Columns
- NPP wins Colombo Municipal Council battle despite dispute over secret ballot; Double-crossing by councillors costs the SJB victory in several councils
- Concerns over adverse impacts of Iran-Israel war on Lanka, Ranil slams G7 statement condemning Iran
- UN Human Rights Chief’s visit Sri Lanka; Foreign Ministry hopes talks will advance efforts to promote human rights and reconciliation
By our Political Desk
If the chaos that unfolded over the past week during the formation of local councils has shown anything, it is that the ruling National People’s Power (NPP), for all its moral grandstanding, is no different from other political parties when it comes to the art of political deal-making.
In its fight to win control of local councils where no political party or independent group had obtained an outright majority, the NPP has formed alliances with members from an assortment of political parties and independent groups, including its main rival, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), Sarvajana Balaya (SB), Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) and the Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA). The NPP’s latest argument is that as it came first in the number of seats in these councils, it is entitled to form the councils by whichever means.
NPP members have even been accused by the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) of colluding with the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP) of former State Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan, alias Pillayan, in efforts to form administrations in local councils in the Eastern Province. Pillayan, it should be recalled, is currently being held on a detention order under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) after being arrested over the 2006 abduction and disappearance of former Vice-Chancellor of the Eastern University, Prof. Subramaniam Raveendranath. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake himself signed Pillayan’s detention order in his capacity as Minister of Defence. The government also accuses the TMVP leader of being involved in a wider “conspiracy” surrounding the Easter Sunday terror attack.

The NPP's winning mayoral candidate Vraie Balthazaar shares the head table with Local Government Commissioner Sarangika Jayasundera after she won the secret ballot vote on Monday
NPP wins controversial election for Colombo Mayor
The past week’s developments indicate that the NPP’s negotiators have definitely been doing work behind the scenes negotiating with newly elected local government members of opposition parties and independent groups. The highlight of the NPP’s efforts also saw the party win control of the all-important Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) on Monday. The struggle to win control of the 117-member CMC was a bitterly fought affair, with the NPP and a combined force of opposition parties fighting tooth and nail to woo enough members to secure victory for their respective mayoral candidates. The NPP had long named Vraie Cally Balthazaar as its mayoral candidate. A group of opposition parties comprising the SJB, the SLPP, the United National Party (UNP) and the People’s Alliance (PA) had come to an agreement only last week on working together to obtain control of local councils where the NPP did not have an outright majority. As part of these efforts, CMC member Riza Zarook was announced as the SJB’s new mayoral candidate with the support of these parties.
There were, however, indications that some were unhappy with Mr. Zarook’s candidacy for mayor. One UNP councillor even wrote to his party’s general secretary opposing the nomination.
No party had the 59 seats needed for an outright majority at the CMC, with the NPP having the most number of seats with 48. Other parties and groups, though, had 69 seats distributed among them. They included SJB (29 seats), UNP (13 seats), SLPP (5 seats), Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) (4 seats) and SB (2 seats). There had been intensive negotiations ever since the results of the elections were announced, with both sides trying to secure the 59 seats needed to proclaim their chosen candidate as mayor.
Row over method used to elect Mayor
When the council convened for its first meeting at 9.30am on Monday presided over by Western Province Local Government Commissioner Sarangika Kalhari Jayasundara, the first order of business was to elect the council’s mayor and deputy mayor. It did not take long for the meeting to spiral into a shouting match, with the NPP asking for a secret ballot to elect the mayor and the combined group of opposition parties led by the SJB demanding an open ballot. The commissioner’s move to hold a secret ballot first to choose the method of voting enraged some in the opposition. The opposition parties also claimed to have a letter signed by 61 members of the council, which would have given them the majority. The commissioner, though, pointed out such a letter is inadmissible since it was not signed by the members before her.

