First leftist Mayor after NM: SJB, UNP beaten at their own game

What's in a vote? That which we call a show of hands could still be as concealed as a secret vote.

- BY RAJAN PHILIPS

The newly elected Colombo Municipal Council has chosen the NPP's Vraie Cally Balthazaar as the City's new Mayor, but on a secret vote and not in an open show of hands. The secret vote route appears to have caused much consternation among the SJB-UNP opposition forces at the Town Hall. The latter openly preferred an open show and are blaming the secret vote for the defeat of their candidate Riza Zarook.

On the face of it, the NPP with 49 of the 117 Councillors has a more legitimate claim to have one of own as Mayor rather than the SJB with 29 Councillors. In what has been described as a "desperate move", the SJB forged a mayoral united front by fusing its 29 members with the UNP's 13, the SLPP's five and the singular member of the People's Alliance (whoever the PA now is).

The beefed up SJB mayoral front total of 48 was close enough to the NPP's 49 for claims of legitimacy, and both sides needed the support at least another 11 or 10 from the remaining 20 members to get the required majority of 59 votes. In the secret vote, the NPP's candidate presumably got 12 of the non-allied votes to get 61 votes in total. The SJB mayoral front got only six for a total 54 votes. Two votes, there's no certainty as to whose, were rejected.

Would the result have gone the other way if this municipal conclave had decided on an open show instead of papal secrecy? You do not need supernatural powers to determine that. Let alone a clairvoyant like Gota's Gnanaka! The commonplace supposition would be that a secret vote may have allowed secret transactions to secure support with hidden hands.