The Hon. Dayasiri Jayasekara, Attorney-at-Law

¶ 01 Hon. Deputy Chairperson, I wish to raise several points. The Government repeatedly claims we seek to postpone this election; even the Election Commission’s Director General has said so. I do not understand why he said that. We have no desire to postpone. We fought in court and in this House to hold the already-announced poll. The real proof of who is postponing lies in Clause 3 of your own Local Authorities Elections (Special Provisions) Bill, which reads that the notice calling nominations shall be published on a date fixed by the Election Commission, but “such date shall not be a date later than three months from the date on which this Act comes into operation.”

¶ 02 So your own Bill allows up to three months. On scheduling, Hon. Bimal Rathnayake earlier suggested the nomination windows and timelines, but the Bill was not then before us; only after the Speaker’s ruling yesterday was this Bill brought for debate.

¶ 03 Our proposal is this: since your Bill itself allows up to three months, first consider the following. The Budget Debate ends on 21 March. The Opposition comprises MPs from 12 parties — some parties have only one MP, yet that MP must travel the entire country to campaign while also moving Cuts, maintaining Quorum, and speaking in the Debate. Allow us to participate meaningfully. We met the Election Commission Chairman and will meet again tomorrow morning — they have called a special sitting at 10 a.m.; I do not know from where the pressure came. We have no issue with them fixing dates, but we raised several matters.

¶ 04 First, please refund the deposits we made. Some parties have deposited Rs. 150 million. Many cannot afford to deposit that again. Refund deposits made by independents as well. We were told discussions are ongoing with the Treasury; we asked for a clear timeline. Please convey this; it will ease the burden on parties that do not receive funds from any headquarters office.