experiments discussed in this chapter.
4 This statement needs some qualification due to the case o f the Republic o f Ireland. Ireland has a non executive president who occupies an almost exclusively ceremonial office but who is, nonetheless, popularly elected (although half o f all scheduled presidential elections to date have been uncontested). Article 12.2.3 o f the Irish Constitution specifies that the electoral system for presidential elections shall be “proportional representation by means o f the single transferable vote”, which is identical to AV when used for elections o f one representative, such as a president.
be removed by Parliament itself, and elections have tended to be regarded as free from fraud or other forms o f malpractice (Kearney 1987, 82).
Prior to independence in 1947, the British colonial authority introduced a written Constitution providing for parliamentary government, with executive authority reposing in a cabinet composed o f ministers drawn from and responsible to the legislature. Election in most seats was by the first-past-the-post system in single-member constituencies, although a few multi-member constituencies returning two or three members were created at each redistribution, “with the intent o f enhancing the chances o f election o f candidates belonging to one o f the island’s ethnic minorities” (Wilson 1980, 80). The electoral devices used to facilitate this unusual arrangement give a pointer to Sri Lanka’s later adoption o f preferential voting. In the multi-member constituencies each voter could cast as many votes as there were candidates to be elected; all the votes could be cast for a single candidate or distributed amongst several candidates (the assumption being that ethnic minorities would be likely to deliver all their votes to their ethnic candidate, an assumption that appears to have held true in respect o f Sri Lanka’s Muslim population at least) (Wilson 1980, 80). These multi-member seats were, however, in a minority, with the overriding majority o f seats elected from single-member electorates under a FPTP electoral formula. The results, however, were quite unlike the fluid and fragmented party system experienced under FPTP in PNG: in Sri Lanka, the longstanding and deep-rooted cleavages along religious, ethnic, linguistic and ideological lines resulted in a well-developed system o f competitive political parties based around particular ethnic groups.
Like the Fijian case, no one party had a monopoly o f support from a particular ethnic group. The Sinhalese electorate, in particular, split its support almost equally between two large parties. The finely balanced nature o f Sri Lanka’s multi-party system was characterised increasingly in the 1960s and 70s by competition for government between tw o major Sinhalese parties, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP), with smaller Marxist or Tamil parties sometimes holding the balance o f power. The ‘seat bonuses’ provided by the FPTP electoral system to the winning party meant that small changes in vote share could and did result in major changes in the make-up o f parliament. Prior to 1978, Sri Lanka experienced a change o f government at almost every election, with the winning party’s vote share often
considerably smaller than their eventual proportion of seats. In 1970, for example, the SLFP gained 37 percent of the vote but won over 60 percent of seats in the legislature. In 1977 the UNP scored 51 percent of the vote but won 83 percent of all seats — results which led the Select Committee of the National State Assembly appointed to consider revision of the constitution to recommend a change to PR for parliamentary elections, arguing that “the legislature is not fairly representative of political opinion in the electorates” (Parliamentary Series 14 of the Second National State Assembly 1978, 212). The other major difficulty of FPTP was the fact that it disadvantaged geographically dispersed minorities — a problem exacerbated by the fact that, until 1978, electoral divisions were allocated on the basis of population (inclusive of non citizens) rather than electors. This meant that voters in those areas which had substantial numbers of non-Sri Lankan citizens (including many ‘Indian’ Tamils and Sri Lankans who had opted for Indian citizenship), who were not allowed to enrol and vote, were proportionately over-represented in the legislature. In practice, the effect of this provision was to give a disproportionate weighting in favour of the rural Sinhalese in many areas, to the disadvantage of minorities (de Silva 1994, 20). The Select Committee made it clear that it was the disproportionality of electoral results rather than the institutional discrimination against minorities which was the major factor in its decision to recommend dispensing with FPTP (Parliamentary Series 14 of the Second National State Assembly 1978, 214). Nonetheless, the change in 1978 to allocating seats on the basis of the number of enrolled electors rather than the total population has meant that minority groups are now considerably better represented in the Sri Lankan parliament, as they now form a larger proportion of enrolled voters in some electoral constituencies than was previously the case.