The opposition SJB wins the election for chairperson of the Laggala Pallegama Pradeshiya Sabha
The United Peace Alliance (UPA) is one of the smaller parties in the CMC with two seats. Party General Secretary and CMC councillor Kaleelur Rahman said later that he was one of the signatories to the document submitted by the SJB-led opposition parties calling for an open vote to elect the mayor. “In the end, however, an SJB member rose and said there was no point in further prolonging the matter and that they were agreeable to a secret ballot, which was seconded by an NPP member. So, I don’t see how the SJB can now say a secret ballot was forced on them, especially considering that there were other councils where the opposition walked out in protest over moves to hold a secret ballot, thus forcing those council meetings to be postponed,” Mr. Rahman said.
The NPP’s Vraie Cally Balthazaar was elected as the new mayor of Colombo in the secret ballot that followed. She won over the SJB’s Riza Zarook by 61 votes to 54. The final vote showed that some of those who had signed the opposition’s letter calling for an open vote had voted for the NPP candidate during the secret ballot.
The SJB has accused the NPP of using underhand deals to lure opposition members to support their candidate. “That seven of those who signed the letter calling for an open vote ended up voting for the other candidate the following day should tell you that something happened,” SJB Colombo District Parliamentarian S.M. Marikkar said, adding that he did not know who in the opposition camp had gone back on their word.
The UPA’s Mr. Rahman himself declined to reveal how he had voted in the secret ballot held to elect Colombo’s mayor, claiming it would be “unethical” to publicly disclose how someone voted in a secret ballot. “We don’t intend to sabotage the efforts of the newly elected mayor. We will support any good initiatives she and her administration undertake. This is not unusual for us. We have worked with the previous administration of former Mayor Rosy Senanayake as well.”
The SJB-led opposition, though, was quick to blast the vote and the conduct of the Western Province Local Government Commissioner, whom they have accused of bias. The SJB has said it will take legal action over the matter.
Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday (17), Deputy Minister Sunil Watagala dismissed the opposition’s accusations, pointing out that the secret ballot to elect the CMC mayor was undertaken in the end with the agreement of all parties. “The local government commissioner conducted a real test of their (opposition’s) strength, and they lost. They were okay with this method up until the moment they lost,” he said, adding that the opposition was now attacking the Western Province Local Government Commissioner unfairly over the matter.
In the aftermath of the election, criticism has been levelled against SJB Municipal Councillor Roy Bogahawatta, who was the member from the opposition who rose and said the opposition was agreeable to a secret ballot to elect the mayor. Mr. Bogahawatta, who has been a CMC member since 2002, representing the UNP and then SJB, lamented that some have taken an edited clip lasting 10-15 seconds and pilloried him as a “hero of the NPP” on social media. “It was clear to us from the beginning of the meeting that the local government commissioner was intent on holding a secret ballot. A heated argument went on for almost two hours over which method should be used to elect the mayor. The ministry had issued guidelines to the commissioners on how to act in this situation given the lack of clarity in the law, but she insisted on holding a secret ballot to decide the method whereby we would elect the mayor. It came to a point where she said she had decided to hold a secret ballot to decide on the electoral method. They accordingly brought in the ballot box and were in the process of calling out the first name in the members’ list. That was when I spoke with our senior opposition members in the front row and, with their agreement, rose to say there was no point in wasting further time and that we should hold a secret ballot to elect the mayor,” Mr. Bogahawatta said.
He insisted the decision was not his alone. “I asked for a secret ballot to elect the mayor because it was clear by then that the commissioner had come with the mindset to hold a secret ballot whatever we said, so there was no point in further prolonging the matter by holding another meaningless secret ballot to determine the method. Some media asked us why we stood by and let it happen, but we fought democratically for almost two hours. We didn’t want to create a scene that led to any physical altercation among members.”
While it is the view of the opposition parties that the ballot to elect the mayor of Colombo was conducted in an illegal manner and they intend to take legal action on the matter, Mr. Bogahawatta stressed the opposition will not impede efforts of the new CMC administration and would engage in “constructive criticism” going forward. Whether Mr. Bogahawatta speaks for the SJB or not, the party high command has, not unsurprisingly, kept silent.
Lack of legal clarity when electing
heads of local councils
The main problem that arose during the CMC proceedings, and which would continue to elicit heated debates during meetings on the formation of other councils this week, was the lack of clarity in the law to decide which electoral method should be used to elect the head of a local authority in the event two different methods are proposed. “In the event that two different methods are proposed to elect the head of a local council, the law does not specify which method should be used to decide on the method of the election,” said Manjula Gajanayake, Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Reforms and Electoral Studies (IRES).
