(April 20, Colombo - Lanka Polity) The election result of Upcountry Badulla district of Sri Lanka proves the fact that the minorities may lose when they are divided.
Upcountry Tamils failed to win a single seat in Badulla district despite they have a considerable population there. This is notable in the context they have secured this seat since a long time and they had two seats in the previous parliament.
In 1994, Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) contested under United National Front (UNF) and both Wadiwel Suresh and M. Sachchiththananthan elected into parliament. Suresh joined the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party first. Later the CWC decided to support the government. Both Upcountry Tamil MPs were given Minister posts. Later Sachchiththananthan quitted quit the CWC and joined United National Party.
In 2010, Suresh contested under ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) while Sachchiththananthan contested under UNF ticket. Both lost.
In 2010, five Upcountry Tamils contested the election from two major coalitions. They are the above two persons and former MP T.V. Sennan and S.Chandramohan representing CWC in the UPFA and A. Velayuthan under UNF.
All five candidates failed to elect while all MPs elected from Badulla district are Sinhalese.
(April 10, Colombo - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka's election is almost finished. Thanks to President Mahinda Rajapaksa's henchmen Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Susantha Punchinilame, the results of Kandy and Trincomalee districts and the final result too is delayed. Re-polling for some stations costs millions of rupees to public coffers. Who cares? No wonder the culprits are rewarded with handsome portfolios.
The ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) swept into the parliament with a close to two third majority. But, they will need to buy several opposition MPs to achieve two third that they vie for a change of constitution.
Who will cross over? Monaragala district United National Front (UNF) MP Ranjith Madduma Bandara can be expected to d so since the UNF leadership campaigned to defeat him since he was accused of deforming the UNF nomination list.
The government has promised to slash the cabinet to 35 or 40 heads and half of the Ministers that are re-elected will have to remain as MPs in such situation. Can the government offer portfolios to opposition MPs to buy them in this context. On the other hand, the United National Party (UNP) block in the parliament appears a battle hardened one on which Opposition Leader Ranil Wickramasinghe has full control. MPs with dissident history like Gampaha district ex-MP Edward Gunawrdhana have lost seats. Deputy Karu Jayasuriya was overtaken by Wijaya newspaper company's media idol Ruwan Wijewardhana and soap opera actress Upeksha Swarnamali of Paba fame that has less than three months political experience in Gampaha district preferential votes. UNP President Rukman Senanayaka was saved since he shifted himself to the national list.
UNP has again proved that nobody is indispensable for the party. The highly ambitious dissidents like Milinda Moragoda, Rohitha Bogollagama and Mano Wijerathna lost their seats and they now risk their political future, giving a good lesson to those who have betrayal sentiments while UNP has secured around 50 seats amidst most unfavorable political conditions.
After all, Sri lankan polity has granted all that was needed by the ruling regime. The opposition also is too tired of the present electoral system and the executive presidency and they will definitely support a move by the regime to change it if is not primarily aimed at consolidating power of Mahind Rajapaksa himself. Not only the opposition, the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party stalwarts like Maithripala Sirisena, Nimal Siripala de Silva, Dallus Alahapperuma and even President's own brother Basil Rajapaksa will not support it whole heartedly.
Government has also pledged to commit to the development, good governance, alleviation of corruption and poverty. It is not standing on a very comfortable floor. But the prospects are ample if the government can sustain peace and political stability while developing a clear cut economic policy.
The people were lethargic to vote as a whole. Tamils were exceptional and the turnout in Jaffna, the heart of Tamil culture and Sinhala subjugation of it, was just above 20%. Tamils responded poorly to the military backed powerful campaign of the ruling UPFA that is led there by politico paramilitary leader Douglas Devananda. They did not overwhelmingly vote either for the Tamil National Alliance (Illankai Thamil Arasu Kachchi) that set forth a manifesto seeking a solution for the Tamil problem based on federalist principles. Jaffna Tamils outrightly rejected the All Ceylon Tamil Congress that fielded three ex-MPs, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, Gajendran and Pathmini Sidamparanathn that were more nationalist and more pro-Liberation Tigers as well in the time they were in the helm in Tamil polity.
