Colombo: Sri Lanka's election commission on Friday said it will announce the new date for the delayed local body election next week after talks between relevant authorities after the Supreme Court ordered the government to release funds to conduct the polls. The Election Commission of Sri Lanka formally postponed the polls last week from the planned date of March 9 due to a plethora of reasons linked to the country's current economic crisis.
The Commission's chairman, Nimal Punchihewa, said that discussions would be held next week with the secretary to the Treasury, the Government Printer, and the police to announce the date for the local body polls. The Supreme Court on Friday issued an interim order for the Secretary to the Treasury to release the funds allocated in the 2023 government budget for conducting the election.
The interim order came as a result of the Chief opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party's lawmakers filing a fundamental rights petition in the apex court, calling for a writ against state officials who, they alleged, were denying funds necessary to conduct the elections. They claimed that Rs 10 billion was allocated for conducting the local election in the 2023 budget. President Ranil Wickremesinghe hinted that conducting the local election with already lean state finances would only impede his efforts to revive the island nation's crisis-struck economy.
But opposition parties, like the SJB, pin the blame on Wickremesinghe, also the country's finance minister, for trying to sabotage the local body election, fearing a loss by blocking the funds from the Treasury. They also accuse him of influencing the state officials and the Election Commission against the holding of the polls. Commenting on the court order, Leader of Opposition Sajith Premadasa said, the historic order today on an application made by the SJB confirms the fact that democracy in Sri Lanka is very much alive and the independence of our noble judiciary is further reaffirmed.
The election to appoint new administrations to 340 local councils for a four-year term has been postponed since March last year due to the ongoing economic crisis. The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) won the majority of councils in the last election held in 2018. It has suffered major splits since the economic crisis. Sri Lanka was hit by an unprecedented financial crisis in 2022, the worst since its independence from Britain in 1948, due to a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves, sparking political turmoil in the country that led to the ouster of the all-powerful Rajapaksa family. (PTI)