Earlier, S. Aloka Bandara, Secretary to the Ministry of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government, had issued a set of guidelines to local government commissioners to follow when electing mayors/chairpersons of local councils where no political party or group had obtained 50 per cent or more of the vote. Section 4.1 in the document specifies that in the event a dispute arises on the method to elect the head of the local council (e.g., if one side asks for an open vote and another a secret ballot), the presiding officer should call on each council member by name and ask for their preferred method and conduct the election according to the wish of the majority of members. The guidelines, however, also do not specify whether the presiding officer should call on the name of each member in an open vote or ask them by name to come and vote in a secret ballot.
Opposition parties have pointed out that local government commissioners in various provinces have used opposing methods to decide on how to elect the head of local authorities. While the Western Province Local Government Commissioner had gone for a secret ballot to obtain the majority opinion, the Central Province Local Government Commissioner had asked members openly which method they preferred to use and acted according to the wishes of the majority. “This country is not a federal state for local government commissioners to be using different methods for the election of local council heads,” said the SJB’s Mr. Marikkar.
The ideal way to clarify the ambiguity would have been to either obtain an interpretation of the law from the Attorney General or the issuance of a formal gazette notification, approved by Parliament, outlining the procedural guidance under delegated legislative powers, said Mr. Gajanayake of IRES. In the absence of either, the local government commissioner, as the presiding officer, should be given some leeway to take a decision, he argued. In this situation, it is natural to see a difference in how local government commissioners in different provinces had acted, he said. “The problem I see in the CMC is that the local government commissioner announced at the outset that she intended to hold a secret vote. My personal view is that the commissioner must first ask the council, which is made up of elected representatives, what they want to do,” he said.
Opposition changes tactics but NPP
wins control of more councils
Opposition parties appeared to have used what happened during the CMC election as a precedent for a different course of strategy. Over the next few days, they walked out in protest during meetings of some local councils when the local government commissioner had decided to hold a secret ballot to decide which method to use to elect the council head. This has led to the meetings of several councils having to be adjourned without electing heads due to the absence of a quorum.
The NPP, though, was able to win control of several local councils this week with the support of members from opposition parties who defied their party instructions during voting. These included the Kolonnawa Urban Council, where an SJB member stayed behind after his opposition colleagues walked out. He voted for the NPP’s candidate for mayor. Sunil Kumara Costa, the SJB candidate who voted for the NPP mayor, had to be escorted out of the UC premises under police guard after the end of the council’s proceedings. The SJB later issued a statement saying Mr. Costa’s party membership had been suspended.
Fractures within the SJB and the wider opposition alliance when choosing heads of local councils also came out in violent fashion at the Kandaketiya Pradeshiya Sabha, where two SJB candidates were nominated for the post of chairperson along with the candidate from the NPP. The secret ballot that followed resulted in the NPP’s Harsha Bandu Ranaweera receiving seven votes, while the SJB’s Priyantha Indrajith and N.M. Wijepala received 3 and 6 votes, respectively. Accordingly, given that no candidate received an outright majority, Mr. Indrajith was eliminated in the first round of voting as the candidate with the fewest votes. The second round saw the NPP candidate prevailing by 9 votes to 7.
There were chaotic scenes outside the council building at the end of the meeting, with the two rival SJB candidates exchanging heated words with each other, which later escalated into the two candidates and several of their supporters coming to blows before police moved in to break up the fight. The SJB later announced that it had suspended the party membership of councillor N.M. Wijepala, as he had gone against the party’s decision during the election of the council chair.
The SJB also suspended the party membership of a member of the Kuliyapitiya Urban Council for going against the party decision when electing the chairperson of the Kuliyapitiya Urban Council. He was not present in the chamber at the time a vote was held to elect the chairperson. The SJB’s candidate was still elected as the chairperson by 9 votes to 6, with the support of members of the UNP, SLPP and PA.
