Asia-Pacific
Sri Lankan election system needs reform: minister
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-07 17:13
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COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's current election system adopted in 1978 needs changes to ensure a stable government, the Minister of Constitutional Affairs Dew Gunasekera said here Sunday.
"We have experienced it during the last 32 years. Election violence, elected representatives switching parties are all due to ills in the system of elections," Gunasekera told reporters.
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He said the present election system based on the proportional representation was not suited to this country as it had been proved.
Sri Lanka faces another parliamentary election based on the proportional representation system possibly in the second week of April.
"We have to act fast in the early period of next parliament," Gunasekera stressed.
Sri Lanka switched to proportional representation in 1989 having discarded the first-past-the-post system.
The current system has only given hung parliaments as opposed to stable governments under the previous system, analysts say.
