Interim administration is putting off local polls because it fears a crushing defeat, critics say
Anti-government demonstrators protest as they demand the holding of local elections, near the Election Commission in Colombo on June 8, 2023. (Photo: AFP)
The head of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, has urged the country's interim government to hold local elections to secure the democratic rights of the people.
"Voting is a right that we should get from the government. It is a right that every child over 18 years of age needs to decide the future of the country,” he said on June 8.
Local polls to elect 340 councils were slated for April 25 but the election commission postponed it, citing a lack of funds.
Acting president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took office after a violent popular uprising in the midst of the island nation’s forex crisis last year, has said that no local elections, which were earlier fixed on March 9, would be held until the nation’s economic woes were addressed.
The interim administration is putting off the local polls, fearing a crushing defeat, critics say. Meanwhile, polls to elect a new president are scheduled to be held before September 2024.
"Justice turned into injustice, rule turned into dictatorship, law turned into lawlessness," the 75-year-old Ranjith told a gathering of about 300 people at a function at St. Anthony's College in near Kochchikade, some 40 kilometers north of the capital Colombo.
"Let the people express their wishes"
The rulers today are working hand-in-hand to turn the law into illegality and they are not suitable people to rule, he said about the current government, which secured a US$2.9 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in March to tide over the bankrupt Indian Ocean nation.
“The government said earlier that it doesn't have money to hold an election, now it's saying that it has money. If the government has the money, please give an opportunity to the people and let the people express their wishes," said Ranjith, who received the red biretta in 2010.
How much of that money was used for agriculture? How much for the fishing industry? And what about education? the cardinal said at the function to celebrate 100 years of St. Anthony's College.
Rather than improving the lives of people, "politicians import goods, and bring in what we need and what we don't need, destroying our economic independence, leading us to depend on foreign countries," he told the gathering.
On May 12, Ranjith criticized the government's decision to avail loans from the IMF, which come with structural adjustments and austerity measures, according to experts.
Civil rights organizations and political parties were also calling for local elections to be held with the National People's Power group, an alliance of 28 political parties, holding a rally in front of the election commission office on June 8 in Colombo.
"The reason given when the election was postponed was that there was no money. But today the government says that the economy is strong, the rupee is strong, Sunil Handunnetthi, a former lawmaker from the communist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) party, said.
If that is the case, the government should hold the polls, demanded Handunnetthi at the commission office rally.
Nirmani Senathunga, a university student from Colombo, said the election commission has the responsibility to hold elections to protect democracy in the country.
"The country can see that the independent election commission is not independent today," said Senathunga.
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