The Sarvajana Balaya also suspended the party membership of a member of the Seruwila Pradeshiya Sabha who voted to elect the NPP candidate as the chairperson of the PS. The SLPP, meanwhile, suspended former Galle Mayor Priyantha Sahabandu, who defied the party to support the NPP’s candidate for Galle Mayor. Mr. Sahabandu was elected as the deputy mayor during Friday’s election. Here was a case of the NPP getting the support of the Rajapaksa party to clinch a municipality.
Israel-Iran conflict
The ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran is being closely watched by the government, with concern given the possible economic and human costs it could mean for the country if the war escalates and spreads to the region.
World oil prices have jumped more than 4 per cent since Israel launched the attack on the Iranian capital, Tehran, on June 13, and any escalation of the war would push oil prices up further, impacting Sri Lanka along with many other nations. With Iran a major buyer of Sri Lanka tea in addition to the lucrative Middle East market, any disruption to tea exports too would be felt badly. Also worrying is the safety of Sri Lankans in the two warring nations, especially around 20,000 Lankans employed in Israel.
The Government has already put out notices for Sri Lankans who wish to leave Iran or require assistance to contact the embassy, while Sri Lanka’s embassy in Tel Aviv has also been updating the Lankans on the developing situation and sent out information on where to seek assistance if they wish to return to Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka has also sought assistance from India to repatriate Sri Lankans in Iran if they wish to return.
Sri Lanka’s Foreign Affairs Ministry reached out to India’s External Affairs Ministry, via the Indian High Commission in Colombo, requesting assistance for the evacuation of Sri Lankan nationals, and India has offered to assist in the process, so far as the Sri Lankan nationals can reach a location from where it is feasible to cross borders. India names the evacuation plan ‘Operation Sindhu’, and now Sri Lanka is part of ‘Operation Sindhu’. The two countries’ resident embassies are in touch regarding the matter.
With Israel’s international airports currently not at an operational level, all job seekers who have been selected for employment opportunities in Israel have been informed that directing Sri Lankans for employment opportunities in Israel has been temporarily suspended due to this situation. This also applies to the Sri Lankans who had been working in Israel and returned to Sri Lanka with the expectation of re-entering Israel for work.
Foreign Minister Vijitah Herath, who is also the minister in charge of foreign employment, told Parliament this week that the situation remains volatile and unpredictable, but the Government is ready to take whatever measures necessary to safeguard Sri Lankans in the two countries as well as face the economic fallout of the conflict. He said the Sri Lankan Embassy staff in Tehran will be shifted to a temporary location, where its services will continue.
Meanwhile, former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was attending the Valdai Discussion Club in St Petersburg, Russia, weighed in on the Israeli-Iranian conflict and criticised the G7 communiqué that defended Israel’s strike on Iran as self-defence, asserting it undermines ongoing US-Iran negotiations and must be rejected.
The Group of Seven Nations (G7), which met in Alberta, Canada, on June 16, in a statement affirmed that Israel has a right to defend itself and reiterated the Group’s support for the security of Israel while calling Iran the principal source of regional instability and terror.
Mr. Wickremesinghe said the global landscape is witnessing the collapse of the old order and the emergence of a multipolar world shaped not just by state powers but by military and non-state actors and institutions like the IMF and argued that the Indo-Pacific concept was manufactured to address the Taiwan issue and dismissed its relevance to the Indian Ocean, which he said accepts Taiwan as part of China.
The Valdai Discussion Club is a Moscow-based think tank and discussion forum, established in 2004 and named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
UN Human Rights High Commissioner
to visit Sri Lanka
The Foreign Affairs Ministry also announced on Friday that the United Nations Human Rights High Commissioner Volker Türk will undertake an official visit to Sri Lanka from June 23 to 26. This marks the first visit by a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to Sri Lanka in nine years. The last visit by a UNHRC chief was in February 2016.
During the visit, Mr. Türk is scheduled to call on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya. He will also hold meetings with Foreign Minister Herath and several other ministers, members of Parliament, senior Government officials, religious leaders, representatives of civil society, members of the diplomatic community, and the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka.
