Photo courtesy of SCMP
The upcoming local government elections scheduled for May 6 represent more than just another trip to the polling booth. They mark a critical juncture in the country’s democratic journey, emerging from the shadow of the transformative aragalaya of 2022 and the subsequent rise of the NPP coalition in the 2024 national elections. These local elections offer the first major opportunity since these watershed events for citizens to continue reclaiming their role as the true sovereigns of Sri Lanka’s democracy. This article aims to provide context for understanding the significance of these elections, not through the lens of partisan politics, but as a crucial mechanism for citizen empowerment.
At the heart of democratic governance lies a delicate relationship between citizens and political parties. Citizens entrust parties with representing their interests and aspirations, delegating authority to make and implement decisions on their behalf. Yet this relationship like any delegation of authority is vulnerable to misalignments. Political parties, as organizations with their own survival imperatives, leadership ambitions and institutional dynamics, can gradually drift from their representative function. Almost all of them eventually develop priorities and pursue strategies that serve organizational interests more than citizen needs.
The healthiest democracies are those where citizens maintain effective oversight over their political representatives, creating accountability mechanisms that realign party behavior with public interests when drift occurs. But citizens’ democratic options extend far beyond mere oversight. They can and should organize not just as transitional political movements like the aragalaya but as stable political institutions including new political parties, policy advocacy organizations, community development initiatives and various civil society structures. Unfortunately, many citizens lack – as a result of significant gaps in the educational system – an in-depth understanding of institution building, let alone the knowhow to create and sustain the complex organizational infrastructure necessary for effective political engagement. By understanding the structures, systems and stakes involved, voters can approach these elections not just as a periodic chance to select representatives but as one element in a broader ecosystem of democratic participation where citizens serve as active architects of their political future.
Understanding the local governance structure
The local government system has evolved through successive waves of decentralization, initially designed to manage ethnic conflict and promote development. The current framework includes three tiers of local authorities: Municipal Councils for larger urban areas, Urban Councils for smaller towns and Pradeshiya Sabhas for rural areas, all operating under the Provincial Councils Act of 1987.
These local bodies are responsible for essential services such as waste management, public health, road maintenance and community development. While their powers are limited compared to national government institutions, they represent the most direct form of governance affecting citizens’ daily lives. Their proximity to communities makes them uniquely positioned to provide citizens with the most accessible entry point into formal political processes.
Unlike national politics, where distance often separates citizens from power centres, local governance offers ordinary people the opportunity to directly shape policy, hold officials accountable through regular face to face interaction and build political communities focused on concrete local concerns. This direct access transforms the citizen-government relationship from abstract to tangible.
The significance of local governance cannot be separated from the larger question of power devolution. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution (1987) established provincial councils and theoretically devolved substantial powers yet its implementation has been incomplete with successive central governments reluctant to fully transfer these powers, particularly in areas such as policing and land administration.
The aragalaya legacy and current political context
These local elections unfold against a backdrop of unprecedented political change catalysed by the historic aragalaya protests of 2022. This youth-led, decentralised movement demonstrated something remarkable in world history: the power of entirely peaceful mass mobilisation to topple an entrenched political regime. Unlike revolutions in France, Russia, China or the Arab Spring, the aragalaya achieved regime change without violence, creating a new template for democratic accountability.
The GotaGoGama protest village at Galle Face became a symbol of this peaceful resistance, complete with libraries, community kitchens and art installations. Despite state crackdowns, protesters maintained nonviolent discipline while forcing the resignation of both President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The aragalaya fundamentally altered Sri Lankan political consciousness by showing that “any government usurping its mandate could be ousted by peaceful means other than elections,” eroding the perceived invincibility of dynastic politics. This citizen awakening paved the way for the NPP’s landslide victory in the 2024 national elections which upended the political landscape. However, the NPP’s adherence to IMF-mandated austerity measures, while stabilising macroeconomic indicators, represents a departure from their promise to re-negotiate the terms of the IMF agreement if elected to power, raising questions about who really controls the policy agenda and whether any political party no matter how well intentioned can truly prioritise citizens’ interests over political survival.
The local elections will serve as a referendum not just on the NPP government’s performance after six months in power, but on whether the citizen-centred political culture catalysed by the aragalaya can be institutionalised through formal democratic channels.
The political space: contested territory
The political space between citizens and established institutions is never empty or neutral. When citizens fail to organize effectively, this vital democratic territory becomes occupied by actors whose interests may fundamentally diverge from the public good. Commercial conglomerates, foreign intelligence services, international financial institutions and narrow special interest groups aggressively contest this space, investing substantial resources to shape governance outcomes in their favour.
These entities deploy sophisticated strategies from funding political campaigns and capturing regulatory agencies to manipulating media narratives and infiltrating civil society organizations. When citizens cede these intermediate spaces through disengagement or inadequate organization, they effectively surrender their sovereignty to unaccountable forces operating without democratic mandate. The price of this democratic abdication is governance that systematically privileges external priorities over citizen needs whether through exploitative economic policies, compromised national security or the subordination of public welfare to special interests.
Institutional pathways and political opportunity
Despite the transformative impact of the aragalaya movement, the upcoming local elections are still mainly contested between the ruling NPP and the weakened but still present traditional parties. This absence of new political formations raises profound questions about the relationship between citizens and their political institutions. While hundreds of thousands participated in the aragalaya protests, these same citizens have largely not channelled that energy into creating new political alternatives.
