All set for General Election

Lakshmi de Silva

Tomorrow’s General Election is being held to elect the 196 members for the 14th Parliament. With the national list members the House would have 225 members under the Proportional Representation system. All election campaign meetings and propaganda came to stop from midnight Monday.

Most election monitoring bodies had reported certain violations of election laws but the incidents of violence were less compared with earlier Elections.

A total of 7,620 candidates from 36 political parties and 301 independent groups are in the fray in the 22 electoral districts. This General Election is the first one being held without terrorism in the country after more than two decades.

The main political parties that contested the April 2, 2004 General Election United Peoples Freedom Alliance polled 4,223,970 votes and secured 105 seats. The United National Party received 3,504,200 votes and secured 82 seats in Parliament. Tamil National Alliance secured 22 seats polling 633,786 votes, but Jatika Hela Urumaya that polled 552,724 votes secured only 9 seats demonstrating the flaw in the PR system.

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress polled 186,880 votes and secured five seats. The Upcountry People’s Front polled 49,728 votes had one seat while Eelam People’s Democratic Party polled 24,955 and secured one seat. The JVP, MEP, CP, LSSP contested the 2004 April election under the UPFA.

The first General Election was held in 1947 and the UNP was formed after that election by merging the National Congress led by the former leader D.S. Senanayake and the Sinhala Maha Sabha led by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. After independence the first UNP Government was led by Premier D.S. Senanayake and S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike was the Leader of the House and Minister of Health and Local Government. The Cabinet had only 14 members.