By Shaahidah Riza

Separating the communities strictly along caste, race and religious lines, as was done in the previous delimitation process, will only ensure that the entire country is divided, Chairman of the Delimitation Committee Dr. K. Thavalingam said. In an interview with Ceylon Today he explained that the recently enacted Provincial Councils Elections (Amendment) Act, No. 17 of 2017 indicates that race and religion must be considered. He added that the Committee was experiencing problems in reconciling the practical issues of demarcation and the issues that each community face, and that sometimes there were no seats to be given to the minorities. However, the Delimitation Committee is committed to address the concerns by the communities when conducting delimitation within the limited time allocated to them.

Following are excerpts:

What was the task entrusted to you?

A. We have to get public views and go with the census, and divide each and every district into seats, as reflected in the Provincial Councils Elections (Amendment) Act, No. 17 of 2017. We advertised in the papers calling for submissions. We received about 250 written submissions from the public prior to the 2 November deadline. Then we visited the districts, they also submitted written submissions as well as oral submissions. We have to get public views and prepare the demarcation according to the 2012 census, and divide each and every district into seats. When you take Colombo, for an example, there will be 14 members in total under the Provincial Councils Act. The number is given by the Election Commission. Their duty is to divide these members into four districts. In 1987 the Provincial Councils were established. The Act indicates that there should be a member for every 40,000 persons. Similarly every 1000km2 there should be a member. In the Western Province, there are 99 members based on population and three members based on the area. That would amount to 102 members. There is a number that the Election Commission gives us. Based on that Colombo will have 40 members, out of those 40 members 20 will be from electorates and 20 will be elected according to proportional representation.

When you look at the northern areas, there are 16 members for Jaffna; eight will be from the electorate and eight from PR. We don’t worry about the proportionate members. We are only concerned about the electorates. We have to divide, for example, the Colombo District into 20 electorates. In order to do this, we have to demarcate areas. Our basic demarcation is based on Grama Niladhari divisions. We will not divide the GN divisions anywhere. If you look at other local authorities, one GN division is divided into two or three. We will not do that. We will try our best to keep the divisional secretariats intact. Our mandate as indicated in the Act is how we should do the demarcation. S3 of the Provincial Councils Elections (Amendment) Act, No. 17 of 2017 is completely dedicated to the Delimitation Committee. We have to maintain each and every electorate with an equal number of members. If the average is 100,000 and if there are 90,000 in the electorate we will accept it. We have a tolerance of 10 per cent to accommodate race, religion and ethnicity of the communities. We look into human activities, race and even development when demarcating electorates. Demarcation should be done according to the 2012 population census; at times there are no seats to allocate to minorities. There are two paragraphs in the Provincial Councils Elections (Amendment) Act, No. 17 of 2017 which indicates that race, and religion must be considered.

In what capacity will this affect the minor parties?

A. It is difficult for me to talk about the minor parties. The deciding factor is the public, not the demarcation of electorates. For example, in Colombo there should be two members each from the Muslim and the Tamil community. But, only Mano Ganesan represents the Tamils. Earlier they had a bargain style, where the minor parties demand seats. Here it is less. Even though we have a 50 per cent for both systems, it is more or less similar to the proportionate system. It is shown in how the votes are calculated. First the valid votes are counted. Then the percentage received by all parties will be looked at, based on that the seat will be allocated. They will consider those who won the electorate. For an example, based on this ratio 10 seats should be given to Party A. But if they win only 5 seats in the electoral basis, they will still be given the 10 seats. Then the party will not be affected.

Based on the valid votes, if the parties get only two seats but they won three seats, then that three will be given. The problem with the minor parties is that whether they contest individually or separately based on the ratio they will get seats. If they affiliate with the major parties, and the major parties don’t accommodate them, then they will lose.

How far have you moved from the old delimitation?

A. Those days they had delimitation only for parliamentary elections. After that the local authorities were introduced. Under the PR system, every district was considered as one electoral division. There was no delimitation because the administrative districts were known. Then they introduced the mixed system for the local authorities in 2012. That is a new method of doing the demarcation. The district is divided into Pradeshiya Sabhas. These are divided into number of votes. When the provincial councils were established in 1987 there was no delimitation within the district. Now they want to introduce the electoral system as well as the PR system. The future delimitation will be done where the districts are divided into a number of electorates.

There have been a number of petitions against delimitation?

A. Those petitions are with regard to local authorities. The first delimitation for the local authorities was done in 2012. The Gazette was published in 2015. Everything is done by gerrymandering. The earlier opposition party opposed. So a delimitation review committee was appointed for the local authorities. They have been working on this. In 2017 they published a Gazette for the changes in the earlier gazette. The main concern expressed by the petition was the delay. After the second gazette they had many issues. This was about delimitation and votes. There were many mistakes identified by the Election Commissioner. Normally Sri Lanka has names for Grama Niladhari divisions. The spellings of certain names are different when it is spelt in Tamil, English or Sinhala. There were a lot of issues pertaining to transliteration. There was an issue about the GN numbers being wrong as well.

