A thread on how your votes translate into seats for political parties a #SriLankaElections2020 This is straight out of the Constitution [Article 99(5) - (9) & 99A]
EVERY VOTE COUNTS, even if you can't help a party win in your district, it still counts for the national list [1/10]
Each voter can cast ONE vote for a political party & up to three preferences for candidates nominated by that political party. So REMEMBER your vote counts, so go vote tomorrow bright and early #LKAElections2020 [2/10]
The total seats in Parliament are 225,
Only 29 seats are allocated proportionally (National List),
174 seats are allocated proportionally among those who get more than 5% of votes in each Electoral District
22 seats are First Past the Post [3/10]
There are 22 electoral districts, the party that gets the HIGHEST number of votes in each electoral district automatically gets one seat from that electoral district. This doesn't have to be a majority of votes in district, just need to get the most number of votes [4/10]
How District seats are decided, The votes obtained by any political party that got LESS than 5% of the total votes polled in that electoral district are deducted from the total votes polled in that district, the result is referred to as the “relevant number of votes” [5/10]
"The relevant number of votes" is divided by the number of MPs to be elected from that electoral district minus 1 (See tweet 4) if the result is an integer & a fraction (i.e. 24.6) it is rounded up (i.e. 25). The resulting integer is referred to as the “resulting number” [6/10]
Starting with the Party that received the highest number of votes, the votes received by each political party in that district is then divided by the "resulting number". Each political party wins one seat for each whole number produced by this division [7/10]
After this allocation is done & if there are sill more seats left to distribute among political parties, then the remaining number of votes for each party is compared and the parties with the largest remainders are allocated the remaining seats [8/10]
The 29 National List seats are distributed proportionally among all political parties contesting the election. You take the total votes polled in the country & allocate it based on the total number of votes polled by each political party in the entire country. [9/10]
For the National List seats, there is no cutoff mark of 5%, So even if a political party does not get 5% in the entire country they are still eligible to be considered & sometimes can in fact win a seat. The Sihala Urumaya in 2000 won 1 seat with 1.47% of the vote [10/10]
Since the PM has resigned the Cabinet of Ministers is dissolved.
So one of the ways President could have navigate the problems of appointing a new cabinet has been shut out. I tried to explain this option in a post last night (1/7)
But the PMs resignation might actually make things easier for the President to justify appointing an NPP member as PM. The Constitution requires that President @anuradisanayake will have to appoint an MP who in his opinion is likely to command the confidence of Parliament. (2/7)
This opinion is not subjective but has to be an objective one. But the political formation of Parliament is such that it is very tricky. With the turmoil in the SLPP in the past few months, it becomes very difficult to decide who has the confidence of the house (3/7)
Under Sri Lankan law, the moment you get citizenship of another country, by operation of law, you lose your #lka citizenship. You don't need to inform anyone or fill a form, the loss of citizenship is automatic.
You can of course thereafter apply to become "a dual citizen". (1/4)
You cannot vote if you are not a citizen or a dual citizen (See Article 89 of the Constitution). If you do vote, then you are committing an offence (under election law) and also violating immigration law. You can be fined and imprisoned (2/4)
If you are an #lka citizen living / working in another country & want to come back to vote but your passport has expired, you can try to apply for a NMRP (Non- Machine Readable Passports) & Temporary Travel Documents from the closest consulate (3/4)immigration.gov.lk/pages_e.php?id…
A (longish) thread about the Online Safety Act NOT including the amendments mandated by the Supreme Court in its Special Determination. I usually don't talk about cases i have appeared in, but this raises several interesting constitutional law issues #lka (1/17)
I 1st heard of the draft Bill thanks to @aselawaid sharing information about the cabinet decision, which said the Attorney General had given "clearance for the draft Bill"
The Bill was published (gazetted) on 18/9/2023 / (2/17)
The Bill was tabled in Parliament & thereafter challenged by a large number of persons & organisations. The Court in its determination found that a number of clauses of the Bill were inconsistent with the constitution (3/17)newswire.lk/2023/11/15/fac…
So the "New version" of the governments 22nd Amendment has been gazetted. The document is available at documents.gov.lk/files/bill/202… some initial comments & thoughts 1/
There aren't many changes from the previous version of the governments 22nd Amendment. A big problem is with the composition of the Constitutional Council, which has not changed from the last draft.This composition gives the gov control over the CC see
Another big problem is that the President can retain the subject of Defence with him. The President can also assign any other subject and function to himself on the advice of the PM. So the President can exercise ministerial powers 3/
The government's 22nd Amendment to the Constitution has been gazetted. It is bad. It is far weaker than any of the versions previously proposed by the Minister of Justice (even his own private members bill) documents.gov.lk/files/bill/202… (1/11)
The Constitutional Council is sham. It gives the government control & is just a continuation of what is there under the 20th amendment. The government will have control of 7 of the 10 members when the President & government are from the same political party / coalition (2/
If the Constitutional Council is controlled by the government, then the "independent commissions" are no longer independent. So it doesn't matter how many new commissions you add. This is NOT what was there in the 19A (3/
The Prime Minister's defence of the provisions of the 20th amendment sound like cleverly written legal arguments designed to deflect. A quick response to some of these arguments is important considering the coverage this press statement is getting (1/15)
context is important & the PM's press release lacks that For more context read the statement by The Sri Lanka Audit Inspectors’ Association who are also challenging these provisions of 20A newswire.lk/2020/09/12/sl-… (2/15)
An clear theme of those defending the 20A in Court & outside is to down play the changes it is making. This is what the Attorney General is doing right now, this is the exact same thing the PM has done. If the changes proposed by the 20A are not consequential why do it? (3/15)