• Requests Rs. 20 Bn from Govt.; 2024 Budget allocates Rs. 10 Bn for Prez Poll

The Election Commission (EC) stated that while they had requested the Government to allocate Rs. 20 billion (Bn) for the elections to be held next year (2024), and only Rs. 10 billion had been allocated through the 2024 Budget, they could however, if necessary, request more money from the Consolidated Fund.

President and Finance, Economic Stabilisation, and National Policies Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe recently said that the Government would hold both the Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in 2024.

Speaking to The Daily Morning on the financial allocations for the said elections, EC Chairman R.M.A.L. Rathnayake said that they had requested the Government for financial allocations of Rs. 20 billion for election purposes in 2024, but that the Government had allocated only Rs. 10 billion. “What is to be held next year is the Presidential Election. A sum of about Rs. 10 billion is needed for it. The Government has allocated it (Rs. 10 billion) through the Budget.”

Speaking further, he said that the EC could ask for more financial allocations from the Consolidated Fund if any other election is to be held next year. “There are provisions that enable us (the EC) to ask for more funds from the Consolidated Fund if any other election is to be held. This is under normal circumstances. What happened with regard to the Local Government (LG) Elections (the non-allocation of financial provisions to hold it) is something different,” he said.

With the LG Elections – which were scheduled to be held early this year – having been indefinitely postponed due to the non-issuance of required funds by the Finance Ministry and the Treasury, several parties have claimed that President Wickremesinghe and the Government may attempt to postpone the upcoming elections too.