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Sri Lanka Electoral System
In the late 1980s, popular elections were held, in principle
at regular intervals, for the office of president, members of
Parliament, and positions on local government bodies such as
municipal and urban councils, district development councils, and
the mandalaya. The Constitution grants the right to vote
to all citizens aged eighteen years and over who are of sound
mind and have not been convicted of major crimes. All qualified
voters have the right to run for Parliament unless they are
members of the armed forces, police, or certain branches of the
civil service, hold other positions that might result in a
conflict of interest, or have been convicted of bribery while
serving in a previous term in Parliament within the past seven
years. The qualifications for running for president are similar,
though there is a minimum age requirement of thirty.
The president is chosen by a simple majority vote. In the
election of October 20, 1982, the country was divided into
twenty-two election districts (the Constitution provides for a
maximum of twenty-four electoral districts). Citizens could mark
their ballots for a maximum of three presidential candidates in
order of preference. Under this "single transferable vote
system," if no candidate received more than half the votes, all
but the two candidates with the largest percentages of the total
votes cast would be eliminated. Persons who voted their top
preference for a candidate who had been eliminated would have
their second or third preferences counted if they had chosen one
of the top two vote-getters. In the 1982 balloting, six
candidates contested the presidency but it was reported that only
a small number of voters indicated a second or third preference
on their ballots.
The 1946 and 1972 constitutions provided for the election of
members of Parliament (or, between 1972 and 1978, the National
State Assembly) from single-member constituencies similar to
those found in Britain. Consequently, relatively small changes in
the percentage of voters supporting a given party caused large
variations in the number of seats that party won in Parliament,
and majority parties were over-represented in terms of their
percentage of the popular vote. For example, in the 1965 general
election, the UNP won 39.3 percent of the vote and secured 66 out
of 151 seats in Parliament; its share of the vote in the 1970
election dropped 1.4 percent to 37.9 percent, but it won only 17
seats. The 1978 Constitution replaced the single-member
constituencies with a system of proportional representation in
which the number of candidates returned from a single electoral
district is determined on the basis of population. Although this
system creates a closer correspondence between vote percentages
and parliamentary representation, the equitable nature of
proportional representation is diluted by a constitutional
provision that grants the party with the largest percentage of
votes in each district a "bonus" seat in addition to those gained
through proportional representation.
The Constitution stated that by-elections to fill vacancies
in Parliament before a general election were not necessary
because the political parties themselves could appoint
successors. On February 20, 1983, however, Parliament passed a
constitutional amendment, the fifth, which provides for byelections if the incumbent party fails to nominate a successor
within thirty days of the seat becoming vacant. On May 18, 1983,
by-elections for eighteen seats were held.
Data as of October 1988
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