The Ninth Parliamentary
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International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 10, Issue 10, October 2020 434 ISSN 2250-3153 The Ninth Parliamentary Election of Sri Lanka in 2020: An Analysis of the Outcomes Krishnamohan Thanabalasingam Sathiyasegar Kandasamy Professor in Political Science Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Anthropology Eastern University, Sri Lanka, Eastern University, Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Sri Lanka [email protected] [email protected] DOI: 10.29322/IJSRP.10.10.2020.p10659 http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.10.10.2020.p10659 Abstract— The Sinhala Buddhists, who are the majority in contested against a weakened opposition party in the Sri Lanka, helped the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna parliament election. Even though the parliamentary election (SLPP) win an absolute majority in the ninth general was delayed twice due to the COVID-19, SLPP got 2/3 election of Sri Lanka. The SLPP always wishes to exceed majority in the parliament with the help of other supporting expectations and the president, who also belongs to the parties. The SLPP was expecting to get the two-thirds majority SLPP, claimed that the party’s performance in the general (150 seats) in the parliament without other parties' support. election was better than what they had anticipated. The But they were able to gain only 145 seats in the parliament. United National Party (UNP), led by the former Prime The parliamentary elections results may be seen as an Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, suffered the worst indicator of its future political direction and help to increase electoral defeat in their history as they managed to win the potential executive president's power. With obstacles from only one seat, that too through the national list. Ranil the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the election Wickremesinghe also recorded his first defeat in an commission tried to make sure that polling was free, fair, and electoral battlefield. The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), safe for all. Due to the inability of foreign election monitors to led by Sajith Premadasa, that broke away from the UNP, travel to the country due to the COVID-19 related restrictions managed to gain 54 seats and emerged as the second- in place, the election was monitored by local personnel. largest alliance in the island. The Tamil National Alliance Therefore, this research article is focused on examining the (TNA), which used to enjoy the support of the majority in following crucial problems: the North and East of Sri Lanka, suffered a huge setback 1. Did the SLPP record a historic victory by gaining a as they ended up with only 10 seats, 6 less than what they total of 6.8 million Sinhalese cast votes (59% of the had won in the previous general election. The SLPP valid votes) in the ninth parliamentary election? managed to win approximately 59% of the popular vote 2. Why did UNP-led United National Front for Good while the SJB won almost 24% of the votes, becoming the Governance secured 5.0 million votes in the 2015 second most popular party in the island ahead of the General election but in the last parliament election, veteran parties like the UNP and TNA. just secured only 249,435 votes? 3. How to evaluate the political status of minority Key Words— Constitution, Election, Parliament, Women, parties in the ninth parliamentary election? Minorities 4. What, in the future, necessary strategies should be developed to ensure maximum security to the I. INTRODUCTION women's political participation? Even though 16 million Sri Lankans were registered to vote to This research paper consists of two parts. The first part of the elect the members of Sri Lanka’s ninth parliament, the research paper analyzes the parliament election results and election campaign was mostly affected by the COVID-19 SLPP's decisive victory. The second part of the research paper pandemic. According to the voters' list of 2018, nearly 84% of analyzes the minority political parties’ status and women’s the registered voters polled their votes in the last November political participation. This research was done qualitatively 2019 Presidential election. Considering the voters' list of and involved analysis of the content of the events. The content 2019, total registered voters' numbers were 16,263,885. But analysis generally involved closely examining the text of the polled votes fell to 12,343,308 (75.89%) due to the public documents and the words of politicians and political analysts. health issue. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) The data collected regarding the criticisms of the political This publication is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution CC BY. http://dx.doi.org/10.29322/IJSRP.10.10.2020.p10659 www.ijsrp.org International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, Volume 10, Issue 10, October 2020 435 ISSN 2250-3153 parties’ manifesto of Sri Lanka on online literature, political total cast votes will return two seats. The party composition of leaders' speech, past election statistics, and research books the legislature reflects the party preference of the electorate have been used to write this research article. with a considerable degree of accuracy in the electorate. For example, hypothetical table 1 shows a legislature with five seats with 200,000 voters in an electorate. II. THEORY TABLE I HYPOTHETICAL TABLE Party Votes Seats in the Body The primary norm of proportional representation (PR) is, Casted Percentage Number Percentage every group of the society would secure their representation in Votes of Returned the parliament, in proportion to their population. Different A 120,00 60% 3 60% communities, who otherwise will go without representation, 0 B 80,000 40% 2 40% will get representation according to their strength in numbers. Total 200,00 100% 5 100% The main purpose of the PR system is to safeguard a 0 representative assembly reflecting the statistical exactness of the various divisions in the constituency. Eminent political thinker J.S Mill supported the PR system (Agarwal, R.C, III. DISSOLVING the PARLIAMENT and COVID -19 1976). He says that a parliament must represent, all the divisions of the constituency and no minority should go The President can dissolve the parliament four and a half without any representation in the parliament. The parliament (4-1 / 2) years after the commencement of the term of office of is compared to maps. One cannot draw a map of a country a parliament of Sri Lanka. The power to dissolve parliament is ignoring any part of the area of the country. All the areas of vested in the President by Article 70 (10) and section (2) (e) of the country should be represented in the map. Similarly, all the the constitution. Therefore, following these provisions, and areas of the constituency should be represented in the per the provisions of section 10 of the parliamentary elections parliament. The PR system has two methods. One is the Hare Act No. 1 of 1981, the President of the Democratic Socialist system and the other one is the List system. Hare systems is Republic of Sri Lanka, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, dissolved the also known by other names such as preferential system or the parliament at midnight on March 2, 2020, and announced the single transferable vote system. The voters exercise many election for a new parliament will be held on April 25. He also votes as there are several candidates and indicates their called on the new parliament to begin its session on May 14, preferences of the candidates for whom they vote. In the list 2020 (The Gazette of The Democratic Socialist Republic of system candidates are grouped into lists, with each party Sri Lanka, Extraordinary, No. 2165/8 - Monday, March 02, representing a separate list. A voter casts vote for a list. Every 2020). party offers a list of its candidates up to the number of seats to be filled from each constituency. A voter cast vote for the list During this period, the COVID-19 pandemic began to she/he likes. She/he may cast vote either for one candidate on spread in Sri Lanka. On March 19, Election Commission the list or may distribute all his votes to the different announced that the parliamentary elections would be candidates on the same list. But she/he cannot cast more than postponed indefinitely, referring to instructions from the one vote to any candidates. This system gives the opportunity Government Medical Officers' Association (GMOA) that the of representation to all parties, big or small, and confirms that country's health and medical conditions were in jeopardy. the parliament mirrors the view of all the people (Agarwal, Despite the COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka, the R.C, 1976). Under this system, even a minor or numerically government was stubborn that elections should be held on small group of people may send a representative if they can April 25 as planned. Against the government move, the organize themselves to cast the votes in favour of a candidate. Election Commission banned political parties from holding In the same way, even a small party can get the number of its election rallies, mass meetings, and campaigns. However, members elected with the help of constituencies of a district in during a video conference with SAARC heads of state, Sri which it is popular. PR satisfies its aim by giving equal Lankan president Gotabhaya Rajapakse reaffirmed that the chances to the minority. parliamentary elections would go ahead as planned. The aim of the PR system allocates seats in the legislature Ignoring the president's urgency and focus on holding the according to the casted number of votes to the political parties parliamentary elections as planned, the Election Commission or independent groups. Let’s consider this scenario as an of Sri Lanka postponed the parliamentary elections until June example.