The fate was pathetic for the pro-government groups that contested seperately like EPDP led by Devananda that contested for Wanni district, the Tamil United Liberation Front led by Ananda Sangaree, Eastern Chief Minister Sivanesathurai Chandrakanthan alias Pillaiyan's Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Puligal (TMVP) that contested for Batticaloa district and other politico paramilitary groups like PLOTE and EPRLF.
In Southern Sri Lanka the movement of the downtrodden rural masses, People's Liberation Front (JVP) and its breakaway pro-government National Freedom Front (JNP) were defeated humiliatingly. 15 pro-government ex-JNP MPs lost seats. They include the ex-JVP presidential candidate and Minister Nandana Gunatilaka who had joined the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. JNP leader who campaigned individually with the support of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa achieved highest number of preferential votes from Colombo district while Weerakumara Disanayaka was elected from Anuradhapura district.
All the JVP MPs sans Vijitha Herath, Sunil Handunnetti and Ajith Kumara were defeated. Jailed presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka and former cricket captain Arjuna Ranathunga were also elected from the Democratic National Alliance that was led by the JVP. They will have one more national list slot and will have to rise from ashes.
Sinhala Buddhist extremist Jathik Hela Urumaya leaders Champika Ranawaka and Athuraliye Rathana Thero were also elected to the parliament from the ruling coalition.
Upcoountry Tamil Ceylon Workers' Congress (CWC) leader Arumugam Thondaman was elected from Nuwaraeliya district with his two other collegues that contested from the Upcountry Tamil heartland district.
Colombo Tamils secured representation from Colombo district with the election of Praba Ganeshan, the brother of Mano Ganeshan. Mano is yet to be elected or not from Kandy district.
Sri Lankan Muslims have a sizeable representation in this parliament.
Old left has also won three seats while veteran leftist Vasudewa Nanayakkara was elected from Rathnapura district.
Sri Lankan polity has elected two persons from jail to parliament. They are NDA's Sarath Fonseka and Mathugama UNP organizer Palitha Thewarapperuma.
Many more persons that should have been jailed if there was law in the country have also been elected to 'represent' people.
It has taken less than six months for Sarath Fonseka’s relationship with Mahinda Rajapaksa to break down. One moment they were congratulating each other on their spectacular victory over the LTTE, and the next the former Army Commander was giving up his post as Chief of Defence Staff with invitations in hand from both the UNP and the JVP to run against the President in the upcoming election. They have gone from the closest of partnerships to what looks like developing into a bitter rivalry with very little in the way of warning.
The falling out has been so spectacular that the reasons behind it are now one of the hottest topics of debate in Colombo, and it is quite fascinating. We all love conspiracy theories.
Mahinda Rajapaksa hasn’t said much about it as yet, but Sarath Fonseka’s resignation letter claims that it all began with suspicions that he was planning to overthrow the Government. He was moved on in an unseemly hurry, it seems, and his recommendation of Major General Chandrasiri as a successor was overlooked. Various other unnecessary internal changes were made. The President simply didn’t trust him, he says. His Sinha Regiment was even removed from security duties at the Ministry of Defence.
I find this assertion pretty hard to believe. Coups just don’t happen in Sri Lanka.
The only attempt was made way back in 1962. That was around the time that French generals were plotting to overthrow the administration of Charles de Gaulle to stop him negotiating the end of colonial rule in Algeria. Nobody would dream of using that incident as a precedent to suggest that Nicolas Sarkozy could be in danger.
