“Look NOT at the FINGER, but at the MOON “
“ A Sovereign voter’s ‘Out-of-the-Box’ package of proposals on ‘Electoral Reforms’ with benefits-2021 – By Bernard Fernando
Main issues to be resolved by the proposals
1) Voters not considering ‘Election Manifesto’ when casting vote.
2) Unusually long Ballot papers confusing voters and increasing rejected votes.
(353 Parties vied at 2020 elections and only 24 Parties got more than 10,000 votes.)
3) Presence of complex Electoral systems beyond voter perception for 73 years, producing
a) Unrefined seat computations and
b) Unsuitable politicians to represent the sovereign voters.
4) Unequal value for votes.
5) Inability of 16.M Voters to have 225 genuine, educated professionals to represent them in Parliament.
6) Unable to meet required % for women in the Parliament.
7) Accommodating FPP and PR proponents through an unscientific, complicated ‘Mixed voting’ system.
8) Campaign financing difficult to monitor.
9) ‘Cross-overs’ arising from ‘Deal politics’ and corruption making a mockery of sovereign voters and the Parliament.
10) ‘Sri Lankan-ness’ not reflected at Cabinet level.
11) Executive President nominated by political Parties leading to imbalance in ‘3-Pillars’.
12) Presence of an ineffective ‘Decentralized Political Admin. System’.
13) Prohibitive financial & other resource costs involved in conducting Presidential and Parliamentary Elections.
14) High resource cost/abuse and political interference involved in staggered PC Elections.
15) Rampant political bias, bribery & Corruption due to politicization of Local Councils.