Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

09 June  2020

Elections Commission Lacking in Gender Diversity

As per my discovery, we make decisions at various levels – summarised as follows:

(1)  Based on what happened

(2)  Based on calculations as per common measures, theories and laws.

(3)  As per our intuition.

The energy from the  first does not go past our immediate physical circle. The second spreads to wider circles to connect us mentally to others using those measures. The third is universal and spreads beyond time. The third is exponential in value due to being independent of time and place limitations.

Examples of the above are Politics, Administration and Governance respectively.

Article 43B(3) of the Sri Lankan Constitution states:

[ It shall be the duty of the Council to recommend to the President fit and proper persons for appointment as Chairmen or members of the Commissions specified in the Schedule to this Article, whenever the occasion for such appointments arises, and such recommendations shall endeavour to ensure that such recommendations reflect the pluralistic character of Sri Lankan society, including gender. In the case of the Chairmen of such Commissions, the Council shall recommend three persons for appointment, and the President shall appoint one of the persons recommended as Chairman. ]

The three members of the Election Commission are Mr  Mahinda Deshapriya (Chairman), Mr Nalin Abeysekera, PC and Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole. All are males.

Sri Lanka’s pluralism is largely from (1) Gender; (2) Religion and (3) Language.

There are no females, Hindus or Muslims heading the Election Commission; Only the last of the above 3 seems to have been satisfied. The recommendations are required to reflect the pluralistic character of Sri Lanka. Since the recommendations are available to me, I conclude that the Constitutional Council  did not recommend to satisfy this criterion. The Council of 10 itself has one female, one Muslim and 2 Tamils. In terms of the population – women are slightly more than men. Hence, to be democratic at least on gender basis the Council ought to have had at least 5 females. On the basis of religion the distribution ought to have been 7 Buddhists, 1 Hindu, 1 Muslim and 1 Christian. On the basis of language 7 Sinhalese, 2 Tamils and 1 Burgher/Eurasian.  

The Constitution based on combination of intellectual logic falls within ‘common measures’ and ‘intuition’ listed above. Like the coronavirus the latter would show rising curve and the former would show flat lateral spread. Belief based intuition spreads exponentially whilst physically observable characters spread one to one laterally and  scientific knowledge spreads vertically. The more dependent we  are on leaders the more we would use what happened and therefore would be open to being ‘controlled’ – as in China which also showed the vertical line where the mind of the leader was the scientific measure.

Every true believer can therefore defeat ‘controllers’ and ‘intellectuals without belief’.

Whilst Article 9 of the Lankan Constitution requires Buddhism to be given foremost place, Article 43B(3) requires recommendations to the following Commissions to be pluralistic:

(a) The Election Commission. (b) The Public Service Commission. (c) The National Police Commission. (d) The Audit Service Commission. (e) The Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. (f) The Commission to Investigate Allegations of Bribery or Corruption. (g) The Finance Commission. (h) The Delimitation Commission. (i) The National Procurement Commission.

In terms of the Election Commission, Professor Ratnajeevan Hoole has recently been in the news through Ceylon Today article ‘Independent' EC's Ratnajeevan Hoole publicly declares : Do not vote for SLPP’ and the other being the Island editorial of 09 June 2020 headed ‘Was Prabhakaran bribed?’ As per the latter:

[Election Commission member Prof. Ratnajeevan H. Hoole has challenged a newspaper group to investigate what he calls a bribery scandal involving the LTTE’s polls boycott, which prevented the Tamil people from voting at the 2005 presidential election, in the North. Several others have made this allegation during the last 15 years or so.]

A politician representing her/his people has the authority to question as per her/his belief based indicators. As an Administrator – Independent of the Government – Dr Hoole did not have this authority and is in breach of the ethics of his position. Since he carries the title ‘Professor’ he had the responsibility to produce logic based connections confirming his wisdom in this issue. When one expresses like a politician but without the vote of a group – s/he becomes frivolous. When this is in breach of the law – s/he becomes vexatious. Dr Hoole has proven to be a failure in Administration and has the moral authority to resign from his position. THAT would confirm self governance.