News Update - 20051111
*** Topic: Implications of the Nov. 17, 2005 presidential elections ***
Yesterday, an important event occurred in the news, although it is not as unexpected as some would like to think. The MPs belonging to the TNA consulted with the LTTE (as has been their growing practice in the past couple of years), and they publicly announced their stance on the upcoming elections: they support neither candidate. Neither Ranil W. nor Mahinda Rajapakse will seriously take up the cause of Tamils, they said. For the past month, the LTTE has been stating that very same opinion periodically. And the period of the past 3.5 years of the ceasefire, as well as the 7 years of brutal war prior to that, have fully proved their point.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=16298
Although the entire history of Sri Lanka as an independent country is full of examples of Sinhala politicians flip-flopping back and forth to promise the most to the Sinhalese at the expense of the Tamils (which has recently been given a term: "ethnic outbidding"), even the past 10 years contain within them a full cycle of such unprinicpled political opportunism. The first 7 years of Chandrika Kumaratunga's period as president was the period that saw the bloodiest flighting of the war. The atrocities committed under her reign were enough to establish a mutual animosity between herself and the LTTE that will be nearly impossible to forgive, much less forget. She also established an image of herself as the protector of Sinhalese Buddhists, anti-LTTE, and militaristic, even celebrating the capture of Jaffna in 1995 in the style of Sinhalese kings of yore. By the end of that period, in 2001, the government has lost much of its military gains, and then some. The government's economy (GDP output) actually contracted in 2001 -- unheard of in modern times. For the Dec. 2001 parliamentary elections, Ranil campaigned on a very pro-peace platform. Thus, the elections were projected as a vote for peace or war. Due to the ceasefire signed two months later, and CBK's continual intransigence since the ceasefire was signed, Ranil has maintained his image as pro-peace.
In the Apr. 2004 parliamentary elections, CBK's SLFP party joined hands with the extremist JVP and ran on an openly anti-ceasefire platform. Ranil's UNP party campaigned on the continuance of his peace efforts. The TNA, with the guidance of the LTTE, turned the elections into a referendum for the Thamil people on their support for the LTTE and its ISGA proposals. The Sinhalese politicians similarly claimed that the election was also a referendum among Sinhalese for their stance on the peace process. The SFLP-JVP coalition defeated the UNP's coalition, while the TNA won a landslide in the NorthEast of the island. As a result of those elections, it became clear to the international community the strength of support the LTTE has from the Tamil people. (The response to the Dec. 2004 tsunami served somehwat as a test of the LTTE's committment to the Tamil-speaking people.) The victory of the SLFP-JVP over the UNP signalled that among the Sinhalese voters, who are almost all in the South and who vote almost all for Sinhalese candidates, that taking forward the peace process was no longer their number one priority as it was for them in 2001.
However, the presidential elections are different. Instead of district-wise results that can elect a proportional number of parliamentarians, all of the reuslts are polled island-wide, and whoever wins a simple majority (more than 50%) becomes the president. Even overestimating the Tamil vote as 15-20%, it would still not be nearly enough to vote a Tamil person as president, but enough to influence the results of the election.
The LTTE unofficially supported Ranil in Dec. 2001 and urged the Sinhalese electorate to vote him in over CBK, as a means to starting the peace process. Among Sinhalese politicians in the Apr. 2004 elections, the LTTE favored Ranil once again. Although fielding and supporting a Tamil candidate in these upcoming presidential elections would be futile, they could support either Sinhalese candidate if they so desired. In contrast to Dec. 2001, when Tamils eagerly went out to vote in large numbers and were prevented by the SL army, it is very likely that Tamils will in very large numbers boycott the elections despite urgings from pro-government organizations to vote.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=16297
In order to prevent the potential for accusations that the LTTE is encouraging Tamils not to vote, the LTTE is also officially and categorically stating that they are not against Tamils voting and will not stop them from doing as such. Aside from such a statement, the LTTE has been otherwise very silent.
Rajapakse has from the start of his campaign been openly anti-peace process. Ranil is the only one close to being supportive of peace, but at the last minute (4 days ago, and the election is in 6 days), tried to gain the Sinhalese nationalist vote by allowing his close confidantes and party men to make bold anti-LTTE statements.
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=16275
http://www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=79&artid=16282
This has fairly anti-peace undertones when you consider that Milinda Morogoda was a key member of the government's negotiating team during the 2002-2003 rounds peace talks. He was also seen as a cool-headed compromiser who was instrumental in ensuring the smoothness of the peace talks. It just goes to show, in a big way, the Tamil claim that politicians who talk peace can and will backtrack on it at any time for votes.
One implication of a potential boycott of the elections by the Tamils is an emphatic show of disillusionment with the Sri Lankan state. Put another way, voting in the past by the Tamils has been construed by pro-government analysts as the acceptance of / adherance to "democratic norms". In the Sri Lankan case, there is an implicit unstated meaning to the phrase "accepting democratic norms": accepting the Sri Lankan government to work out all problems and provide a just solution. In other words, a Tamil vote would be seen as an acceptance of the Sri Lankan government's authority and sovereignty.
Another very important implication is that it isolates the election to the Sinhalese electorate. The results of the election will clearly be a test of the Sinhalese voters to see whether they want to pursue a peaceful settlement or a warlike approach to the conflict. This point has not received the attention it deserves in mainstream media. It is possible that Ranil has recently recognized this situation and has thus shifted his rhetoric towards Sinhalese nationalism accoridngly.
The final major implication is that, due to the lack of importance that the Sinhalese masses have given the peace process in their day to day lives, the strength of pro-Sinhala anti-peace rhetoric will be revelead. In other words, it is very likely that Rajapakse's popularity among Sinhala masses will be enough to push him strongly ahead of Ranil. This is very likely, when considering that Ranil's victory in Dec. 2001 was very narrow (114 parliamentary seats in a 225 seat house -- just 2 seats more than a 50% majority). This figure included his coalition of the TNA and Muslim parties. Similarly, even with the TNA's seats (22) and Tamil-speaking Muslim seats (5 pro-UNP, 9 total) added in, Ranil had lost in Apr. 2004. Even going with a more realistic estimate of the Tamil vote being 10-15%, Ranil cannot at all afford to lose that much support to reach a 50% outcome. It usually takes the UNF coalition the votes of the UNP party and all the votes of Tamils and Tamil-speaking Muslims to equal the votes of the PA coalition supporters.
Whether a Rajapakse victory is good or bad for the LTTE is up for debate:
http://www.tamilguardian.com/beta/news_details.asp?newsid=353