“In all three cases, the LTTE was the natural suspect, though it did not acknowledge the same – not at least in the early hours. If they occurred despite the last-minute call of the LTTE-sympathetic Tamil Nationalist Alliance (TNA), for the voters in the East to defeat the ruling SLFP-UPFA combine – as against the LTTE's boycott-diktat in the presidential polls of 2005 – the contradiction did not end there. Definitely, these were not seen as much of an intimidation as the acts attributed to the TMVP and the rest of the ruling combine.”_____________________
by N. Sathiya Moorthy
(May 12, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) At the end of the day, the results of the Provincial Council polls in the East have gone on predictable – and predicated – lines. The ruling SLFP-UPFA at the national-level has won a 'convincing' 20 seats in a total of 37. That includes the bonus two seats, which alone has ensured that the combine reached the 'magic figure' of 19 seats required for absolute majority. This also means that the UPFA cannot blame perceptions of inefficiency and intolerance on the absence of a House majority as at the national-level. The alliance sought a mandate, and they have got it. It is now for them to prove that they are worth the mandate, after all.
The elections in the East are not only about the winners and losers, the choice of Chief Minister and all that, though all these things do matter in political and realistic terms. The choice of the Chief Minister, unlike in the case of the ruling UNP-led combine, can be as divisive in this case, but can sow seeds of discontent, if not outright dissent, if it is not handled with care. Balancing the Government's majority in the Provincial Council, as now in the national Parliament, could then become a political pre-occupation. Plotting the defeat of the political administration in turn too could become a pre-occupation of the Opposition. The attraction that the East may have in this regard could be next only to the one in Parliament.
It is sad that so much of rancour has attended on what should have been an occasion for political and societal reconciliation, beginning with the East. The fact that the Government had been able to conduct the elections as promised should have been a victory for President Mahinda Rajapaksa. But his party too seemed caught in the quagmire of day-to-day politics of the kind that did not bring anyone any laurels.
The very fact that the polls became possible and that the Government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has kept its word on this promise, as a 'Prelude' to reviving Province-centric power-devolution, as outlined in the Thirteenth Amendment and the APRC process cannot be gainsaid, however. The Government has also kept its word on a related front. Coinciding with the elections to the Eastern Provincial Council, it has nominated a three-member Advisory Council of sorts for running the affairs of the Northern Province. In a way, it is a departure from the promise of an interim Provincial Council for the North, pending the end of war and installation of a popular government of some kind.
For one thing, it is doubtful if the proposal for an interim Provincial Council, whatever be the motive and composition, would have passed a legal and judicial test, if it came to that. It cannot afford to go the way the much-acknowledged decision on the North-East merger went. Significantly, the absence of a separate Provincial Council for the North could still keep hopes of re-merger alive, if that is what may be among the pre-conditions for reviving the political process for finding a negotiated settlement to the ethnic crisis.
All this does not mean that the violence and violations attending on the Provincial Council elections in the East could be glossed over. That the incidents of intimidation and electoral violence were predictable under the testing times in which the polls were being held could not be cited to condone such acts. However, there is no denying the fact that 'post-war polls' in conditions such as those prevailing in the East have not produced anything better elsewhere, either. Iraq and Afghanistan are standing examples.
It is possible that electoral violations could have been worse had it not been for an active polity, assertive civil society and alert media. To the extent that they were able to chronicle the incidents and approach the higher judiciary for relief would show that the hopes of democracy have not died down in the East. Credit in particular should be given to the national leaderships of every political party and combine that took the Eastern polls seriously and invested their time and energy – which went on to make the democratic process itself a more-than-limited-success, independent of the election results.
Maybe, thereby hangs a tale, as well. It is one thing for the political Opposition to blame the party in power and its allies, new and old, for committing electoral malpractices of all perceivable and imaginable kinds. But it is another matter altogether if the media and the civil society are divided in matters such as this. That is what however seems to have happened in this case.
Suffice thus is to point out that in this particular instance even self-appointed election watch-dogs found themselves on either side of the political-divide, and aspersions came to be cast as much on their motives as on the alleged authors of election violations. If the question stopped with how free and fair the elections were – and not as to how much violations that either side committed – the reasons had to be sought elsewhere. The critics could not take the credit for the same.
