Amid a major controversy and protest over the delay in local council elections, the mandate of the committee dealing with demarcation of boundaries of local council wards has been extended till August 31, committee sources said.
Local Government Minister Faiszer Musthapha this week signed the extension letter as the committee’s previous mandate expired on March 31. He said this was done in view of the piles of complaints regarding the demarcation of wards of local councils throughout the country.
At least 5,000 complaints had been lodged by political parties and the general public.The extension letter noted that due to the workload and the complex nature of the complaints, the mandate of the committee had been extended with immediate effect.
A committee member told the Sunday Times that the earlier delimitation commission had used a caste basis to carve out some of the wards.
He said committee members were visiting every district to finalise wards in consultation with the people and political parties.An independent election watch dog alleged that the government was deliberately delaying the local council elections and using the delimitation issue as a cover for its own political agenda.
People’s Action for Free and Fair Elections (PAFFREL) Executive Director Rohana Hettiarachchi proposed that the Government should hold elections to local councils where delimitation issues had been sorted out.
He said that of 336 local councils, some 200 had no issues about delimitation. “The Government, if it is genuine about its good governance concept, it should conduct polls to these councils immediately,” he said. He said some of the northern councils had been defunct for more than two years and the Government should be serious about the democracy it professed to practice.
Election monitoring bodies and watchdogs are expected to meet the Elections Commissioner next week to urge him to take an initiative to conduct polls to councils where there were no demarcation issues.