What exactly are Local Authorities?
And other questions
- Does Borella have a mayor?
- Does the Mayor of Colombo oversea Avissawella also?
- Will the UNP win Colombo Central this time [2023 Local Elections]?
Friends have asked me these questions in the last few weeks. You may know the answers. But if you don’t, the confusion might stem from not knowing exactly what a local authority is; and how it relates to other regions.
Regardless, you might not be interested in any of this.
But if you are, read on…
Different Regions
In Do you know where you live?, we discussed the various types of region in Sri Lanka.
For example, how Polling Divisions are part of Electoral Districts, which are in turn part of Provinces. And how Local Authorities are part of Administrative Districts, which are in turn also part of Provinces.
Regions can be confusing because different types of regions are part of different hierarchies.
Why do we have different hierarchies?
For example, why do we have both Administrative Districts (what we usually refer to as “Districts”) and Electoral Districts (the “Districts” we use in Presidential and Parliamentary Elections)?
The reasons are historical and political. To recap from Understanding Parliamentary Elections,
Sri Lanka has 22 EDs [Electoral Districts] and 25 ADs [Administrative Districts]. Currently, the Jaffna ED is a combination of the Jaffna and Kilinochchi ADs. The Vanni ED is a combination of the Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullaitivu ADs.
All the other 20 EDs are the same as an AD. All except one, have the same name as the corresponding AD. For example, the “Colombo Electoral District” is the same as the “Colombo Administrative District”. The one exception is the Digamadulla ED, which is the same as the Ampara AD.
Local Authorities vs. Polling Divisions
When we see results of a Parliamentary or Presidential Election, they are presented by Polling Division.
For example, these are the results for the Borella Polling division in the 2020 Parliamentary Election.
However, for Local Elections (like the one we might? have in 2023), results are for Local Authorities, which are completely different from Polling Divisions.
For example, here is the result for the Colombo Municipal Council from the 2018 Local Election.
What is the “mapping” between Local Authorities and Polling Divisions?
It varies from place to place. For example, here is the mapping for Colombo:
Two local authorities (Colombo MC and Dehiwala — Mt. Lavinia MC) are collections of more than one Polling Divisions. Conversely, three Polling Divisions (Kolonnawa, Avissawella and Kesbewa) are collections of two Local Authorities each. Finally, five local authorities exactly correspond to one polling division each.
This relatively “clean” mapping is not found in all Districts.
For example, in the Kalutara District, has the following overlaps between the Bandaragama and Panadura Polling Divisions, and the Panadura Urban Councils and the Panadura, Bandaragama and Millaniya Pradeshiya Sabhas.
For a full list of “equivalences” and “overlaps” between Local Authorities and Polling Divisions, see this doc.
Caveat: An Approximate Assumption
The “equivalences” and “overlaps” described in this article have been generated by inspecting how Grama Niladhari Divisions (GNDs) map to Local Authorities and Polling Divisions.
For example, the Moratuwa Municipal Council and the Moratuwa Polling Division contain the same GNDs. Hence, we can conclude they are equivalent (as listed above).
However, the mapping from GND to Local Authorities and Polling Divisions could (sometimes) be approximate.
For example, this is how the GNDs of the Norwood Pradeshiya Sabha are defined in the 2017 Gazette Extraordinary that created the new local authority.
As you can see it contains parts of GNDs.
Hence, the data presented in this document are sometimes approximate. However, any errors resulting from this approximation is likely to be small, and hence should not be a concern for derived data analyses.
Q & A
So, what about the questions at the beginning?
Does Borella have a mayor?
Borella (assuming you mean the Borella Polling Division) is, as we saw earlier, part of the Colombo Municipal Council (a Local Authority). The latter does elect a mayor, who is currently Rosy Senanayake.
Hence, her worship is also technically the “Mayor of Borella”. Or if you don’t want to be technical, you get full marks for “Borella has no Mayor”.
Avissawella is part of the Colombo District. So, is the Mayor of Colombo oversea Avissawella?
The Avissawella Polling Division is part of the Colombo District. But it is not part of the Colombo Municipal Council, which is nowhere near Avissawella. Hence, while the Mayor of Colombo may visit, and hence see Avissawella, they don’t oversea Avissawella.
Aside, as we earlier “saw”, the Avissawella Polling Division contains two Local Authorities: The Seethawaka Urban Council and the Seethawaka Pradeshiya Sabha. The worthies elected to these authorities no doubt oversea and “authoritate” Avissawella.
Will the UNP win Colombo Central this time (2023 Local Elections)?
Like Borella, the Colombo Central Polling Division is part of the Colombo Municipal Council. The UNP will contest the latter and can technically win dozens of votes in the former.
Hence, technically the UNP could “win” Colombo Central, but in practice they would mostly care about how many votes and as a result seats they win in the CMC (as a whole).
