Educating simple Voters to demand a genuine and simple Electoral system with ‘equal vote’ before any Election.- Part 01 – By Bernard Fernando

Educating simple Voters to demand a genuine and simple Electoral system with ‘equal vote’ before any Election.- Part 01 – By Bernard Fernando

Preface Our simple voters as main stake holders of a General  Election, primarily want to know the Winning Party and the Number of seats they have won and secondarily the names of the ‘225’ who will represent them in the Supreme Parliament. They are not keen to know how the number of seats were calculated but accepted the result like the Bible truth. Even if they were keen, they would have given up halfway, unable to grapple with complex factors such as ‘Relevant Votes’ and ‘Constructive figure’ etc. stated in the Constitution as well as PR/FPP ratios and ‘over-hangs’ arising from the Complex MMV System. However, the writer and a few concerned voters noted from the puzzling results as shown below, that under the pre-1978 FPP and post 1978 PR Elections,  the fundamental ‘Equal value’ of vote has been badly compromised basically to appease the Power hungry Politicians harping on the need to have so called ‘Stable Govts .The miserable failure of  the present Electoral system  to achieve the aforesaid Primary and Secondary objectives due to continuous cold shouldering of ‘System changes’ proposed by the main stake holders  was desperately upstaged by the ‘Peaceful Youth Aragalya’ at the  Galle Face in 2022. It is opined that at least with the advent of Provincial Councils (PCs ) in 1988,the authorities  should have firstly formulated a simple and fair Electoral system based on ‘Equal ballot’ as per Article 93 of our Constitution and  more precisely on Article 21 (3) of UNs ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights -1948 which reads as follows.

‘’The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of Government; this Will  shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”

Secondly, the failure of the authorities to keep step with the changing times and  introduce a mandatory mechanism to ensure nomination of 225 ‘Country first-Political Professionals’ to represent  the increasing No. of new generation youth(16.3 Mln sovereign voters in 2020), allowed the power hungry Party leaders, to continue nominating ‘Black money’ throwing candidates. They cajoled the poor voters to mark the preference vote, based on the ‘goodies’ offered by them and  Election ‘gundoos’/ false promises mentioned in the so called ‘Election Manifestoes’ making the optional preference vote almost compulsory. In other words the simple and gullible voters were compelled to select ‘Horses’ from lists of ‘Donkeys’. As a result, the achievement of the said Secondary objective too has failed miserably.

It is evident that the failure of some of our voter dedicated organisations and civil activists over the years have contributed to the abortion of the said Primary and Secondary Objective of an Election.

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Voter Education imperative with a bit of Past and Present

‘First-Past-the Post’( FPP) system

In order to educate the simple voters on ‘Equality of vote’ ,the main results of 1970 and 1977 Elections  based on Westminster ‘First-Past-the Post’(FPP) system, are tabled below. FPP means, the one who first passes the Post in the electorate is the sole winner. No second or third place except in a few multi- member seats !

Source: Wikepedia

In the present context, the above results under the FPP system smacks of a blatant mockery of the ‘Equality of Vote’. They look absurd and farcical even to a 5^th grader! Both major Parties have eaten humble pie under the FPP system. As already stated , the sole reason for the above comedy is ; the ‘The winner takes it all’ virtually throwing the  valid votes of all other contestants to the waste paper basket even if their aggregate vote exceeds that of the winner!

The voters should also realise that, the ‘main wish’ of FPP proponents to have a MP in the Electorate to resolve their Issues/grievances at National Parliament level, became obsolete and redundant after i) the strengthening of the ‘Decentralized Political Administration System’ through PCs armed with 09 Provincial Parliaments in 1988, ii) Rapid advances in Communication media through TV/ Internet /Email/Whats App./ FM Channels etc.  and iii) Improvement of transport network with Private buses and long distance highways since 1990s that effectively made the country still smaller. Besides, at present, on average, there are 57 (Parliament, PC and Local Govt. level) politicians for each Electorate! Unfortunately, the effectiveness of the PCs was paralyzed by the MPs who jealously guarded their ‘Preference Vote’ Bank in the electorates/Districts, by inter alia using their Decentralized budget and blocking the delegation of adequate powers and recognition to the PCs. Thus, restoring the FPP system is untenable and becomes a ‘mere wish’ in view of its inability to ensure more fundamental ‘Equality of vote’ and forging ‘Sri Lankan ness’. Let us also not forget those colossal burdens that People had to bear due to the dictatorial decisions of those 02 regimes commanding super majorities!

Proportionate Representation (PR) System

Original PR system of  1978  i) gave  value  to valid votes as much as possible,  to meet the Primary  objective of  rational seat allocation through ‘Equal value’ of vote leading to fairness  and accuracy of an Election and ii) introduced ‘Meritocracy’ through ‘Merit based district-wise’ Nomination lists. Also, the much larger District as the Electoral unit discouraged the 196 District MPs from spending their valuable time for vote canvassing efforts such as issuing MP’s Chits, distributing goodies, attending local opening ceremonies, funerals, weddings, Birthdays etc, at electorate level. The PC members should be handling these matters. The MPs were expected to achieve Parliament objectives viz.  ‘Law making, National Budget making and monitoring and Foreign Policy’ from the Centre. It is also pertinent to mention that the present system too does not prevent Parties from assigning Electoral duties to MPs as they wish.

Sadly, during the intervening period up to 1989 General Election,(first one under the new  PR system), the said objectives of the original PR system too were subverted  by the following tinkering conspired as usual  by power hungry politicians.

1. Replacement of ‘District Merit lists’ by the infamous ‘Preference cum ‘Manapey’ vote’ mechanism with Nomination lists in alphabetical order.
2. Creation of 22 District Bonus seats not supported by valid votes to justify so called ‘Stable Govt.’

• District wise 5% minimum requirement of votes ejecting large chunks of valid votes to the waste paper basket to favour Major Parties.

1. Pre-determined seat allocation to 22 Districts for 01 Parliament.

The differences resulting from such tinkering of genuine PR System plus Pre-1978 FPP Method can be seen again from the results of General Election – 2020

Source: Col.No. 1 to 4-Based on NEC Results;  Col. No. 5 -Refined  after removing  tinkering ; Col.No. 7 -Press results.

Bernard Fernando- AIB(London), Exec.Dip.in Business Admin.-University of Colombo. Former Deputy General Manager- BOC           

Email: jbvfernando@yahoo.com                                   

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Date:23- 06-2023