By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, December 9 (newsin.asia): There are only about three weeks left for the new year to dawn. And exciting possibilities are in store for Sri Lanka if national elections are held next year as President Ranil Wickremesinghe has repeatedly said.
On December 8, he said that his plan was to hold a Presidential election next year, followed by parliamentary elections and then provincial council elections. By doing so he will have an opportunity to consider amending the constitution or drafting a new constitution.
However, mainstream political parties appear to be less enthusiastic than in the past when it comes to elections.
Even though President Wickremesinghe makes frequent announcements about elections, he refuses to say whether he will run for the Presidency or not. He says he will decide only after stabilizing the economy.
As for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), its leaders are saying that they will win any election, but the reality is otherwise, and that is known to them. The Rajapaksas’ popular support base has shrunk further after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling last month that the three Rajapaksa brothers were responsible for last year’s economic crisis.
Aware of the implications of the ruling, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa released a statement two weeks ago with a staggering number of statistics listing his regime’s economic achievements.
Observers say that the report shows the signature of Ajith Nivard Cabraal, former Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, one of those named in the Supreme Court judgment as being responsible for the economic crisis.
The gist of Rajapaksa’s statement is that he left behind a robust economy when he stepped down in 2015 January and that the policies of the successor Maithiripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe government were the main reason for the collapse of the economy.
Mahinda’s assertion at the end of the statement was that people should not repeat the mistake they made in January 2015. This ‘advice’ was meant to bring the Rajapaksas back to power.
As for the Rajapaksas, they either need to return to power or ensure that a government that does not hold them accountable for their misdeeds comes to office. Their strategies will be based on that. Therefore, no clear announcements are coming from them yet.
The National People’s Power (NPP) an outfit composed of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP). It is a political movement that speaks with great confidence and enthusiasm about the elections. Its leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, is seen in the political arena as a leading candidate in the next Presidential election. He has been dominating the media.
In this context, it is significant that President Wickremesinghe said in the middle of this year at the National Law Conference of the Sri Lanka Bar Association in Nuwara Eliya, that the majority of the country’s people, including the youth, have lost faith not only in elections but also in the party system. The votes that parties get together will not exceed fifty percent of the total electorate, he said.
All recent opinion polls have shown that the NPP/JVP is ahead in popular support. The latest poll conducted in October, showed that Dissanayake’s popular support was high enough to secure more than fifty percent of the votes needed to win the Presidential election.
Dissanayake got 51 percent; opposition leader Sajith Premadasa 30 percent, President Wickremesinghe 13 percent and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s potential candidate 6 percent of the popular vote.
However, foreign embassies, international organizations and think tanks in Colombo appear to have doubts about the reliability of this poll, which was conducted in Colombo and the provinces with a limited sample. There may be a difference between what people say to opinion pollsters and how they actually vote. Many elections can be cited as examples of this dichotomy.
However, some observers say that considering the political mindset that can be seen among Sri Lankans as a result of the economic and political crises and hatred towards the traditional political parties that is voiced, it will not be surprising if people vote according to the findings of the opinion poll.
In an extensive interview to ‘Sunday Times’ last week it was pointed out to Anura Kumara Dissanayake that the National People’s Power got only 3.1 percent of the vote in the November 2019 Presidential election and that if he wants to win the next Presidential election, his party’s votes should increase by 1500 percent.
Dissanayake responded saying: “Politics is not mathematics, it is social science. It may seem mathematically unrealistic to increase votes like that. But according to social science, it is possible.”
Looking at the electoral history of the JVP, it has had a vote bank of between 3 lakh and 5 lakh on an average. Given such a position, will the people of the country support the JVP/NPP enough to give more than fifty percent of the votes in the Presidential election? Will Dissanayake’s social science make such a dramatic change in the voting pattern of Sri Lankans next year?
No matter how many candidates run in the Presidential election, the real race will be between the two main candidates. The third candidate and those behind him or her get very few votes. We have, so far, seen candidates of the JVP coming a distant third with a negligible number of votes.
However, the rise of the JVP/NPP to power cannot be ruled out in the distant future. Regardless of the outcome of the Presidential election next year, the JVP/NPP is bound to grow as the traditional political parties continue to fail in the task of governance. Sri Lanka’s political landscape might begin to change noticeably after the next national elections.
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