Monday, January 9, 2012

Sri Lanka Marxist party criticizes proposed electoral reforms

Jan 08, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) today criticized the proposed electoral reforms saying that the reforms would not address the issues faced by the country's existing electoral system.

JVP parliamentary group leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka told a press conference today that the proposed legislation to amend the current electoral system for the local government bodies would only aggravate the situation.

According to the legislator, the democratic verdict of people was not properly reflected through the present electoral system. The proposed Local Authorities Elections (Amendment) Bill would not be a solution to the prevailing crisis, the legislator observed.

He explained that the government instead of addressing the real cause of the problem was trying to enact a new bill in the House on January 17.

"This would only aggravate the situation," he said.

The proposed amendments to the local government electoral system are to end the current preferential voting system to elect members to local government bodies.

The new system being proposed is to be a mixture of the proportional representation system and first past the post system.Colombo Page