t really give a damn about combatting it. Nelum makes the points that even with this information, there is still a lot of ignorance about systemic corruption and that until it impacts one personally, people don’t really take any action against it. We talk about private industry in Sri Lanka and its participation in corrupt practices, in spite of public claims of accountability and good corporate governance. Nelum addresses the point on whether…

14 Jan, 2011
Groundviews
6 Comments
Colombo,
Elections,
Gender,
Identity,
Politics and Governance,
Polls

A perennial struggle: Women’s political representation in Sri Lanka

Women constitute 52% of Sri Lanka’s population, however women constitute only 2% of elected members of Local Authorities. A critical concern is the very low levels of nominations received by women (approximately 6%) from political parties (See table below). Much of the blame for this under representation must be borne by the major political parties which have consistently failed to give adequate nominations to women. They are the parties that win seats in any local election. In South Asia, our immediate neighbours with whom we enjoy close historical and cultural ties, the under- representation of women at local elected political bodies have been addressed through legally enforceable quotas for women. In fact Sri Lanka remains the only country without any special measures to facilitate women’s representation in Local Authorities. In Bangladesh, at least 25% of seats are reserved for women in Union Councils (1996 legislation); in India not less than 33% of seats are reserved for women and other marginalized…

3 Jan, 2011
Juanita Arulanantham
0 Comment
Colombo,
Elections,
Politics and Governance,
Polls

A critique of the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill

Juanita Arulanantham & Andi Schubert Introduction[1] This briefing paper highlights some of the key aspects of this Bill and attempts to provide the reader with a basic introduction to the issues and implications of the Bill in its current form. We first examine the change in the electoral system and some of the implications it will have on the exercise of franchise (point 1) and then discuss the implications of the changes being made to the amount required as a deposit and the way it could affect the smaller parties and independent groups (point 2). In point 3 we briefly deal with the changes to the youth quota from a mandatory 40% youth quota in nomination lists to a 25% youth and women quota and how it affects women and young people. Point 4 addresses the changes to the nomination period which has been shortened to 1.5 days from the previous 7 day stipulation while point 5 deals with the…

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Archive for the ‘Elections’

The ghosts that continue to haunt us

Employing thugs as Presidential advisors

Reading the results of the municipal elections in Sri Lanka

Developing the ‘Under served settlements’ in Colombo: An Open Letter

Local Government Elections: In sending the UNP and JVP to political oblivion the nation may find hope?

Milinda Moragoda’s ‘Right to Information’: A sordid record of its real nature and limits

Fundamental questions for AJM Muzammil and the UNP

Hacking mayoral campaign promises

Milinda Moragoda: The gap between promise and reality

Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Morning After Thoughts and The Local Authorities’ Elections in Sri Lanka

TNA MP Suresh Premachandran on the result of the Local Government elections

Northern Local Government Elections

In conversation with Nelum Gamage: Does anyone give a damn about corruption?

A perennial struggle: Women’s political representation in Sri Lanka

A critique of the Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill

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