Abstract:
Promoting democracy and strengthening good governance have
become a core component of post-conflict and peace-building initiatives.
Good governance and democracy play a key role in capacity building in Post conflict countries in order to transit from recovery to sustainable
development. In the post-conflict era of Sri Lanka as a country which
suffered three decades of war has achieved many of the goals of
democratization, good governance and capacity building. But if we look at
the statistics citizens’ participation and engagement in elections held in
Northern and Eastern provinces of Sri Lanka in the post-conflict era which
in the past used as escaping strategy from conflicts is now seen and used as a
strategy for institution building, good governance and capacity building
show the lack of engagement and participation of citizens. Some macro and
micro reasons are the causes of such a problem such as no trust towards the
existing government, lack of right to information in wartime as well as in
post-conflict era, loss of their documents as a result of war, trauma and
stigmatization as a cause of war, unawareness of the voting rights and etc.
The intention of this paper is to analyze the main reasons and attempt to
suggest sustainable recommendations to achieve sustainable democracy and
build the capacity of Northern and Eastern provinces as a mean of good
governance. At the same time, it is essential to repeat the widely accepted
lesson which is the successful holding of one election does not guarantee
continued peace, stability, and democracy in a post-conflict country. What
elections can achieve is to give legitimacy to existing institutions. Finally
authors wish to conclude by emphasizing the fact that third tier of
government should be strengthen at the first phase of post-conflict capacity
building.
