BY Buddhika Samaraweera Courtesy The Morning

• Elections likely to be end-April or early-May

The Election Commission (EC) stated that all legal issues related to holding the Local Government (LG) Elections have been resolved and that the Election date will be announced in early March 2025.

It was reported that the EC is scheduled to meet tomorrow (27), during which a decision on the date for the LG Elections is expected to be made.

Speaking to The Daily Morning about the preparations for declaring the elections, EC Chairperson R.M.A.L. Rathnayake said that the declaration could not be made during the course of this month due to a certain administrative issue.

Nominations must be accepted within 14 to 17 days from the date of declaration. However, if the declaration is made in the remaining days of this month, the nomination period will have to begin in the week starting from 10 March. The Thursday of that week being a holiday is an issue as nominations should be accepted continuously for three and a half days. To avoid that, we will be making the declaration in early March,” he noted.

He also said that all legal issues related to holding the LG Elections have now been resolved as the decisions pertaining to the relevant legal proceedings have been delivered by the respective courts.

The LG Elections were initially scheduled for March 2023, but the Finance Ministry, along with the General Treasury, had not released the required funds to the EC. As a result, the EC rescheduled the elections to April 2023. However, since the funds were not released by that time either, the EC was forced to postpone it indefinitely. As per a recent gazette notification issued by the Ministry of Public Administration, Provincial Councils, and LG, the LG bodies are scheduled to convene for the first time on 2 June after the elections. 

Sources from the EC indicated that the LG Elections are expected to take place either at the end of April or in the first week of May.