It was a different era. What happened fifty years ago has no bearing on the current situation.Sri Lanka is a committed democracy, whatever its other failings. People wouldn’t stand for a dictatorship, and budding Pinochets know it. They are too used to debate and demonstrations. Politics is in their blood. Despite three uprisings and seemingly endless years of fighting, nothing has changed. People still want to vote. However much they despair of the candidates who put themselves forward for election to Parliament, Provincial Councils and whatever other bodies are created, they remain engaged.
If there is any truth in what Sarath Fonseka says, I can only think that it comes from spending too much time in the company of the military leaders of other countries. Getting close to people who have used brute force to come to power might well have made the Government paranoid.
I started thinking about this gratuitous hanging out with despots a few weeks ago, when it was reported that a group of Sri Lankan judges were going off to work in Fiji. Like most people, I don’t know a great deal about that country, which is located at the other side of the world to where I come from and has a population only a bit larger than the city of Colombo. However, I do recall that it is under military rule.
Commodore Bainimarama is rather keen on coups. He has led two since he was appointed Commander of the Armed Forces in 1999. The first was barely a year later, in 2000, and the second in 2006, in which he despatched the Prime Minister he had helped into power earlier.
This doesn’t sound promising, and the situation actually turns out to be much worse. Finding out more about Fiji is somewhat of a challenge, seeing as the international media only bothers to report a couple of paragraphs on it every six months or so, usually reminding us that the country is probably going to disappear under the sea in another few decades, but that’s no excuse.
The reason Fiji needs Sri Lankan judges is that Commodore Bainimarama sacked the ones it had when they declared illegal the so-called interim administration that he has led as Prime Minister since the military takeover. At the same time, he abrogated the Constitution, declared a State of Emergency, sacked a bunch of senior bureaucrats he thought might not be so keen on his new plan of holding elections sometime in 2014 or thereabouts, and despatched the Police to newsrooms to censor any unfavourable stories.
That was several months ago. I am curious to find out what made him think of Mahinda Rajapaksa when he started looking for replacements.
As if this news about Sri Lanka propping up the regime in Fiji weren’t bad enough, only days later came an announcement about the visit of Senior General Than Shwe. This man has been in charge of Burma since 1992, taking over the reins of an administration that has been in the hands of the military for decades.
We know how enthusiastic they are about dissent. Their response to the various protests that have come up over the years has made their attitude to controlling the people only too clear.
The military had a brief and unproductive dalliance with elections in 1990, deciding to cancel them when the party they supported lost. The winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, is still under house arrest and will be ineligible to stand in the poll that the authorities currently intend to hold next year. This time they have made sure to reserve a quarter of the seats in the Parliament for themselves, and it remains to be seen whether they will allow the result to stand if they don’t like what emerges.
This story is too well known for me to waste any more space on the details, and not just because Burma is a sizeable country. It is a popular cause.
Mahinda Rajapaksa clearly knows about it, and I am not sure why he thought that it was a good idea to ask Senior General Than Shwe to tour the country and even meditate at the Sri Dalada Maligawa. He may not believe in interfering in the domestic affairs of Burma, but we aren’t talking about sanctions that would hurt its people. This is a case of the President going out of his way to help General Than Shwe, providing him with an opportunity to look acceptable and even a bit good. He is being projected as a guardian of Buddhism, of all things. Mahinda Rajapaksa didn’t have to do that. He could have neglected the invitation, as his predecessors did.
Amidst such characters, it is possible that the Government has lost sight of reality. It has certainly forgotten its principles.
I suspect that it is just as likely that the assertion was a ruse on the part of Sarath Fonseka to present his actions in a favourable light. It wouldn’t have looked good if he’d said things with Mahinda Rajapaksa had gone wrong simply because he’d let success go to his head. He comes across much better if he presents himself as wronged by the President and honourable to the last.
Conspiracy theories aren’t usually true, after all. I generally prefer to believe the most obvious explanation of a set of circumstances and not one that requires an unusually large serving of imagination.