Electing the president
The greater institutional recognition of minorities, plus the move to a list system of PR for parliamentary elections, meant that no single party would be likely to gain an absolute majority of seats in the legislature. Thus it was all the more important that the new office of executive president be filled by a national figure representative of all groups in society and able to encourage consensual politics between the varying groups. This focused attention on the method of election to that office, and particularly on the means by which ethnic minorities could be included in the selection process rather than
being overwhelmed by the Sinhalese majority. Implicit in this was the desire on the part of the governing UNP to end the endemic post-election violence “which has been a characteristic feature in Sri Lanka at least since 1965” (de Silva 1979, 198). The problem was this: the president would have to represent all groups in Sri Lankan society and be seen as a figure capable of moderating between opposing interests. The method of election for such a figure would thus be crucial to the fate of the office, which would require at least a majority of voters supporting the successful candidate. But only once since independence had any political party secured a majority of the vote at a national election; most governments were in fact elected with considerably less than that. The solution was to apply the preferential vote to the election of the presidency, so that presidential candidates would be forced to look beyond their own party or ethnic group for support because the successful candidate would have to be elected (either outright or via preferences) by an absolute majority of all voters.
Interestingly, there is no evidence that the Sri Lankan constitutional draftsmen on the select committee made reference to other countries like Australia when it came to devising a system of preferential voting.5 Instead, they appear to have started from first principles, seeking to ensure that any president would be elected by an absolute majority of voters and then devising the appropriate institutional mechanisms to achieve this. As much of the 1978 Constitution had its philosophic origins in the French fifth republic model of a strong executive presidency combined with an elected legislature, initial plans provided for a French-style two-round system of elections (Parliamentary Series 14 of the Second National State Assembly 1978, 243). However, the extra cost and security issues associated with holding two separate elections within a two-week period appears to have prompted the decision to combine the initial and run-off rounds of voting into one election via the expression of preferences.6 According to K.M. de Silva, two men were chiefly responsible for the move to a preferential system: Lalith Athulathmudali, a government minister and member of the Select Committee who was assassinated in April 1993, and Mark Fernando, who was then an adviser to the Committee.7 Justice Fernando, now a Supreme Court judge, has confirmed that the system was developed by the Committee without reference to Australia or any other
5 Interview, K. M. de Silva, Director, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka, 26 March 1996. 6 Interview, R.K. Chandrananda de Silva, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 22 March 1996.
country, and that it was a compromise between the need to achieve majority support for a victor and the practical necessity in the Sri Lankan context o f holding one rather than
two elections. While initially attracted to the double ballot system, the Select
Committee believed that the inconvenience and expense o f a second election, and the undue maintenance o f the high degree o f tension associated with electoral politics in Sri Lanka for a further two weeks, would not be conducive to democratic principles.8
The Select Committee effectively recommended a preferential electoral system so as to achieve both the initial and run-off stages o f a double ballot election in one contest. In keeping close to the French model, preferences would only be distributed to the two leading candidates in the event that neither obtained an absolute majority on first
preferences. This is a significant departure from the alternative vote, in which
preferences from lower-placed candidates are transferred to all remaining candidates, not just the top two. In a further unique variation, a decision was taken to make the expression o f preferences optional, but to restrict the number o f preferences expressed to no more than three. Section 94(1) o f the 1978 constitution provides that
At the election of the President every voter casting his vote for any candidate may - (a) where there are three candidates for election, specify his second preference; and
(b) where there are more than three candidates for election, specify his second and third preferences.
(2) The candidate, if any, who receives more than one-half of the valid votes cast shall be declared elected as President.
(3) Where no candidate is declared elected under paragraph (2) of this Article, the candidate or candidates, other than the candidates who received the highest and second highest number of votes, shall be eliminated from the contest, and-
(a) the second preference of each voter whose vote has been for a candidate eliminated from the contest, shall, if it is for one or the other of the remaining two candidates, be counted as a vote for such candidate and be added to the votes counted in his favour under paragraph (2), and
(b) the third preference of each voter referred to in sub-paragraph (a) whose second preference is not counted under that sub-paragraph shall, if it is for one or the other of the remaining two candidates, be counted as a vote for such candidate and be added to the votes counted in his favour under sub-paragraph (a) and paragraph (2),
and the candidate who receives the majority of the votes so counted shall be declared elected as President.
