Implications of the Northern election verdict

By Jehan Perera

(August 11, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The just completed local government elections in Jaffna and Vavuniya were the first in a long while to take place in those northern towns. The last occasion on which municipal elections were held in Jaffna was in 1999, while in Vavuniya it was even further back in 1994. At that time the LTTE was active and the elections were conducted in an environment fraught with tension and potential for violence. By way of contrast, the elections on August 8, 2009 were conducted in a peaceful manner that evoked memories of a bygone era before the armed Tamil militancy took the upper hand in the North.

The Northern elections defied expectations by being virtually incident free. Initially there was an expectation that these elections could follow the pattern of the elections in the East in 2007. At those elections the LTTE’s breakaway Karuna group renamed TMVP was liberal in its use of violence, intimidating candidates, voters and election officials alike. The government’s security forces rarely intervened to enforce the law. But at the recently concluded Northern elections the situation was different. Perhaps this reflects the aberrant nature of the LTTE period, which held an entire society in the thrall of violence.

Some of the contesting Tamil political parties retained paramilitary forces to protect themselves from the LTTE, but also had a reputation for using their weapons to intimidate and coerce the civilian population. Credit must be given to the leaders of these parties for ensuring that their cadre who retained their arms restrained themselves to practice non-violent politics. Perhaps they had the political sense to realize that they could not aspire to be mainstream leaders of the Tamil people if they continued to engage in intimidation and coercion. As a result the verdict at the polls is likely to reflect the sentiments of the Northern electorate at this point of time, despite shortcomings.

One such shortcoming at the Jaffna elections was the utilization of an electoral register that had not been properly updated. As a result although the electoral register led to the issuance of 100,747 polling cards, only 54,000 of them could be delivered. It is likely that the balance is not living any longer in Jaffna. The bloated figure in the electoral register also gives rise to the impression of a lower participation rate in the election than is actually warranted. The 18 percent participation figure was based on a non-existent electorate of a 100,000 when in reality the amount of voters was half of that. This would approximately double the effective voter participation rate.

Identity politics

Even at the Vavuniya elections the turnout was 49 percent which is low by Sri Lankan standards and suggests that northern voters felt a considerable alienation from the electoral process. It could mean that they did not believe that voting would make a difference to their lives, or they were not impressed by the choice of parties and candidates before them. The election results themselves suggest that Tamil identity politics remains a potent force that the government will need to address by consensual political means rather than by arbitrary imposition. Ironically the very day the northern election results were announced, the media carried a story that the government was planning to ban political parties that espoused ethnic or religious causes.

The election results should warn the government that it needs to repair its relations with the Tamil people. In Vavuniya, the government got less than 25 percent of the vote from an electorate that included Sinhalese voters as well. Most of the balance went to Tamil parties that espoused Tamil rights-based causes, with the TNA which the government projected as an LTTE proxy coming first. In Jaffna, the government got slightly more than 50 percent of the vote, but it must be remembered that the government alliance was spearheaded by Douglas Devananda who made it clear that he wanted to contest under his own party banner of the EPDP. It was the government’s arm twisting that caused him to contest under the government’s umbrella.

In an initial comment after the elections, Mr Devananda was quoted by the Island as having regretted the government alliance’s failure to win in Vavuniya "despite having implemented 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 the LTTE. He expressed surprise that the people backed the TNA, despite it being partly responsible for causing them untold misery."

As a minister in the central government, Mr Devananda has had to be deferential to government policy. But as a leader of the Northern people he will be under pressure to reflect Tamil aspirations. In fact he has consistently, and over a long period of time, stood for more devolution of power to the Northern and Eastern provinces. As a minister of the government, Mr Devananda has sought to focus on the provision of economic development and social welfare benefits to his constituencies. But now that his party has been successful in delivering electoral victory to the government in the key opinion forming town of Jaffna, he may be better positioned to push his case for greater devolution of power and earn more respect from the people.

Contrary patterns

During this local government election there was a subtle message and implied threat that economic and social benefits currently obtained from the government, such as keeping the seas open for fishing, might be lost unless the government won the elections in Jaffna. The opening up of the northern seas to fishing after many years of tight restrictions has been a boon that few in Jaffna would be willing to lose. In addition, there have been new infrastructure development projects that have brought employment opportunities to many. The government’s victory in Jaffna could encourage more efforts in this direction, which would be a boon to the war weary people, and could help to nudge them away from a costly course of confrontation with the government.

On the other hand, the relatively strong performance by the TNA suggests that the focus on economic development by itself will be insufficient to satisfy the Tamil electorate. As a party that was identified as an LTTE proxy, the TNA campaigned at great risk to themselves. During the period of the war, three TNA parliamentarians were assassinated. The TNA did not contest the local and provincial elections in the East in 2007 for fear of their lives. This time too there was doubt whether they would contest the northern elections. By contesting they proved that they continue to be a force to reckon with, coming first in Vavuniya and second in Jaffna on a platform of Tamil identity, rights and autonomy.

It is worth noting that the government’s poor performance in Vavuniya occurred in the context of nearly 300,000 Tamil civilians being incarcerated in welfare camps behind barbed wire fences that are guarded by the Sri Lankan army. The contrast between the government’s electoral performance in the North and South is also instructive. In the Uva Provincial Council election held on the same day, the government secured a massive victory and obtained over 70 percent of the vote from a predominantly Sinhalese electorate. Therefore it can be seen that the ethnically different electorates in the North and South have responded in a contrary manner to the government.

Those who believe in the power of economic development and legislation to ban the use of ethnic and religious party names to overcome ethnic sentiments may be making a mistake. When an entire ethnic community feels itself to be unfairly treated, no amount of economic development is going to diminish their sense of nationalism. The message from the northern elections is that victory in war, and economic development after the war, is not sufficient to politically unite the country. Neither is legislation or empty rhetoric that does away with minority labels going to make a difference. There needs to be a political solution, and the Tamil position reflected in the outcome of the Northern elections is that there should be the devolution of power.

-Sri Lanka Guardian