This exchange gives us an indication of what is going to happen once the political battle kicks off in earnest, if Sarath Fonseka really is going to take up the challenge of running against the President. It will be ugly. He and Mahinda Rajapaksa will attack each other with as much determination as they demonstrated when their common target was Prabhakaran. What’s more, there is plenty of ammunition at hand. War makes for great horror stories. Meanwhile, the UNP and the JVP will sit back and enjoy the show, not really minding who comes out on top, just looking forward to facing a weakened UPFA in the next round. It is a bit sad.
(August 10, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Nobody seems astonished with the massive victory of the ruling united People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) at the Uva Provincial Council election. The 'democratic'way the Rajapakse regime conducts election campaigns manipulating public property as unlimited party resources is a blatant daylight robbery of public consent. However, it is unequivocal that the UPFA is popular enough to register a landslide victory in an election in south in the aftermath of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers even if the elections are conducted actually democratically. Government needs not only victory but also the destruction of the opponents.
Writing to the The Island today, Dr. Dayan Jayathilaka says, "While a municipal election does not usually qualify as historic, the elections to local authorities in Jaffna and Vavuniya certainly are. They are the first elections to be held in the centers of Tamil political life after the end of the Thirty Years War of secession with the conclusive defeat of the Tigers."
In fact, in relation to remarkable developments of Sri Lankan polity, the elections for the Jaffna Municipal Council and the Vavuniya Urban Council are far important than the Uva Provincial Council election. The ruling party conducted the election campaign in north in the same manner it did in Uva Province. Political repression under the state power prevails same throughout the island whilst a military pressure is added in north.
Expressing disappointment over the polls results to The Island, Ealam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) leader and Minister Douglas Devananda regretted their failure to take the Vavuniya Urban Council despite the ruling coalition implementing a range of measures to alleviate the sufferings of the people in the districts. The TNA had done absolutely nothing for them, he said adding that people should have been grateful to the UPFA for liberating them from LTTE terrorism.
EPDP initially opined to contest the Jaffna Municipal Council alone but had to join the UPFA umbrella due to pressure from the government. Media reported that over 100,000 people came to watch 'Apsaras' music band play in Jaffna with local and South Indian artistes in an election-eve pageant sponsored by the government. However, mere 22% of the voters, i.e. 22,280, turned up for voting on August 08. Of them, less than 50%, 10,602, voted to the ruling UPFA.
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) that the government claims partially responsible for the misery of the Tamils obtained 8080 votes to become second in Jaffna. TNA recorded an outright win in Vavuniya where People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Ealam (PLOTE) placed second and the ruling UPFA fell to third place.
Now, various individuals are analyzing this election result according to their political agendas. Yet, one obvious point is that the regime that praises itself of freeing the Tamils from the grip of the terrorism is defeated among the same 'liberated' masses while the TNA that is branded as a paw of the defeated Tamil rebels is still powerful in a context their former mentor is no more.
The feeble voice raised by the defeated Tamils via TNA, PLOTE, Ananda sangaree who elected to the Jaffna Municipal Council from Tamil United Liberation Front and even the EPDP that helped UPFA to win Jaffna is not the one that the Rajapakse regime wants.
The signal given to India by Tamils through this election is significant in political future of Sri Lanka.
(July 23, 2009 - Lanka Polity) Sri Lanka Minister of Women's Affairs Sumedha G. Jayasena represents Monaragala district, one of the poorest areas of the island.
The district is in the Uva Province and the election for the Provincial Council is to be held on August 08. Although Mrs. Jayasena, a powerful politician in Monaragala district, is the Minister of Women's Affairs the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) nomination list represents no women.
Interestingly enough, the Minister herself is urging for 33% women's representation in parliament.
However, she has fielded several male relations in the UPFA nomination list.
Not only the UPFA, the opposition United National Party (UNP) that speaks progressively about women's rights and the Marxist People's Liberation Front (JVP) that accepts equality of women have failed to field any female candidate in their nomination lists.
