By

Vishnuguptha

“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.”–-William Shakespeare

Prior to the elections in the Wayamba and Central Provinces in September last year and also in the post-1994 era, the battle for electoral supremacy in the Sri Lankan political landscape had been between the United National Party and the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). The Wayamba and Central PC elections and the recent changes that took place in the leadership of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) altered the mix; for how long this altered set of circumstances would last will be known only after the results of the forthcoming elections for the Western and Southern Provinces are released.

March 11, 2014-pic via:facebook.com/UNPofficialpage

But the scenario is extremely fascinating. Almost three weeks into the campaign after the nomination day, everything seems to be calm on the surface, as far as the ‘election fever’ is concerned. But underneath the surface, it is certainly burning ember, waiting for that instant ‘spark’ that usually characterizes almost each and every election in the recent past in Sri Lanka. That spark may come or it may not come.

The people will go to vote on March 29 and by that time they will have had enough of political garbage from all candidates and parties to listen to, watch and digest in order to decide as to what party and which candidate to vote for. The Sri Lankan voter is pretty well informed of his or her choices. Although, I dare say, on more than several occasions, he or she has voted with their eyes, ears and minds closed and survived to live through their erroneous judgments and to regret them. The average voter does not seem to have shown ‘reasonableness’ in his successive verdicts in the recent past. It seems that the voter needs more than a kick in the backside to get angry and await the Election Day to vote the old regime out and a new one in.

Viewed in that context of mutually exclusive and complex set of circumstances, the outcome of the upcoming elections for the Western and Southern provinces seem quite challenging for an educated forecaster to predict. While the United National Party is deeply embroiled in disunity and internal clashes, two other entities have emerged promising. They are the Democratic Party (DP) led by General Sarath Fonseka and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) after a revamping of its own and emerging with a youthful new leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

However, although General Fonseka contested the last Presidential Elections as a common candidate of the Opposition backed to the hilt by the JVP and aided by its frontline speakers such as Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Vijitha Herath and Sunil Handunhetti, all Parliamentarians and Lal Kantha, they parted ways once the elections were over. The hope for a sustained common opposition faded away with the General Elections being contested separately by the parties that were instrumental in the fielding of the former General going their different ways.

The shelf-life of the ‘common opposition’ did not last more than three months. Such was the fate of unity among the opposition-politicians in the land. However, the story is not complete without a mention about the lukewarm attitude, sometimes bordering on deliberate and proactive sabotage of the campaign for the ‘common candidate’, by the UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. There may not exist any empirical evidence of such sabotage, but all the circumstantial evidence was there, on the part of both the leader and General Secretary of the UNP. No intelligent observer could brush aside such circumstantial evidence as matters of a regular course of political activity.

The highest decision-making body of the UNP, the Working Committee may not have realized the gravity of this degenerative process; its members may have opted to live in a perpetual fantasy world, hallucinating that mere passage of time would deliver them from defeat to victory overnight. But it has proven to be outright wrong, false and a delusion. The steady decline of the voter-base of the Party, coupled with the ‘jumping the fence’ by some select but popular parliamentarians, seemed to have opened the eyes of the rank and file of the Party. The results of the recently-held PC elections in the Wayamba and Central provinces provided this ‘circumstantial evidence’.

The marked reduction in the UNP vote at these elections and the emergence of the DP as an alternative to the UNP and not the Governing Party, with it securing a couple of members in each of the provinces despite the fact that the name of General Fonseka did not appear on the ballot paper surely must have made an impression on the people at large although it seemed to have had no effect on the leadership of the UNP.

The clamor for a change in leadership of the Party has been in evidence for the last two to three years, but instead of a change, what has really occurred is further strengthening of Ranil Wickremesinghe as its leader and parting of ways between the diehard rank and file and the higher echelons of the Party. The tasteless story of this development has been penned by many an observer, yet nothing of the sort, sought after by those who demand ‘change’ has occurred, much to the despair and dismay of the party workers and supporters.

The real results of this propensity would be shown in the forthcoming elections for the Western and Southern provinces. In addition to the fact that the traditional UNP supporters see the ‘Fonseka factor’ as a matter of ‘hope’, the freshly revamped JVP with its new charismatic leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake would also very likely have a deciding influence on the way the average street-guy who is disenchanted with the Government and its phony patriotism would vote.

Occurrences of naked abuse of power by the Government-led UPFA candidates are increasing on a daily basis. Everyday news papers and other media outlets report on these abuses; misuse of government property and vehicular assets by their candidates is mounting exponentially; other than the personal popularity of the President himself, not a single Government Minister or any other parliamentarian could boast of sustaining a steady level of acceptance.

Against such a complex backdrop, it is fairly easily predictable that the vote-bank of the governing party, the UPFA, would decrease. But where that reduction would manifest itself, whether in the UNP, the Fonseka-led DP or the JVP is anybody’s guess. Neither the UNP nor the JVP has made any constructive use of the Geneva carnival.

At a time when powers led by the United States of America and the West are targeting to humiliate Sri Lanka at the ongoing sessions of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, a more creative set of politicians would have found a way to introduce, table or even threaten to introduce a Motion in Parliament to condemn the US-led initiative but yet criticize the ruling Government, cutting a very clear division between ‘national-mindedness’ and political-gimmickry and thereby convincing the voter that they, the Opposition, are for the country but against its rulers. Such craftiness and strategic-minded thinking is totally absent among the UNPers. But to realize that even the JVP had not done it, especially in the midst of an election is astounding and speaks volumes for the ineptness on the part of our Opposition.

Taking all this into serious consideration, predicting how the voter would react is rather a hard exercise. Yet a more specific and accurate forecast could be made in another week’s time. But a very general assessment would read thus:

1. All parties, except the JVP and DP, would lose a percentage of their previous blocks of votes

3. The JVP might make some inroads in the Hambantota district.
4. The DP might end up as a close third behind the ‘mighty’ UNP.