Assalamu Alaikum Ya Nesan!

Local government elections for 2018 will be held on 10th February, tomorrow. It will be the first election held under the Mixed Proportional voting system, where 60 percent of the seats will be allocated according to according to a First Past the Post voting to the simple majority winner, and the remaining seats will be allocated according to the Proportional Representation system, among those that didn’t win.

This local government election is the first time since 1978 a Mixed Proportional voting system will be used. Futures elections will move to the Mixed Proportional voting system as well. This is also the first time that nearly all local government elections will be held on the same day.

This mixed system of First Past the Post and Proportional Representation voting systems is what is referred to as the Mixed Proportional voting system.

First Past the Post voting system simply means that the highest vote taker will win 60 percent of the seats in local government. For example if Party A gets 39 percent of the vote, Party B gets 31 percent of the vote, and party C and D get 20 and 10 percent respectively, Party A wins the vote, and gets 60 percent of the seats, although only 39 percent of the people voted for them.

First Past the Post voting system simply means that the highest vote taker will win 60 percent of the seats in local government.

Under the previous Proportional Representation voting system, Party A will get only 39 percent of the seats because they got 39 percent of the vote, and the rest of the seats will be allocated to the other parties according to their percentages of votes. This system is deliberately designed to give the winner a majority, to spare them having to negotiate with other parties in order to conduct duties.

This system is good mainly because it prevents coalition politics and the winner can do whatever they want without having to negotiate with other parties. This system is bad, because of the same thing, since there is no need for a coalition, the winning party can ignore other parties. This will marginalize the needs of people who voted for other parties, even though together they outnumber the people that voted for the winning party. In the example above 39 percent voted for Party A, but a majority of 61 percent actually didn’t vote for them, they voted for others, but now have no say.

To mitigate the unfair representation in First Past the Post to some extent, the election provides 40 percent of the seats according to the Proportional Representation system, among those that didn’t win. This is there to give the loosing parties some representation. This mixed system of First Past the Post and Proportional Representation voting systems is what is referred to as the Mixed Proportional voting system.

The government decided to adopt this system because they claim it’s simpler and easier for voters, who only need to cast a single vote, as opposed to 3 votes in the previous system. The votes become easier to count as well, because you do not have to tally up 2nd and 3rd choices. However the imbalance in representation, where a party that does not have the population majority can have a majority in government serves to deny the voter fair representation and therefore is seen as not very Democratic.

Will this new system actually improve the governments efficiency by giving the winner an artificial majority, or will it serve to marginalize people, and cause problems? We do not know yet, but there are people who support both arguments.

In a communal political theater like Sri Lanka, this system is a double edged sword for minority parties. Theoretically they have a chance of dominating government, but practically they may end up never gaining any representation in local government ever again, as winning the elections will always favor one of two main parties, like the Republicans and Democrats in America, or Labour and Conservatives in Great Britain. In Sri Lanka it will always be either the UNP or the SLFP, who will rule without having to bargain with the JVP, SLMC, TNA, or even the JHU like they used to. The two main parties have always dominated elections. This is nothing new. However they will be less swayed by these other parties, and how the big parties perform without having to bargain with these small parties, and its effect on minorities is yet to be seen.

May our peace reign and country prosper!