JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva at yesterday’s media briefing 

– Pic by Shahan Gunasekara

By Chamodi Gunawardana

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) yesterday objected to the Government’s decision to extend the term of office for 21 local government bodies by six months demanding that elections be held as early as possible under the proportional representative system. 

President Maithripala Sirisena announced Saturday that the Government has decided to extend the terms of office of every local government institution which have not been dissolved yet. 

JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva, in response, charged that the decision could be considered a violation of democracy. 

“The then caretaker Government dissolved all local government bodies which expired last March, without extending the tenure and appointed special commissioners for their administration. The Government is going to repeat the same process,” he charged. 

Criticising the Government’s move to postpone the local government polls which were scheduled for March 2016, Silva stressed that the election should be held before June. 

“The Government pledged to hold the local government election in March 2016 when it dissolved some local government institutions last March. It should fulfil the promise it made before the public,” Silva said. 

He also claimed the President Sirisena took this decision because the Government does not hold a united stance on the new electoral system. 

“The President and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) expect to conduct the next local government polls under the new electoral system. They extend the terms of office of bodies to make time for the preparation of the new system. However it will sabotage the functions of all local government institutions,” Silva claimed. 

President Sirisena mentioned that this decision was taken to facilitate the upcoming amendment of the electoral system of local governments. The Government appointed a delimitation committee to reconstitute the electoral system. The President added the committee had received about 2000 appeals and the period of three months was not sufficient to investigate all those appeals.

Proposing a solution to conduct the election as soon as possible, Silva said the JVP urges the Government to follow the same Proportional Representation system (PR) for the last time to hold the forthcoming local government polls. 

LG polls in June: Rajitha

The next local government election will be held next year June under the new mixed electoral system, Minister of Health, Nutrition & Indigenous Medicine, Rajitha Senaratne says.

He made the observation at the weekly cabinet press briefing held at the Government Information Department yesterday.

The tenure of the local government bodies was extended by 6 months, President Maithripala Sirisena had announced earlier.

There are 335 local government authorities in Sri Lanka which includes 23 Municipal Councils, 41 Urban Councils and 271 Pradeshiya Sabhas. The tenure of a majority of these local government authorities are already over.

The official term of the LG bodies were scheduled to end in March, however, it had been extended until 15 May by the government due to the prevailing political situation in the country.

The term of 21 Local Government bodies which was set to end on October 15 and two LG bodies to end term on October 31 were extended till December 31.

However, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently announced that the government expects to hold the Local Government election before the next Sinhala and Tamil New Year.