Sri Lanka’s Provincial Election: Some Disturbing Realities
By Annonymous -September 14, 2012
The Provincial Council poll held on 8 September 2012 in three provinces (namely, North Central, Sabaragamuwa and Eastern) ended with a repeated victory to President Rajapaksa’s ruling coalition. Under the Constitution of the Second Republic, the head of state wields the power to call elections in separate chunks, as in the case of the September 8 election. It was held only in three provinces, and in the near future, an election will be held in another couple of provinces. Not unsurprisingly, personalities in government are keen to express their delight over their coalition’s successes.
However, the election is also quite revelatory about a number of disheartening realities in Sri Lankan politics. Its results demonstrate, for instance, that ethnic minority communities are less prone to stand by the ruling coalition. The TNA has fared extremely well in Tamil majority areas in the Eastern Province, while the SLMC has triumphed in Moor majority areas. It should not be forgotten that this outcome was produced in a backdrop in which the ruling coalition also presented Tamil and Moor candidates on its behalf, with the fullest support of the state machinery. If Tamils and Moors in large numbers are prone to prefer members of their respective communities contesting under the banner of exclusively Tamil and Moors parties (and not members of their communities contesting for the ruling coalition), it says something about the reception of the Rajapaksa rule among the majority of citizens from minority communities.
This, if anything, is a disturbing reality. After some thirty years of war and destruction, and some three years into the post-war phase, none of the largest political parties/coalitions have begun to sow the seeds of an ethnically inclusive support base.
The ruling coalition has made efforts on terms its own. Vinayagamoorti Muralitharan, also known by his nom de guerre Karuna Amman, the LTTE’s ex-second in command and head of operations in the Eastern Province, is presently not only a cabinet minister, but also a member, just like President Rajapaksa, of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, the main component of the ruling coalition. His deputy in the LTTE, Sivanasaturai Chandrakantan, alias Pillayan, was the Chief Minister of the Eastern Province prior to the elections. The LTTE’s international operations chief, Kumaran Patmanatan, works behind the scenes with the Rajapaksa administration. Key surviving figures in the LTTE’s small political wing, Daya Master and George Master, were both acquitted by the government. Ms Tamara Kunanayakam, a Sri Lankan Tamil Swiss national and confidante of President Rajapaksa, is the ambassador inHavana. The list could continue.
A question worth raising is, why are the leading political parties systematically failing in winning substantive support from minorities?