It was possibly thus that the poll-eve blast in a coffee shop in Ampara, followed by a mortar-fire in the district during election-hours got reported as a part of the continuing war on the Sri Lankan State, and not necessarily on the democratic process that was backing in motion, however haltingly. Even more so was the reports on the Trincomalee blast that sunk 'mv Invisible', the Sri Lankan Navy ship.
In all three cases, the LTTE was the natural suspect, though it did not acknowledge the same – not at least in the early hours. If they occurred despite the last-minute call of the LTTE-sympathetic Tamil Nationalist Alliance (TNA), for the voters in the East to defeat the ruling SLFP-UPFA combine – as against the LTTE's boycott-diktat in the presidential polls of 2005 – the contradiction did not end there. Definitely, these were not seen as much of an intimidation as the acts attributed to the TMVP and the rest of the ruling combine.
That way, the absence of violent acts of the kind witnessed in Ampara and Trincomalee, in the Tamil-majority Batticaloa district around election time too not have gone unnoticed. So did the equally independent low voter-turn out of 55 per cent in Batticaloa, as against 60 per cent in Trincomalee and 65 per cent in Ampara. If observers on the scene, and the national polity headquartered in Colombo did not find the time to comment on the nature of intimidation that such incidents entailed, it may be that they were pre-occupied with the polls and overwhelmed by the intimidation of the TMVP-UPFA kind. Ironically though, it is their engrossment with the polls could well become the yardstick for the civil society's pre-occupation with the return of the democratic process in the East.
Poll malpractices have existed all through in democratic history, but this time round in Sri Lanka, it took a new and unacceptable turn. The LTTE's poll-boycott call of 2005 did not accompany any claims to democracy. That is not the case at present. If not nipped in the bud, intimidation and elections of the kind could well make a farce of the political system.
Independent of this and with the long-term in mind, it may be time the Legislature and the legal processes in the country took a closer look at repeated charges of malpractices that attend on every round of elections anywhere in the country. Elsewhere in the democratic world, schemes and systems have been put in place for checking against electoral abuse of the political and administrative machinery that are at the disposal of whoever is in power at any given time.
Otherwise, the Provincial Council elections in the East have thrown up both opportunities and challenges. The opportunities are for the national polity, starting with the Sri Lankan State and the Government in power, to deliver on the hopes that they have kindled on a political solution to the ethnic crisis. The majority community needs the 'peace dividend' accruing from the political process, as much as the victimised minority communities do.
The challenges flowing from these elections are for the society in the East to tackle. They got divided on community lines, as Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese, at least in the perception of political leaderships that often operated out of Colombo. The polity at the national-level has a limited time and even more of a limited agenda. It is thus left to the emerging political administration in the East to apply the soothing balm for reconciliation at all levels of the provincial population.
It is not about who becomes Chief Minister, or which community gets the best of ministerial berths. Instead, it is all about what such of those elected to power have done for their constituents as a whole at the end of their term. Such a vision could help political leaderships transcend communal divides, which are a burden, not a boon. That is a tall task, but measuring up to it is what would make or break future leaderships in the East – positioning them in turn for better tasks at higher levels.
For President Rajapaksa and his Government, the post-poll era signals an opportunity for them to redeem the pledge it gave themselves, for ushering in unprecedented development in the East and the North. What the East now requires is development of the kind that could facilitate rapid industrialisation, and with that faster jobs-creation. The rest of it all could, and should wait. That includes the internecine political war with the UNP rival at the national-level, and the military war with the LTTE – both of which the ruling party at the Centre can now approach with greater confidence.
For their part, the likes of Minister Champika Ranawaka, who was prompt in hailing the UPFA's election victory as a defeat for 'Eelamists, backed by the West', should know better. His heritage-campaign that both the Tamils and Muslims in the East tend to see as a revival of the dreaded 'Sinhala colonisation' process, can only divide the community even more. It cannot help the larger Sinhala cause, which Sri Lanka as a nation, has been finding out for itself over the past decades and more.
(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), the Indian policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. The article originally published in Dailly Mirror , a Colombo based daily is reproduced with the Author's permission.)
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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