Holding on to the 'clean candidates' promise

by Manjula Fernando
 

Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe	Akila Viraj Kariyawasam

A vibrant street campaign led by polls monitor PAFFREL is currently under way to compel political parties to select 'clean candidates' for the August 17 Parliamentary polls. The organisers took to the streets a few days ago, to seek people's support for the March 12 Declaration, a set of criteria for a new political culture drafted by PAFFREL and a collective of civil society organisations.

The party leaders counter signed the declaration showing their commitment to back the guidelines, which will shun drug dealers, liquor traders, those holding criminal records or bribery and corruption charges, or engage in trades that contribute to environment degradation from entering the highest public office in the country.

The island wide campaign seeking one million signatures for the March 12 declaration is now in full swing. Officially launched on June 25 the campaign will continue to July 6 and has been successful in collecting around 400,000 signatures so far.

Happy with the popular response to the campaign and the growing support by political parties, PAFFREL Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi told the Sunday Observer, "The declaration itself and getting all main political parties on board was a major achievement for the people of the country. The signatures of the party leaders are a symbol that they must honour what's in the declaration." According to PAFFREL the document will serve as a basic guideline for selecting candidates and the criteria is not expected to be followed in verbatim.

Outlining the objectives of the initiative he said," This is not the sole work of the PAFFREL, we initiated the process but there are many stake holders behind us in pushing this through."

Hettiarachchi said the entire political culture must be changed where the educated and refined as well as more females can enter the fray without feeling intimidated and be elected to Parliament through a moral electoral process.

He said their next step is to hand the public a 'score card' to make a self assessment as to the suitability of the candidates that they likely to elect - to consider if he has a past criminal record/corruption charges, degree of his political maturity, the will to serve the people, has he abused political office previously, etc.

Asked as to what the female representation should consist, he said there should at least be 30% female representation in Parliament to be fair to the 52 percent female population in the country.

The last Parliament had only six percent, a clear reflection of the existing violent political culture that is keeping away the educated, the cultured and the mild mannered.

The following political parties have signed in support: UNP, SLFP, UPFA, JVP, JHU, TNA, EPDP, SLMC, United Socialist Party, NSSP, SCP.

Party stance

The Sunday Observer spoke to a number of political parties last week to find out how far the proposed guidelines will be taken on board during the nomination process.

UNP media spokesman Akila Viraj Kariyawasam said the UNP will certainly adhere to the guidelines in the Declaration and ensure anti social elements will not be given a free ticket to the August 17 poll.

“But the minimum educational qualification criteria is something that needs to be reviewed, I feel the people’s choice is more important than higher educational qualifications.”

Hasan Ali	S.B.Dissanayake	Vijitha Herath

SLMC General Secretary Hasan Ali said they were party to the March 12 Declaration, making it mandatory for them to look into those guidelines when selecting candidates for the August 17 General Election. He assured that those who have a tainted record will not find their way to Parliament on his party’s ticket.

Minister of Rural Economic Affairs and SLFP stalwart S.B.Dissanayake also assuring his party’s commitment to adhere to the fundamental criteria, said the SLFP may decide to drop certain past members with tainted records.

JHU National Organiser Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe said his party was a strong champion of the eight criteria proposed by the civil society groups and the PAFFREL.

The JHU National Organiser said, “We have never and will never give nomination to anti social elements - the corrupt and the criminals. It is mandatory for our candidates to declare assets and be teetotalers.“

With regard to the female representation Warnasinghe said, there have not been a good response from female candidates to contest the forthcoming election, therefore, this criteria cannot be fulfilled by the JHU in the up coming election.

JVP Propaganda Secretary Vijitha Herath said all the candidates contesting from the JVP will fulfil the criteria in the March 12 declaration since his party was one of the key signatories to the Declaration.