• PM and EC held meeting recently following Prez direction on cancelling nominations

The Election Commission (EC) stated that during the recent discussion with Prime Minister and Minister of Local Government (LG) Dinesh Gunawardena, there was no discussion regarding preparation to cancel the nominations called for the postponed LG elections.

President and Minister of National Policies Ranil Wickremesinghe recently instructed Gunawardena to look into the possibility of invalidating the nominations accepted for the LG elections.

Following the said direction, a meeting has been held between Gunawardena and EC including its Chairperson R.M.A.L. Ratnayake. When asked as to whether they were informed of any preparation to cancel the nominations, Ratnayake told The Daily Morning that there was no such discussion. "The Premier discussed various matters related to elections with us, but he did not mention anything about invalidating nominations."

In response to a query regarding their view on a potential invalidation of nominations, he said that the EC could not express anything about such as they were there to hold elections, and not to postpone. "All the legal provisions related to the EC mention about holding elections, and not postponing them. So, we cannot tell anything about it."

Cabinet Spokesperson Minister, Dr. Bandula Gunawardena recently said that Wickremesinghe had called on the Premier to seek legal advice from the Attorney General (AG) with regard to the nullifying of LG nominations. He had also advised Gunawardena to discuss the same with other political parties.

The LG elections, which was scheduled to be held in March, and then in April, 2023, was indefinitely postponed due to the EC not receiving the necessary financial allocations from the Ministry of Finance, Economic Stabilisation and National Policies.