A parliamentary select committee examining the electoral system to be used for provincial council elections has begun hearing political parties, taking evidence from three Tamil parties at a recent sitting.
The committee is chaired by Minister Vijitha Herath, the Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday morning. Its remit is described as the electoral system that should be adopted for conducting the elections, together with related recommendations, with particular attention to ensuring the representation of women and youth.
Who appeared
Three parties were represented:
- Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF) — K. Premachandran
- Eros Democratic Front — Ramasamy Rajendran
- Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) — Shanmuganathan Sanjeevan
Also present were Deputy Ministers Munir Mulaffer and Arun Hemachandra, Sunil Watagala, Attorney-at-Law, and MPs Dharmapriya Wijesinghe, Samanmali Gunasinghe and Lakshman Nipuna Arachchi.
What the remit signals
The committee’s terms as reported place the choice of electoral system, rather than a polling date, at the centre of its work — the question sits with parliament at this stage rather than with the Elections Commission.
The explicit reference to women’s and youth representation indicates that the composition of future councils is being considered alongside the voting method itself. The filing does not say which models are under consideration, whether quotas or reserved seats have been proposed, or what the committee’s starting position is.
Opposition figures have continued to press the government on the provincial polls timetable. In early November, Sajith Premadasa raised the provincial elections question.
Not reported
The filing gives no date for the sitting beyond its being recent, no deadline for the committee to report, and no indication of when provincial council elections might follow. It does not say what any of the three parties actually argued, whether they favoured a particular system, or what they proposed on women’s and youth representation. It does not list which other parties have been invited or already heard, name the committee’s full membership, or say whether its proceedings are public.
On sourcing: this report rests on a single verified newsroom. The Daily Mirror’s filing carries no reporter byline — its author field reads “Administrator,” which at this outlet typically marks a submitted item or an institutional release rather than desk reporting, so the account is best read as a summary of the committee’s own record. Searches of NewsFirst, Island, Daily News, Daily FT, EconomyNext and news.lk returned no separate filing on the sitting. Readers should treat the attendee titles above as the filing states them; this desk could not independently verify each portfolio.
