Galle gearing for MC election

Mahinda P Liyanage (Galle Daily News Corr)

At the forthcoming Local Government elections for the Galle Municipal Council to be held on October 8 under the third phase of the 2011 Local Government Elections, 64,720 citizens are eligible to exercise their franchise to elect 19 council members including the 20th mayor of Galle.

Galle Municipal Council with an extent of only 6.5 Sq. miles is the local body with the smallest land area in the district.

This time 350 candidates from eight registered political parties and six independent groups are in the fray for the 19 slots in the Council. It is significant that at this election two former mayors and one ex-deputy mayor cum acting mayor from the UPFA list and another ex-mayor from the UNP list are also contesting.

At the 2006 G.M.C. election, the UPFA secured the control of the council obtaining 11 seats gaining a total of 18,873 (51.33 percent of the total valid votes) while the UNP which polled 14,524 (39.50 percent of the total valid votes) won 07 seats. The JVP got one seat receiving 2416 votes (6.57 percent of the total votes polled).

G.M.C, one of the oldest Municipal Councils of Sri Lanka was initially established in 1867 on a special decree made by the then British Governor Sir Henry George Robert Robinson published in the government gazette No. 1747 of November 24, 1866.

According to historical records an Englishman, J.W.W. Berch was the first chairman of the council. But with the abolition of the chairmanship and introduction of mayorship in 1939, veteran politician, former Prime Minister and ex-minister late Dr. Wijayananda Dahanayake created history by becoming the first mayor of Galle.

Since them 19 mayors representing different political parties have controlled and administered the G.M.C except for the periods 1963 to 1965 and 1975 to 1979 which were under the administration of special commissioners.