Awaiting ‘big poll’

Editorial-September 22, 2014

Whoever would have thought that a provincial election in a far-flung part of a country like Sri Lanka would ever be of any interest to the international press? One may have thought that only the local media had evinced a keen interest in the just-concluded electoral contest. But, that election has grabbed the attention of no less a publication than The New York Times.

What has really interested the international media or at least a part thereof is the next presidential election where President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to seek a third term. Reading between the lines, one gathers that they seem to think that the results of a provincial election help predict the outcome of a presidential election accurately.

The Uva PC polls results have clearly indicated that the government’s popularity is on the wane and the ruling coalition has to get its act together if it is to prevent a further erosion of its vote bank. A provincial election may help gauge public mood, but a presidential election is a totally different ball game.

The UNP found a person who could take on the UPFA chief ministerial candidate Shashindra Rajapaksa from the ruling clan in the Uva Province. Former UNP MP Harin Fernando, who took up the challenge, did his party proud in the Badulla District, where he did not allow the UPFA to obtain 50 percent of votes vis-à-vis an all-out campaign by the government to score a steamroller majority. The UPFA was left without a majority of seats in that district—it obtained nine seats as against the UNP’s eight and the JVP’s one. That was no mean achievement for a young politician pitted against a powerful government.

Minister Susil Premjayantha has attributed the UPFA’s poor performance to its failure to field young candidates in Badulla. In other words, the UPFA had no one in the fray to overshadow, let alone dwarf, Harin. The same goes for Shasheendra, who was also without a formidable rival in the Moneragala District.

As for the next presidential election, the UNP’s problem, or that of the Opposition, will be to find someone to challenge President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The UNP has already decided to field its own presidential candidate, but whether any of its leaders is confident of taking on the President is the question.

The proponents of a joint opposition front to contest the next presidential election are painting the town red following the government’s poor show in Uva. But, ironically, the revival of the UNP has put paid to their efforts to cobble together a grand opposition alliance. For, unlike in 2010 the UNP’s bargaining power has increased and its performance in Uva has enabled it to demand from a position of strength that the common presidential candidate of the Opposition be one of its leaders and not an outsider. This time around, the UNP does not want to be pushed around.

A possible post-Uva scenario may be that the UNP gains considerable traction in national politics and perhaps succeeds in clawing its way to a position where it can induce defections from the SLFP. That was the method it adopted way back in 2001 to engineer the collapse of the Kumaratunga government. It is no longer smooth sailing for the government; the UPFA has drifted into choppy seas.

However, one shouldn’t be so naïve as to expect the next presidential contest to be evenly poised like the recent PC polls in Badulla. It will be a mistake for the Opposition to believe in its own rhetoric and be lulled into a false sense of complacency.