Sri Lanka: Local elections date announced after massive protests, apex court’s intervention
Story highlights
Sri Lanka elections date: Sri Lanka's top election body announced the schedule for local body polls for 340 councils after intervention by the country’s Supreme Court.
Sri Lanka will conduct the local elections on April 25 instead of the previously scheduled date of March 9, the cash-strapped country's top election body announced. The development came after Sri Lanka's Supreme Court directed the Sri Lankan Election Commission to conduct the elections at the earliest.
Sri Lanka elections: Why date for local body polls was postponed?
The Sri Lankan political parties, other than President Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Party, have pointed out that country's treasury has not released the budgetary allocation for conducting the elections for 340 local councils in the interim budget passed earlier this year.
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Chief opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) party's lawmakers filed a fundamental rights petition in the Supreme Court and called for a writ against state officials who, they alleged, were denying funds necessary to conduct the elections. They claimed that Rs 10 billion was allocated for conducting the local election in the 2023 budget, and demanded it to be released.
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The SJB alleged that President Wickremesinghe was bearing pressure as the minister of finance to block the money required for the poll as Wickremesinghe feared losing the poll.
The election to appoint new administrations to 340 local councils for a four-year term has been postponed since March last year due to the ongoing economic crisis.
The election was the subject of several court cases with parties filing for and against holding it.
Sri Lanka elections: The challenge amid economic crisis
The government had claimed that due to ongoing economic crisis, there were no funds to print the necessary ballot papers. This prompted the main opposition to seek court intervention to prevail upon the government for the release of necessary funds.
Sri Lanka was hit by an unprecedented financial crisis in 2022, the worst since its independence from Britain in 1948, due to a severe paucity of foreign exchange reserves, sparking political turmoil in the country which led to the ouster of the all-powerful Rajapaksa family from power.
(With inputs from agencies)
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