This was effectively a new example of the contingent vote which was first used in the Australian state of Queensland in 1892, and which is recognised in Australia as the forerunner to the alternative vote.9 If no candidate gains more than 50 percent of the vote, all candidates other than the top two are eliminated, and their second and third preferences redistributed to the remaining candidates. This is a significant simplification of the full AV system, both for the voters and the electoral administrators. The voters need only write the numbers one to three on the ballot, regardless of the number of candidates, which while somewhat restrictive is probably a more realistic assessment of the genuine preferences of most electors than requiring them to rank order every candidate. The task for those counting the vote is considerably simpler than under AV: instead of having to go through the process of eliminating each candidate successively and distributing his or her votes to those remaining, the Sri Lankan contest effectively becomes a run-off between the top two candidates (as in the French system), but without the expense of a second election. Wilson’s assessment of Sri Lanka’s post- 1978 system of government as “a hybrid, a cross between the British and the French” (1980, xiii) is thus right on target regarding the electoral system at least. It is a hybrid system, designed with particular political goals in mind, which utilises some of the basic aspects of both the alternative vote and the two-round system.
It is worth noting that these two systems — the alternative vote and the two-round system — have traditionally been lumped together by political scientists as the two examples of “majority formulae” found in Western countries10 — not because of any structural similarities, but rather because both strive to achieve a majority victor in each case. Lijphart, for example, argues that AV “may be thought of as a refinement of the majority-run-off formula in the sense that weak candidates are eliminated one at a time (instead of all but the top two candidates at the same time) and that voters do not have to go to the polls twice” (1994a, 19). The contingent vote as adopted in Sri Lanka is closer to the French run-off model than to the alternative vote, as all but the top two candidates are indeed eliminated at the same time. In fact, some parties such as the SLFP, argued in 1978 that a two-round system should be adopted instead of the contingent vote (Parliamentary Series 14 of the Second National State Assembly 1978, 151). In some Australian states such as New South Wales, the contingent vote was historically seen as
9 See Wright 1980, 34,58-61. 10 See Rae 1967, 107-10.
a middle point between the two-round system and the alternative vote. In Sri Lanka, by contrast, there is no evidence that a move towards AV was ever contemplated, and in fact there has been pressure from some quarters for a return to FPTP for parliamentary elections.11 During yet another constitutional review taking place at the time of writing, there has been pressure to decentralise the political system and return to a Westminster system, with the office of president being turned into a figurehead position with no executive power (Samarasinghe 1994, 1031). Were this to happen, the requirement that the president be elected would also probably be scrapped.
The Sri Lankan experience of preferential voting
K.M. de Silva has argued that the presidential electoral system is “even more important than PR for its implications for ethnic relations in the island” (de Silva 1994, 22). The major effect of preferential voting upon the Sri Lankan political process, according to de Silva, is that it provides an incentive for the major parties to take account of minority groups in their campaigning and in their formal arrangements for preference sharing. This is a particularly significant change in Sri Lankan politics compared to the practices of earlier elections, where there was little or no disadvantage in a subtle or even blatant anti-Tamil campaign in the Sinhalese areas; indeed previous elections were won or lost in the Sinhalese areas, and the major parties could ignore the north and east of the island where the Sri Lankan Tamil population is concentrated. This situation has changed since the 1980s, and the experience of the three presidential elections held to date “shows that no party or individual aiming at the presidency could afford to alienate minorities, or fail to campaign in the Tamil areas of the north and east, as well as among the Indian plantation workers and the Muslims and Roman Catholics” (de Silva 1994, 22-23).
There is no perfect electoral system, and some of the simplifying features of the Sri Lankan system have tended to undermine its effectiveness. As the preference marking is optional rather than compulsory there is no requirement to express second and later preferences, and few voters do so (Horowitz 1991a, 192). Initial estimates by the Commissioner of Elections after the 1982 presidential poll put the rate of preference marking as low as two percent, and its usage does not appear to have increased appreciably in later elections (Commissioner of Elections 1983, 60). In fact, the Deputy