The political vacuum created by the weakening of establishment parties presents significant opportunities for new entrants. Traditional parties such as the UNP and SLPP have failed to undergo meaningful internal reform despite their electoral defeats. Their leadership remains unchanged, their policy approaches static and their organizational structures rigidly hierarchical.
Local government elections provide an ideal entry point for new political movements because of their accessibility. With lower campaign costs than national elections and more direct connection to communities, local elections allow new political formations to demonstrate governance capabilities while building organizational infrastructure.
While a complete transformation of political culture will take generations of focused educational policies to achieve, citizens have multiple avenues for democratic engagement. These include:
New political parties – The proportional representation system in local elections creates space for smaller parties to gain representation with modest vote shares, providing an entry point for new political formations.
Knowledge production – Think tanks and policy research organizations shape the intellectual frameworks within which governance occurs, offering citizens ways to influence policy without directly contesting elections.
Collective bargaining – Labour unions and professional associations provide countervailing power to both government and corporate interests, allowing citizens to aggregate their interests and exercise collective influence.
Economic networks – Industry groups and business associations can democratise economic influence, ensuring public resources serve community prosperity rather than narrow interests.
Cultural initiatives – Citizens can reshape political culture through media projects, arts organizations and social enterprises that expand public discourse and demonstrate alternative models of collective action.
Democratic financing – Alternative funding structures can direct resources toward new political formations, policy research and civic education, countering the resource advantages of established parties.
Civic education – Institutions focused on developing democratic capacity can fill gaps in the educational system regarding democratic participation and institution building.
Realistically, most citizens cannot directly participate in politics due to competing priorities and limited awareness of engagement pathways. Generations of dependency on the political establishment have bred a political culture resistant to change. However, the aragalaya represents a paradigmatic political lesson that people of all backgrounds can internalise to understand their inherent sovereignty.
Disruptive innovation in politics
The theory of disruptive innovation offers valuable insights into Sri Lanka’s current political landscape. Just as established companies often focus on their most profitable customers while neglecting others, major political parties must make policy compromises at the national level to maintain broad electoral appeal. These compromises inevitably create policy vacuums at the local level – areas where specific community needs remain unaddressed by national platforms.
This dynamic creates natural entry points for new political movements. Established parties, bound by their national positioning, often cannot address localised concerns without contradicting their broader messaging. By focusing on specific community needs overlooked by major parties, emerging movements can build credibility, demonstrate governance competence and develop organizational infrastructure without initially requiring the resources for national competition.
However, this strategy contains significant pitfalls. The temptation for new political movements is to exploit local grievances in ways that may be socially divisive or harmful to national cohesion. Sri Lanka’s history contains numerous examples of parties adopting contradictory positions across different localities to maximise electoral support, with devastating consequences for national unity.
For citizens evaluating new political movements, this understanding provides critical insights to discern between socially regressive and progressive political forces. Groups that build their appeal on divisive rhetoric may offer short term local representation but pose long term dangers to democratic health. Citizens should instead prioritise movements that address local needs while maintaining ethical principles and a vision that could coherently scale nationally.
Beyond voting: practical citizen engagement
While elections represent a crucial moment for democratic participation, citizen power extends far beyond the ballot box. The aragalaya demonstrated that when citizens organize collectively, they can reshape the political landscape.
Local councils are required to hold open meetings and publish their budgets and spending reports. Citizens have the right to attend these meetings, review financial documents and question decisions. Community watchdog groups can play a vital role in tracking whether elected officials fulfil their promises and use resources appropriately.
Some local authorities have begun experimenting with participatory planning processes where citizens directly contribute to development priorities. These mechanisms transform governance from a top down exercise to a collaborative process where citizens’ lived experiences shape policy formulation.
When communities organize independently of political parties, they create countervailing power centres that can hold elected officials accountable regardless of party affiliation. Traditional and social media offer powerful tools for highlighting local issues, exposing corruption and mobilising public opinion.
The path forward
The 2025 local government elections come at a pivotal moment in Sri Lanka’s democratic journey. The disconnect between the extraordinary civic mobilisation during the aragalaya and the limited political renewal in its aftermath represents both a challenge and an opportunity.
Local governments offer ordinary citizens the most direct access to political power – to set the agenda, define their vision for the future and shape the political life of the nation from the ground up. To the extent that most citizens will only engage through voting, political parties should be judged based on who offers the most accessible and transparent policy formulation process at the local level.
Yet voting alone cannot secure democratic sovereignty. Institutional pathways provide complementary avenues for citizens to shape governance beyond electoral participation. Building these institutions requires overcoming educational gaps and resource constraints that will not happen overnight. However, the aragalaya demonstrated that people can peacefully reclaim their political sovereignty when governance fails them.
In the end, the health of a democracy depends not just on who holds office but on whether citizens remain the true sovereigns of the political system. The measure of these elections’ success will be whether they contribute to a political system that serves the people rather than subjugating them, a system where governance institutions respond to citizens’ needs rather than expecting citizens to conform to institutional constraints and where sovereignty rests not with politicians or parties but with citizens themselves.
Therefore, the outcome of these local government polls should be evaluated not merely in terms of the relative strengths of the political parties and their voter base but in terms of the breadth of viable political alternatives that are available. A single party being able to monopolise the political landscape, no matter how honest and competent, is not a sign of a healthy democracy. This election will highlight opportunities for disruption and policy innovation in the political spaces that the old establishment has left vacant in its demise. Whether enough refreshingly new and hope inducing political players will emerge to occupy that space and create a viable alternative to the NPP in the elections that follow or whether those spaces will remain a wasteland – haunted by the ghosts of past political ruins – will be the true test of the health of Sri Lanka’s democracy.