The elections department prepared the voters register as a new system so that the voting area should be easily identified. If the GN number is wrong the election department will have some other number. The voter will be disenfranchised. That should be corrected; hence the third gazette was published. Now everything is clear.

When you do the delimitation, how do you factor in the IDPs and the resettlement aspect?

A. When you take Mannar and Puttalam, there are a lot of IDP Muslims in Puttalam. Sometimes they may have registered in Puttalam. Then they can vote there.

What is the issue pertaining to Ambagamuwa?

A. Ambagamuwa Pradeshiya Sabha was a large area. After gazetting, Ambagamuwa was divided into three pradeshiya sabhas.

While doing that, without affecting Gazette one and Gazette two – as the power of the first gazette was given to the President and the second to the Minister – without impacting the number of votes they delimited by grouping the votes, without dividing it. While doing that some issues cropped up pertaining to Sri Pada. I don’t know the case in detail. It earlier came under Ambagamuwa Pradeshiya Sabha, but now it doesn’t. There are people who are against this as the key population in the new area are Tamils. The controversy is that Sri Pada is a shrine and it has been delimited to a Tamil area. I don’t know the exact story behind this. As far as I know, it is not the Sri Pada itself, but it is a path leading to Sri Pada.

Sometimes you have to do the delimitation disregarding controversy for practical purposes. How do you deal with these issues?

A. We try our best to explain to them. If the average is 80,000 people per electorate, they will ask for their own electorate. We will show to them that it is not possible. By randomly giving an electorate to them, we cannot be unfair to another set of people.

We explain this to them, but also try our best to make them a deciding factor. Most of the people understand.

In the past delimitation was principally done according to caste and religious communities. Will this be considered when doing the delimitation?

A. By separating communities completely, we are going to keep the whole country divided. We have to live together. So if you separate Muslims, Tamils and Buddhists the divisions will go on and on. If you consider Ampara district, there are about 302,000 Muslims. There are about 267,000 Sinhalese and Tamils a number less than these. So the Muslims should get three seats Sinhalese should get two seats and Tamil will get one seat. That one seat will be a problem. If there were 700,000 votes, assigning the third seat will be a problem. But when you see this mathematically, the largest remainder is for Sinhalese. If you look at Batticaloa, there are six seats. Out of that four should go for Tamils and two for Muslims. We will try our best to give two seats to the Muslims. Even in Beruwala it is possible. But in Colombo it is a bit difficult as the minorities are scattered.

In such a case we cannot do that, so we will make them a deciding factor. If they give one name to the list, they will get the adequate support. Everywhere the communities think of their interests. In Weli oya Sinhalese strongly demand a seat. If you go to a Tamil area in Nuwara Eliya the Tamils will say that they want a seat as well. But it is difficult. Even though it’s PR system, Muslims and Tamils couldn’t get a seat in Kegalle. When take an area like Harispaththuwa, even if the Sinhalese vote, every time a Muslim is elected. That is because of the understanding between the communities. When the first delimitation took place in 1940s they allocated three members for Colombo Central. One was Tamil, another was Muslim, and the other Sinhalese. A Tamil was never elected because they supported Pieter Keuneman. Like that there are cases, where the electorate change depends on the candidate. But this is not our issue. We focus only on the delimitation.

Hill country has a plethora of communities. Both the Tamils and the Sinhalese are divided among themselves according to caste as well. How did you mange delimitation in such situations?

A. We experienced issues when we visited Nuwara Eliya. Our committee is well balanced. There is someone who represents Indian Tamil, Professor Hasbulla is a Muslim, and Dr. Anila Dias Bandaranayake is a Sinhalese Christian, Mr. P.M. Sriwardena is a Sinhalese and Mr. Sangaran Vijayasanthiran is an Up Country Tamil. We are well balanced. As a committee we have a lot of discussions, but due to the fact that it is well represented we understand the problems of each community. Long time ago, there was an electorate called Mathurata, which is no more. Now it is called Hanguranketha. They complained that there is no one to look after them. We will consider how to accommodate them.

You have been involved in the delimitation process for the last two months. What is the major challenge you faced?

A. We have a major issue with the time factor because we have to finish everything within four months. We are moving a little fast. Every day we visited two districts. But the main issue is that the public response is very low. Because of that we cannot identify the challenges. Our prime challenge is finishing all of this work. Our committee is a little different from the previous committee. Out of these five members three are from the National Delimitation Commission.

The commission was established under the 19A. Our committee was established under the recent Provincial Councils Act. Our commission is only for parliamentary elections. Therefore, three members were absorbed into the committee. We have administrative issues. We have a small staff; however they are very efficient and even work on weekends. Also we cannot randomly hire staff; we need people who are well versed in surveying and delimitation. We work as an independent entity appointed by the President. We are not influenced by anyone. We make our own decisions.

Courtesy:Ceylon Today