The first budgets presented by Chairmen and Mayors of several local government bodies including the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) representing mainly the National People’s Power (NPP) have been defeated. However, only the CMC budget made headlines as it happened when the NPP captured the council in May.
The defeat of budgets in these councils wasn’t surprising, writing was on the wall for all these budgets from the beginning, given the way these councils were instituted seven months ago. None of the political parties had won a clear majority in these councils, and no party was able to form the council administration alone, as all other parties got more seats collectively. This compelled the party that had obtained the highest number of seats to get the support of other parties or their individual members.
Some parties, in most cases where the NPP had the highest number of seats, offered their support to it openly; in other councils, they preferred to offer their support in a secret ballot. This put the NPP in many councils in an awkward and unstable position after the council administration was instituted. When the floor test was held during the vote for the budget, some of those who gave their support secretly backtracked, defeating the budget as it happened at the CMC on December 22. There, 4 out of the 13 non-NPP councillors who supported theNPP to form the administration in May had backtracked this time. But the other 9 members stand by Mayor Vraie Cally Balthazar.
However, under the Local Authorities (Special Provisions) Act No. 21 of 2012, a council whose budget is defeated is allowed to re-present the budget within two weeks, with or without amendments. If the re-presented budget is also rejected, the chairman or the mayor is legally empowered to proceed with the original financial estimates, using executive authority. The legal structure further guarantees continuity of governance of the ruling party for a full two-year period, preventing political manoeuvring from triggering abrupt changes in control. Yet, it is a council run by a party without majority support, which looks unethical.
This is not an isolated problem. In over 180 local councils, such unstable administrations have been instituted, as no party had won an absolute majority in 187 out of 339 LG councils for which elections were held on May 6.This is a systemic failure as it means that more than half the total number of councils have become unstable. This is a direct upshot of the current mixed electoral system which has done away with the cut-off point system for the weakest contenders and the bonus seats for the winners, two devices that were meant to ensure the stability of the councils.
This messy situation was witnessed following the first LG election held under the mixed electoral system in 2018 as well. However, the leaders of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), which won 231 out of 340 councils for which elections were held in that year, very easily took control of all hung councils, employing carrot and stick approaches towards the Opposition members of those councils to fall in line. Yet, that was not a morally fitting solution to the problem, and hence the relevant law has to be changed to resolve it.
Current mixed electoral system contains some other serious flaws as well. It has doubled the number of members in councils for the sake of the system. Downsizing the LG bodies is being continually deferred by successive governments. It is not a difficult task as the Delimitation Commission headed by the former Chairman of the Election Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya has already made proposals in 2023 to reduce the number of members of the LG bodies from the current 8000 to little over 4000 members.
Cut-off point for losers and bonus seats for winners in elections may be inappropriate from a dogmatic point of view. But they serve the stability of councils. It is high time the government amended the local government election law, taking these issues into account in order to institute a stable local government system.
