By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, October 5: Sri Lankan political parties have been forced to prepare for the parliamentary elections before the exhaustion of campaigning for the presidential election is over. The new President, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, dissolved parliament the day after taking office and called a general election, as he had promised the people during the election campaign. The process of accepting nominations, which began on October 4, will be completed on October 11. The election will be held on November 14.
President Dissanayake will ask the people who elected him to give him a resounding victory in the parliamentary elections also to form a strong National People’s Power (NPP ) government to facilitate the continuation of his rule. There are those who, judging by how the people voted in the Presidential election, predict that it will be impossible for the NPP to gain an absolute majority in parliament. The votes of the three main candidates in the Northern and Eastern provinces will not be available to their parties in the parliamentary elections. So these estimates are not very accurate. Also, the same factors do not fully influence both national polls.
Although President Dissanayake did not win fifty percent of the vote, people voted for a change. The people who identified Dissanayake as the candidate for change and made him victorious will certainly expect him to form a stable government and give enough support to him to fulfil his promises. In parliamentary elections, people usually vote for the party that wins the Presidential election. This time, the chances of the NPP getting more votes in the parliamentary elections cannot be ruled out.
It was widely believed that it would be impossible for Dissanayake, who received 3.16% of the vote in the 2019 Presidential election, to make a giant leap to 50% to win the Presidential election this time. But Dissanayake, who said that politics was not mathematics but social science, remained a firm believer in his victory based on the growing support for NPP in the country at large. It is no exaggeration to say that no previous political leader in Sri Lanka has achieved what President Dissanayake did two weeks ago.
Some observers even describe his victory within five years as unprecedented, not only in Sri Lanka but also in other parts of the world, with a 14-fold jump in the percentage of votes he received in the previous presidential election. President Dissanayake is also credited with showing that a left-wing party could win the election without the old vehicle of the United Front. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party ( SLFP ) could only form coalition governments with leftist parties against the United National Party (UNP) which was the single largest party in the last century. The SLFP has never contested elections on its own. And the old left-wing parties relied on an alliance with the SLFP to gain parliamentary representation. It is a milestone in Sri Lankan politics that today that the NPP has become a force that can stand alone and win elections when all those leftist parties have become history.
There can be different opinions about the policies of NPP. That’s a different thing. But here the focus is on its electoral performance only. It is no longer appropriate to call the UNP, the SLFP or the Rajapaksas’ Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) as the main parties in Sri Lanka. They are not likely to have a significant impact on the country’s politics in the current scenario. Gone are days when other parties came in search of these parties to form alliances, now leaders of these ‘main parties ‘ are running in search of other parties.
However, no other party is ready to align with them. Today we are witnessing a new political landscape with the NPP as the ruling party and the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) led by Sajith Premadasa as the main opposition party. Immediately after the announcement of parliamentary elections, former President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP called for an alliance with the SJB. But Premadasa declined the invitation. Some leaders of the SJB claimed that they were ready to take over the UNP under Premadasa if Wickremesinghe stepped down as its leader. Although Wickremesinghe has announced that he will no longer contest elections, he cannot be expected to relinquish the leadership of the party any time soon. It seems that the leaders of the SJB put forward a condition that he could not agree to.
Former Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, leader of the Mahajana Ekshath Peramuna (MEP), and a few others have decided to contest the parliamentary elections under a different symbol and the People’s United Freedom Alliance (PUFA ) as their party. A group politicians earlier belonged some parties, including the SLPP, which supported Wickremesinghe in the Presidential election, have said they will contest the parliamentary elections under the Gas Cylinder symbol. Eventually, the UNP and other groups will have to contest under this symbol.
Those who deserted the Rajapaksas and joined Wickremesinghe could not get him a substantial number of votes in the Presidential election. The election results clearly showed that just as the Rajapaksas had lost their support among the people, those who with them earlier were also discarded by the people. Meanwhile, some former ministers have decided not to contest the parliamentary elections. UNP deputy leader Ruwan Wijewardene and assistant leader Akila Viraj Kariyawasam also did not want to contest the election. All of them were only hoping for Wickremesinghe’s victory in the Presidential election for their political prospects. When he failed, their hopes were shattered.
The disarray within the opposition creates a favourable political situation for the NPP. President Dissanayake seems to have stumped the opposition parties by announcing parliamentary elections in a short time. Therefore, this time the people have got a wonderful opportunity to elect people to Parliament who are concerned about maintaining cleanliness in public life and giving priority to the interests of the people. All the political parties that were in power are full of corrupt politicians. Those parties can’t exclude the majority of them and appoint completely new candidates.
The NPP will certainly be keen on fielding young candidates with good education and concern for the interests of the people. They have no difficulty in identifying such new candidates as they have not been in power so far.So, other parties may also be forced to field new faces. But the NPP is in a much more advantageous position in this regard than other parties.
In general, people see politicians as unscrupulous. No one will ever forget that during the popular uprising two years ago, people demanded not only the Rajapaksas and those with them, but also 225 members of parliament go home. Politics today is an easy way for accumulating wealth in a very short period of time. People can certainly use the upcoming parliamentary elections as a step towards changing that ugly political culture.
Meanwhile, the Tamil political parties in the North and East continue to divided while talking loudly about the unity of the Tamil people. There is no discipline in any party. Tamil people are confused as to who is talking about the real stand of the parties. Hardly two weeks have passed after the Presidential election, contradictions have emerged within the so called civil society cum political formation the Tamil National General Structure which had fielded the Tamil common Presidential candidate to convey the current political stand of the Sri Lankan Tamils to the South and the international community. Some groups and money bags among the Tamil diaspora are corrupting the politics of the North and East in a perverse desire to control Sri Lankan Tamil politics.
There is a danger that the North and East Tamils may not have a solid representation in the next parliament. People are disgusted with Tamil politicians who are simply chanting ultra-nationalist slogans without adopting any concrete approach or strategy. Just as people in the South have begun to reject traditional political parties and leaders, a rejection is also needed in the North and East. It is no secret that a section of the Tamil population has started thinking about voting for NPP candidates in the parliamentary elections as a change.
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