Electoral dynamics in Sri Lanka

"The UNP, as a political party with a fairly strong traditional rural base has declined due to the failure of its leadership to give a proper direction to the party. Its leader is emulating the characteristics of a European Party Leader whereas President Rajapaksa has been able to successfully project his personality on the basis of the exclusive characteristics of the Sri Lankan polity and the Sri Lankan political culture."
______________

By Prof. Wiswa Warnapala

(October 20, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) The recent Provincial Council Elections, especially the latest Provincial Council Election in the South, demonstrated that President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has emerged the ruler imperative of Sri Lanka, because of the following main changes taking place in the electoralism in Sri Lanka.

His style of leadership and his populist approach shows that he is displaying the characteristics of such great leaders as Nehru of India and Jhon F. Kennedy of U.S.A., in appealing to the general masses in this sense, his appeal and approach to the rural masses is very much Nehruvian in character and orientation. Through such a style of leadership, he has successfully articulated the aspirations of the ordinary people, and the election in the South demonstrated this feature.

Since the introduction of the adult suffrage in 1931, the Sri Lankan polity was allowed to grow on the basis of the Parliamentary institutions of Government which were then in an infancy stage. Political parties grew into a competitive, multi-party system and till 1977, it was this structure which dominated the electoral process in Sri Lanka. During 1948-1977, there were only seven political parties in the country, and they have been formed on the basis of a national political agenda.

This multi-party structure later came to be divided into two sets of coalitions associated with the two major parties - the UNP and the SLFP, and it provided the State with comparative political stability. This was available within the legislature as well. In other words, the multi-polity structure gave birth to a system of two coalitions of parties, and discouraged the growth of mushroom political parties, with regional and parochial agendas.

Today as a result of the introduction of the PR system, the whole party process and the electoral process came to be submerged by a new kind of electrolism that destroyed the foundations and traditions of multi-party democracy. J.R. Jayawardene introduced a Constitution which was tailor-made to his personal ambitions of political power. It was he who introduced the PR form of representation with a view to keeping the UNP in power forever, and that was the basis on which they constructed the new electoral system which, in the end, inaugurated a period of manipulative electoral politics.

The architects of the Constitution going on the basis of the previous polling patterns in the country and the way the two major parties - the UNP and SLFP shared the national votes in the country, were under the illusion that through the PR system, the UNP could remain in power forever. There were leading lawyers and academics who accepted this thesis, whereas in my own writings, I refused to accept this thesis, and always contended that the nature and functioning of the PR would undergo the transformation of electoral dynamics in the country’s polity.

Now, the past Provincial Council elections amply demonstrated that UNP’s philosophy relating to the nature of the PR system has gone overboard and fundamental electoral transformations are taking place. The last election in the South reduced the UNP to the level of a minor political party, and the gap between the Alliance and the UNP was such, that UNP’s political base has been virtually eliminated, and the impossible two - third has now been realized, because the electoral dynamics did the required overturn. A new transformation has now begun.

Political parties which emerged with destructive regional and parochial communal agendas have been thrown into the dustbin of history. The very thesis of the UNP that more and more parties would emerge and return to the national scene through the PR has been unfounded. That thesis relating to multi parties has been demolished. This shows that the time is right to change the electoral system in Sri Lanka and the very signal has come from the people through the constantly changing electoral dynamics in Sri Lanka.

The UNP, as a political party with a fairly strong traditional rural base has declined due to the failure of its leadership to give a proper direction to the party. Its leader is emulating the characteristics of a European Party Leader whereas President Rajapaksa has been able to successfully project his personality on the basis of the exclusive characteristics of the Sri Lankan polity and the Sri Lankan political culture.

This has been Rajapaksa’s strong point, and he has come to terms with national political comments which got debilitated in the last 30 years due to destructive terrorism which has now been defeated. The UNP, as the main opposition party, is in steep decline due to internal conflicts and the Alliance has emerged as the most powerful political force in the country under an effective and astute leader, who has understood the feelings and aspirations of a nation.

-Sri Lanka Guardian