Sri Lankan election chief Dayananda Dissanayake will be running November presidential elections but won’t be voting — he doesn’t trust politicians.
Dissanayake (64) is Sri Lanka’s most reluctant election commissar. He wants to retire, but a constitutional quirk is forcing him, against his will, to lead a team of 100 000 officials in staging the November 17 vote.
“I have never voted at an election since 1963,” Dissanayake said on Friday. “I voted at a village council election because I did not know much about politicians at the time. But, since I got to know politicians, I decided never to vote again.”
One of his main concerns, he told reporters in Colombo, is to ensure no one impersonates him at the November vote.
In a country where the vote of the main opposition presidential candidate Hector Kobbekaduwa was cast by another pretending to be him in 1982, impersonations are not uncommon.
“I know it would be your headline story if my vote was cast by someone else,” Dissanayake said. “So, [by not voting] I have ensured that it cannot happen.”
The November ballot will be the fourth election he has staged past retirement age.
“While conducting parliamentary elections last year I said that I may have to be in this job till the year 3000,” he joked.
“Now I think I might have to stay a little longer,” said Dissanayake, who has suffered six heart attacks.
Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has turned down Dissanayake’s pleas that since he is a heart patient he should be allowed to retire like other public servants.
“Since I went to the Supreme Court, I have suffered another mild attack,” Dissanayake said. “Now I think I am getting immune to heart attacks as well as elections.”
The elections chief is hamstrung because a fully-fledged independent elections commission set up under a constitutional amendment in 2001 has yet to be appointed.
President Chandrika Kumaratunga has refused to name the three commissioners who are to replace Dissanayake’s election department, and since he is not allowed to delegate his powers, he has no option but to continue in the job, even though he is well past the mandatory retirement age of 60. — AFP