Sri Lanka mulls raising election security deposits

Colombo: Contesting elections in Sri Lanka could become significantly more expensive for political parties and independent candidates as the Cabinet has proposed an increase in security deposit limits. The Cabinet this week noted that it is appropriate to update the existing security deposit limits according to the provisions of the President’s Election Act, Parliamentary Elections Act and the Provincial Councils Elections Act, timely in the current social, economic and political context. For presidential election, security deposit for a candidate from a recognised political party has been raised from 75,000 Sri Lankan rupees to 2.6 million rupees while that for an independent candidate is to be raised from 50,000 rupees to 3.1 million rupees.