- Given the opportunity to allocate money from the National Budget to sectors of their choice, people would choose Education, Health and Agriculture.
- Around 82% of Sri Lankans say that the general security situation in the country has changed for the better over the last two years, with 42.8% stating that it has got a lot better.
- Only 32.3% of Sri Lankans have heard of the LLRC.
- 70% say that Sinhala is the only official language of Sri Lanka.
- 40.3% of Sri Lankans stated that they have a great deal of trust in the Army while 46.1% said that they have some trust.
- 42.5% believe that the media in Sri Lanka is completely free to criticise the Government while 25% disagree.
- 96.3% of Sri Lankans believe that they are free to practice their religion in their community.
SURVEY ON DEMOCRACY IN POST-WAR SRI LANKA/ Summary
November 2013/ Social Indicator - Centre for Policy Alternatives
ECONOMY AND DEVELOPMENT
• 36.4% of Sri Lankans believe that the current economic situation is somewhat good while 30.6% believes it is somewhat bad.
• From amongst those who believe the current economic situation is somewhat bad or very bad, majority (70.5%) state that the Government is to blame for it.
• 37.6% believe that the general economic situation in the country has got a little better in the last two years, with mainly those in the Sinhalese and Tamil communities holding this view.
• 26.8% remain fairly optimistic that the general economic situation in the country will get better while 26.3% say that they don’t know how the situation will change over the next two years.
• The Up Country Tamil and Muslim communities are not optimistic about any positive change in the economic situation with 41.1% of Up Country Tamil and 33.7% of Muslim respondents stating that they believe the economic situation will get a lot worse
• For more than 50% of Sri Lankans, the financial situation in their household has worsened in the last two years, with 31.8% stating that it has got a little worse while 20.9% state that it has got a lot worse.
• Given the opportunity to allocate money from the National Budget to sectors of their choice, people would choose Education, Health and Agriculture.
• Majority of respondents believe that the three areas the Government should pay urgent attention to are cost of living, reducing poverty and education.
• The three main results people would like to see from the current development process arereduction in cost of living, creation of more jobs and better education facilities
• 61.1% believe that the Government should give priority to allocating resources to rebuilding the conflict affected areas, even if it means that less money is spent in the rest of the country.
POST WAR SRI LANKA
• Around 82% of Sri Lankans say that the general security situation in the country has changed for the better over the last two years, with 42.8% stating that it has got a lot better.
• 60% are hopeful that the general security situation will get better in the next two years, with the Up Country Tamil community being the most optimistic with 51% stating that it will get a lot better.
• 24.6% believe that Sri Lanka is much more democratic since the end of war while 32% say it is somewhat more democratic.
• Only 32.3% of Sri Lankans have heard of the LLRC.
• 70% say that Sinhala is the only official language of Sri Lanka.
• 33.4% believe that in the last two years the Government has done a little but not enough to address the root causes of the conflict while 27.9% believe the Government has done a lot.
• Around 52% approve of the role of the forces expanding to include civilian tasks with 17.2% stating that they strongly approve. 52.2% of Sinhala, 55.1% of Tamil, 50% of Up Country Tamil and 44% of Muslim respondents stated approval with 40.6% of Up Country Tamil respondents saying that they strongly approve.
• 35.4% believe that they are completely free to express their feelings about politics, irrespective of where they are and who they are with while 75% say that they are completely free to choose who to vote for without feeling pressured.
• 63% believe that their vote has an impact on the outcome of election.
• If an unjust law was passed in Sri Lanka, 30% of Sri Lankans think that there is nothing they can do about it while another 30% disagree with that.
• Positive changes since the end of war include being able to travel within the country without fear (43.4%), roads, highways and bridges being developed (20.1%) and the development of the country (17.4%). When it comes to negative changes, 52.8% of the respondents chose not to answer the question. 10.6% said increase in crime (murder, robbery etc), 9.7% said increase in the cost of goods and 8.8% said increase in corruption.
THE GOVERNMENT
• 40.3% of Sri Lankans stated that they have a great deal of trust in the Army while 46.1% said that they have some trust.
• People trust political parties the least with 40.5% stating that they have no trust and only 4.9% said that they have a great deal of trust.
• 20% also have no trust in the Police and the Parliament.
• 45.3% of Sri Lankans strongly approve the idea of allocating a fixed quota for women candidates for each district at the elections while 33.3% said that they somewhat approve of this idea.
• 40% think that the number of terms a President can serve should be restricted to two while 36.8% say that there should be no limit.
• Among Members of Parliament, elected Local Government officials, Government officials, Police and NGOs, Sri Lankans believe that the most amount of corruption is prevalent among the Police and Members of Parliament.
• 57% believe that China has Sri Lanka’s best interest at heart while around 20% do not think that India and USA have Sri Lanka’s best interest at heart.
• 61.8% of Sri Lankans say that they do not know whether the process of impeachment of Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was fair or not while 12% said that they were not aware of the impeachment. Almost 20% believe that the process of impeachment was not fair.
MEDIA
• Sri Lankans trust news and information from privately owned television channels the most with 28% stating that they they trust them to a great extent and 55.6% to some extent.
• 42.5% believe that the media in Sri Lanka is completely free to criticise the Government while 25% disagree.
• 40% think that the state media in Sri Lanka does not give fair coverage to the views of opposition political parties. Almost 50% believe that the private media does give fair coverage to the views of opposition political parties.
• 41.4% state that the media should have a right to publish without Government control while 33.7% state that the Government has a right to control media content.
• When asked if the news media should constantly investigate and report on corruption and the mistakes made by the Government, 73% of Sri Lankans said yes.
• Most Sri Lankans get the political news and information from television and less so from newspaper and radio.
TOLERANCE
• 96.3% of Sri Lankans believe that they are free to practice their religion in their community.
• 91.4% say that their religion can be practiced without any restrictions, however the Muslim
community expresses the most amount of lack of freedom with 21% stating that they can practice but with some restriction and almost 10% stating that there is no freedom.
• Compared to the 2011 data, there is a decline in the assessment of freedom from the Muslim community.
• Sri Lankans are mostly agreeable to multi ethnic schools (59.5%) and least agreeable to a close family member marrying someone from a different ethnic group (40.8% stated that they did not agree to this).
• Almost 40% of Sri Lankans are not agreeable to living in a neighbourhood where more than half their neighbours were from a different ethnic group.
• The Muslim community is very much against the idea of a close family member marrying someone from a different ethnicity with 78% of respondents stating that they are not agreeable.
• The Up Country Tamil community appears to be the most tolerant with regard to other ethnic groups when comparing the four communities.