By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, March 18: Sri Lanka has so far witnessed eight Presidential elections. But in no previous election have we seen the kind of confusion prevailing among the main political parties in the run-up to a Presidential election.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe has not yet announced his candidacy, though the election is only six months away. He cannot think of entering the fray relying only on his United National Party (UNP).
After the three decades of Wickremesinghe’s leadership, the UNP is now at its weakest in its history. Wickremesinghe believes that his popularity among the people is gradually increasing as a result of the economic restructuring programme being carried out by his government with the help of the International Monetary Fund(IMF).
Moves by the President to forge a grand alliance ahead of his bid for the Presidency have not seen significant progress so far. He is relying entirely on a section of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP ) parliamentarians who defected from the Rajapaksas after the popular uprising the Aragalaya.
At the same time, the President is having talks with Rajapaksas also. It was reported that during their talks last week SLPP leaders Mahinda Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa were unable to take a final decision on forming an alliance. The Rajapaksa brothers are said to have vehemently objected to the President approaching the ministers and MPs of their party bypassing the leadership.
The Rajapaksas, who are not ready to understand the current extent of their support among the people, do believe that their party has the capacity to decide the future of Sri Lanka. They say whoever gets their support will become the next President.
As for the Rajapaksas, they must either come to power or ensure that someone who does not hold them accountable for the past mistakes comes to power.
Although it is widely believed that President Wickramasinghe will contest the presidential election with the support of the Rajapaksas, it cannot be said that their support will be of great benefit to him either. But both sides almost have no choice but to support each other.
On the other hand, as far as Wickramasinghe is concerned, he always has the option of avoiding contesting if he finds that there is no conducive situation for his victory.
The Janata Vimukti Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power ( NPP ), which is said to be at the forefront of popular support in the South has been carrying out its campaign with great enthusiasm and conviction. Important foreign powers are also paying attention to its leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who is seen as a front-runner for the Presidency. NPP leaders are talking about their future government’s plans as if they are forming the next government.
There is confusion within the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (United People’s Power – SJB) led by opposition leader Sajith Premadasa also. He is unable to keep many MPs of the party including chairman Sarath Fonseka who has been openly critical of him under his control.
Premadasa seems to be imitating the NPP in several political strategies, including inducting ex-army and police officers into the party and mobilizing women’s support across the country.
Though President Wickremesinghe has not yet announced his candidacy, it is widely expected that the Presidential election will be a three-way contest between him, Anura Kumara and Premadasa.
Candidates from many other parties are also likely to contest the election. It is noteworthy that as many as 35 candidates contested the 2019 presidential election.
Former President Maithripala Sirisena, the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), had earlier announced that he would also contest the Presidential election. But he hasn’t been talking about it in recent weeks.
The President of the United Republic Front (URF ) Champika Ranawaka has been meeting leaders of various parties including the President with his policy plan. He even said that he was ready to consider contesting as a common candidate if he was approached. It is unlikely that anyone will be fielded as common candidate of the opposition this time.
It is reported that many SLPP MPs want parliamentary elections to be held before the Presidential election. Basil Rajapaksa said in a television interview last week that people do not vote rationally when a parliamentary election is held after the Presidential election and if the parliamentary election is held first, there is a better chance for a balanced parliament.
This is a strange argument. When almost all the recent opinion polls showed clearly that it is impossible for any party to get an absolute majority in the next parliamentary elections, one is at a loss to understand as on what basis Basil Rajapaksa says that a strong government can be formed if the parliamentary elections are held before the Presidential one.
The President currently has the power to dissolve Parliament at any time. But it is not clear whether he would like to dissolve Parliament at the moment. A motion requesting the President to dissolve Parliament can be passed with a two-thirds majority. But with the ruling party lacking a two-thirds majority it is certain that the opposition will not support such a motion. Those parties are firm in their stance that the Presidential election should be held first.
Common Tamil Candidate
Meanwhile, an idea of fielding a Tamil common candidate has been floated in the Northern Province.
The leaders of the Democratic Tamil National Alliance, comprising five Tamil parties, have agreed in principle on the need for a Tamil common candidate. Politicians and observers have already commented on its pros and cons.
Even as 15 years have passed since the end of the civil war, the numerous humanitarian problems resulting from the conflict and the national ethnic problem have not been resolved. The argument presented to justify the idea of a Tamil common candidate is that the Presidential election should be used as a referendum in the Tamil North and East to tell the Sinhala South and the world about the current stance of the Tamil people regarding a solution to their problems.
A civil society organisation called ‘Makkal Manu’ (People’s Petition) has taken the initiative to take this idea among the Tamil people. Last week this organisation arranged a public seminar at Thanthai Chelva Art Gallery in Jaffna under the topic of ‘How to face the Presidential election?’.
Apart from the three political analysts who were invited to address the gathering, leaders of some Tamil parties also presented their views in this regard.
Since the Tamil people of the North and East have so far voted in Presidential elections mostly with the intention of defeating the Southern candidates they despised, the essence of the speeches of the analysts at the seminar was that the Tamil people should abandon the behaviour of voting in this way and treat it as a referendum using their votes to tell their present predicament to the world.
It was argued that the person who can be nominated as a common candidate should have no personal political ambitions. He should be an eminent figure in the society who enjoys the respect of the Tamil people of both provinces. That is, he will only be a symbol that will be used to tell the world about the political aspirations of the Tamil people today. It may be very difficult to find such a person in the Tamil community in the present context.
It cannot be expected that the Tamil people will be able to decide for themselves how to advance the next phase of their struggle for political rights or what kind of political solution to the ethnic problem should be found in the new internal and international political climate.
It requires a visionary political leadership with clarity of thought. It should have learnt proper lessons from past experiences. Such a leadership is absent among the Tamil people today.
While the Tamil polity is severely fragmented into various parties and groups with their leaders having different agendas, it should be understood that today’s Northern and Eastern Tamil community does not possess any characteristics of being a society that has gone through a three-decade of liberation struggle marked by great sacrifices.
Before thinking about a Tamil common candidate, the Tamil parties should come to a unified stance on the ways to find solutions to the immediate problems faced by the Tamil people and also on the short-term and long-term political solutions to the national problem.
Some Tamil politicians with extremist views have demanded for a long time that a referendum should be held to know the present opinion of the Tamil people regarding the national problem without a proper understanding of the exercise. There are those who asked that the referendum should include the Tamil Diaspora as well, but nobody heeded that.
In the end, the idea has been put forwarded that the Tamils themselves should think of the Presidential election as a referendum in the North and East.
The leaders of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF ) who put forward the demand for a separate state, used the July 1977 parliamentary elections to claim a mandate of the Tamil people and captured 18 seats in the North and East. Appapillai Amirthalingam became the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and made history as the first ever Opposition Leader from the Tamil community. History tells us what Tamil leaders could achieve with such a “mandate”.
In the absence of a clear unified stance by the Tamil parties to guide the Tamil people in a prudent way the attempt to field a Tamil common candidate would not only become a political farce but render the votes of the Tamil people meaningless. It will create the risk of undermining the legitimate political aspirations of the Tamil people.
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