Financial Times

Sunday Times FT study on five polls in 6 years
Elections - toll on the people?
Has anyone taken the time to count the cost of elections in Sri Lanka or the losses to the people and the economy for that matter? We did and here is a conservative estimate of what Sri Lanka (government and private sector) has spent over the last six years on what is widely now considered as a very unproductive cost. In fact actual costs would be much higher.

Since 1999 there have been four elections - 1999 (presidential), 2000 (parliamentary), 2001 (parliamentary) and an islandwide local government election in between. The forthcoming April 2 parliamentary poll will make it five elections in six years!

According to the Elections Commissioner's office, each election costs more that Rs 600 million with the April poll costing Rs 850 million. Each election has more than 4,000 candidates with each spending Rs 5 million (Colombo district) and Rs 2.5 million (rest of Sri Lanka) on their campaign. The campaign costs per candidate - based on some published data - is also a conservative figure as some high-profile candidates could spend as much as Rs 50 million on a campaign - all of which comes from private donors and the corporate sector.

Thus - to be on the conservative side in the absence of actual figures - let's assume each election costs the government Rs 600 million and Rs 2 million per candidate (all island): Rs 600 million + Rs 2 million x 4,000 (total number of candidates) = Rs 8.6 billion

For five elections: Rs 8.6 billion x 5 = Rs 43 billion. This is made up of Rs 3 billion (government) and Rs 40 billion (private donors and corporate sector). We have included the same campaign costs for the presidential poll - even though there were just 13 candidates - because the entire campaign would have cost the same as any other election. This country has thus spent a minimum Rs 43 billion over the past six years on an unproductive and disruptive exercise. What about the hidden costs of lost investment, failed projects, loss of lives due to election violence, delayed decisions and so on? Some analysts believe this - over a six-year period - could be anything between Rs 2 billion and Rs 10 billion or even more.

If we take a conservative figure of Rs 2 billion as hidden costs, it increases the total cost to Rs 45 billion that has been spent on elections in the past six years.

This amount is equivalent to:
-the budget deficit more than 10 years ago,
-cost of outstanding foreign debt to Germany upto 2001,
-external financing (Rs 26 billion) and privatization proceeds (Rs 21 billion) of part of the 2002 budget deficit, more than total spending on education (Rs 32 billion) in 2002, or total spending on the health sector (Rs 25 billion) in 2002.

The money (Rs 3 billion) spent by the government on the six elections could have been better used in welfare or creation of jobs while the private contribution of Rs 43 billion (excluding hidden costs) could have built new highways like the proposed Colombo-Katunayake road (said to cost Rs 27 billion)!

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