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| Sunday, 21 December 2003 |
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Snap polls will cost Rs.650 million by Deepal Warnakulasuriya Commissioner General of Elections Dayananda Dissanayake said that his Department was ready to hold a General election at any moment, but warned that it would cost the country Rs. 650 million. He also asked for more powers to conduct a free and fair election as the Independent Election Commission proposed under the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was not in place yet. Dissanayake speaking to the 'Sunday Observer' suggested that an election Commission on the line of the Indian Election Commission comprising three commissioners be set up; to ensure free and fair elections. Urging for more powers, he said that all election petitions which followed an election were mainly due to weaknesses in the electoral system. The Commissioner General who was also critical of the annual revision of electoral registers said that new technology should be utilised to computerise the whole system for the conduct of a speedy and flawless election. He emphasized the authorities to consider an electoral system similar to those prevalent in Australia and Canada with the electoral registers revised once in every five or six years. He explained that under the present system, anyone who has registered on June 2 would have to wait one full year for the eligibility to cast his/her vote. He said that only the Colombo district and a part of Gampaha district electoral registers had been computerised as a pioneer project. "If anyone changes his/her residence, his/her name should be incorporated in the relevant electoral list the next day. In a computerised system, the whole procedure would facilitate such changes for easy access," Dissanayake added. Refereeing to a 'continuous' base document (database) which would be prepared after a single day enumeration throughout the country, he said it would enable to just update the system. He also advocated the introduction of the National Identity Card number as a "must" with the name of the respective voter. Dissanayake said that the Department of Elections had spent approximately Rs.5.00 per voter in revising applications last year. He said that typing and retyping the same name and address every year manually of an applicant for voter revision was not only expensive but also an extensive task. "If the Department has the necessary facilities, it would entail only 20 per cent of additional work with 10 % for deletions and 10 % for new additions. He said that police assurance should be obtained for the conduct of elections in the North-East, by making arrangements for voters to cast their votes. However, he pointed out that displaced persons were given an opportunity to cast their votes at all elections. Dissanayake also urged the general secretaries of political parties to consider having all provincial council elections on a single day. He said that it would be "manageable" and would also save financial and other resources. At present there are 12.6 million registered voters in the country and 51 political parties have registered with the Department of Elections. However, only 11 parties are engaged in active politics. |
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