Electing Obama & Selecting Sampanthan
By Dinesh D. Dodamgoda –September 4, 2015
Dinesh Dodamgoda
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader Mr. R. Sampanthan was selected as the Leader of the Opposition in the Sri Lankan Parliament by the Speaker, Mr. Karu Jayasuriya. The position of the Leader of the Opposition is traditionally held by the leader of the largest party in the opposition in a Westminster system of Parliamentary government.
There is no doubt that leading the opposition by a minority Tamil leader in a country which has a Sinhala-Buddhist majority is a victory of Pluralism. However, is it really a victory of pluralism similar to electing Mr. Barak Obama as the President of the United States by the American democracy?
Mr. Obama was elected by the majority of American voters. It was an absolute victory of American democracy and pluralism. Therefore, the American society had a legitimate reason to celebrate their victory without any hesitation. However, when selecting Mr. Sampanthan, the leader of the TNA that has 16 seats in Parliament, to lead the opposition in Sri Lanka a consent was not obtained from the largest Party in the opposition, the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). In fact, 57 UPFA opposition MPs nominated a different candidate for the position of the Leader of the Opposition and it was not considered when selecting Mr. Sampanthan as the Leader of the Opposition by the Speaker. The reason was that the nomination was not delivered to the Speaker by the leader of the UPFA, President Maithripala Sirisena who promised democracy to the nation, in a deliberate move to allow Mr. Sampanthan to be selected as the Leader of the Opposition.
Selecting Mr. Sampanthan, therefore, as the Leader of the Opposition in Sri Lanka is neither a victory of democracy nor a victory of pluralism. Hence, the Sri Lankan society has no legitimate reason to celebrate Mr. Sampanthan’s appointment as the way that the American democracy celebrated electing Mr. Obama as the President of the United States of America.