As part of the programme, the High Commissioner will travel to Kandy, where he will pay respects to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and call on the Chief Prelates of the Malwatte and Asgiriya Chapters. He will also travel to Jaffna and Trincomalee, where he will meet with the governors of the Northern and Eastern Provinces.
“Substantive discussions during the visit will focus on further advancing the promotion and protection of human rights and reconciliation, in line with the Government of Sri Lanka’s ongoing constructive engagement with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights,” the MFA said in a statement.
Ranasinghe Premadasa’s life-and-death-defying election campaign to become people’s president in 1988
Sri Lanka’s second executive president, Ranasinghe Premadasa, was born on June 23, 1924, 101 years ago as of this week. His was a long, arduous journey to get to the highest position in the land, only to have it cut short tragically with him falling victim to a suicide bomber just four and a half years into his six-year term in office as president. He is often referred to as a man of the masses or the people’s president, given that R. Premadasa was the first outside the ruling elitist circles to make it to the top job in the land. The 1988 presidential campaign was one of the most difficult and dangerous election campaigns the country has witnessed, but Mr. Premadasa braved many odds, including overcoming efforts to undermine him from those who broke away from his own party (UNP), to win the presidency. His presidential campaign has been widely written about, including in two memoirs on President Premadasa that describe a time when staying alive through an election campaign was a bigger challenge than winning an election. ![]() Sri Lanka’s second executive president, Ranasinghe Premadasa Mr. Premadasa, who was Prime Minister under President J.R. Jayewardene from 1977-1988, was named the United National Party (UNP)’s presidential candidate in October 1988, with the election date set for December 19 that year. Bradman Weerakoon, who worked closely with President Premadasa, in his book, ”Premadasa of Sri Lanka – A Political Biography’, wrote that the campaign for the presidential election of 1988 was unparalleled in Sri Lanka’s history, with security the primary concern. “The JVP in the South and the LTTE in the North were both violently opposed to the holding of elections for different reasons. The voting public, supporters of parties and the polling agents of all three candidates (R. Premadasa (UNP), Sirimavo Bandaranaike-Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Ossie Abeygunasekera-Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya) contesting the election were under threat. The general intimidation affected the environment for the conduct of the elections in several ways. Voters as well as the election staff were under great pressure,” he recalled in the book released in 1992. Evans Gunalal Cooray, the press secretary and close confidant of President Premadasa, in his book titled ’In the Showdown of a People’s President” also recalled the challenges faced by the presidential candidates during the campaign, which included getting their supporters to canvass for them or even put up a poster promoting their candidature. “Electioneering was conducted in a tense atmosphere. The JVP uprising was more daunting than the northern terrorism of the LTTE. The election campaign had to be conducted under extremely tense conditions,” Mr. Cooray wrote. Prior to the announcement of the election as well as during the election campaign, several UNP Members of Parliament, ministers and their kith and kin, and supporters of the three candidates were among those killed by the JVP. During the campaign, organisers of the candidates were frightened to paste posters or organise meetings with bundles of posters stacked in rooms lying undistributed. Despite this, presidential candidate Premadasa adapted his own unique way of reaching out to voters. “Only a handful of people attend the meetings in the South where the JVP atrocities were at their worst. Premadasa, realising people did not come out in the open to listen to him because of the threats, spoke for hours to empty seats using amplifiers, knowing well they were listening from behind closed doors,” Mr. Cooray wrote. Voter participation in the 1988 presidential election was around 55% of the electorate, a record low in the electoral process of the country, where the average turnout at general elections had been as high as 75-80%. However, considering the intimation that prevailed at the time, even this was considered impressive. For Mr. Premadasa, though difficult, the campaign proved to be a success, with him winning the elections with 50.43% of the vote. In these seven presidential elections held since then, the turnouts have never been this low, with an average of over 65% in most of the polls. “The presidential election of December 1988 goes into history books as an election held in a highly volatile situation. It was the darkest era in the recent history of the island,” Mr. Cooray wrote. As President Premadasa said after his victory, “People voted for us with tears and blood.”s and blood”. | |
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Defections dash opposition hopes for council control
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