By
C.A.Chandraprema
In the past week after the Uva PC election, there has been much discussion about the results of the Badulla district. The UNP won outright in the electorates of Hali Ela, Badulla and Welimada, and the gap between the UPFA and the UNP was narrowed to virtually nothing in electorates like Uva-Paranagama (197 votes) and Bandarawela (280 votes). It is only in the electorates of Mahiyangana, Viyaluwa, Passara and Haputale that the UPFA won with a reasonable majority.
But these were majorities of a few thousand votes and not the kind of vast majorities that the people were used to seeing the UPFA get. So now there is talk of a massive deterioration of the UPFA’s power base and the UNP being on the brink of victory. The expectation is that the deterioration of the UPFA that started in the Badulla district will spread to other districts as well and lead to the UNP’s victory at a future national election.
However, it may be inadvisable for the UNP to base their hopes of defeating the Rajapaksa government on the results of the Badulla district. The Badulla district is one place in the country where the UNP has always been strong just like in the Colombo city. The UNP voters in the Badulla district have in fact been even more loyal to the UNP than the voters of the Colombo city.
The UNP has suffered numerous electoral defeats at parliamentary and presidential elections in the past two decades. Every time the UNP was defeated at a national election, they always won convincingly in the Badulla district. At the parliamentary election of August 1994, the UNP lost after wielding power for 17 years. Even at that moment of defeat, the UNP won every single electorate in the Badulla district getting no less than 54% of the vote. The breakdown in terms of the percentages the UNP received in the various electorates of the Badulla district at the Parliamentary election of August 1994 was as follows:
Parliamentary election August 1994
Mahiyangana – 61.6%
Viyaluwa – 52%
Passara – 61%
Badulla – 48.8%
Hali Ela – 56%
Uva-Paranagama – 52%
Welimada – 49%
Bandarawela – 51%
Haputale – 56%
Postal Votes – 37.9%
Total: 54%
By the time the presidential election of November 1994 was held, the UNP was a defeated party and to make matters worse, its presidential candidate, Gamini Dissanayake, had been assassinated by the LTTE. His wife Srima Dissanayke became the presidential candidate of the UNP. The party was in complete disarray. In these circumstances, the voters of the whole country abandoned the UNP including many otherwise loyal UNPers in the Badulla district.
Even though the UNP had won the Badulla district with no less than 54% of the vote just three months earlier at the parliamentary election, at the presidential election held in November 1994, the people of the Badulla district voted for Chandrika Kumaratunga giving her 55% of the votes. Yet even in this darkest hour, the bulk of the UNP voters in Badulla remained loyal to the party. The UNP got 42% of the votes in the Badulla district – the highest percentage that the party got in any district at that blighted presidential election of November 1994.
The only other district where the UNP was able to equal their performance in the Badulla district was the Kegalle district where too the UNP’s percentage was 42%. The reason why we describe the UNP voters of Badulla as the most loyal barring none is because they gave the UNP a higher percentage of votes at the presidential election of 1994 than even Colombo city. The five electorates in the Colombo city – Colombo North, Colombo Central, Borella, Colombo East and Colombo West are considered to be the very heartland of the UNP.
These are five electorates where the UNP never loses. Yet at the presidential elections of November 1994, the UNP lost all five Colombo city electorates getting only an average of 36.7% of the vote. That was considerably lower than the percentage that the voters of Badulla had given the UNP which is why this writer describes Badulla as the most loyal vote base of the UNP – not Colombo city. The percentages that the UNP got at the presidential elections of 1994 in the Colmbo city electorates was as follows:
Colombo City – Presidential Elections November 1994
Colombo North – 37%
Colombo Central – 37%
Borella – 38%
Colombo East – 34%
Colombo West – 36.7%
(Average UNP vote in Colombo city – 36.7%)
In comparison to the above, the UNP got better percentages than in the Colombo city at almost all electorates in the Badulla district. It’s a well known fact that Mahinyangana was the only electorate won by the UNP at that election. The percentages that the UNP received in the electorates of the Badulla district at the November 1994 presidential elections were as follows:
Presidential elections November 1994 – Badulla district
Mahiyangana – 56%
Viyaluwa – 40.8%
Passara – 40.4%
Badulla – 36%
Hali Ela – 40.6%
Uva-Paranagama – 43%
Welimada – 43%
Bandarawela – 37.9%
Haputale – 38.7%
Postal Votes – 34.5%
Total: 42%
Five years later, another presidential election was held. UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe contested against Chandrika Kumaratunga at the 1999 presidential election and lost. While losing the election at the national level however, RW won in the Badulla district, getting 47.9% of the vote while Chandrika Kumaratunga got 46%. The UNP’s percentages in the Badulla district at that election were as follows:
Presidential Election 1999
Mahiyangana – 54.8%
Viyaluwa – 45.8%
Passara – 49.8%
Badulla – 42.8%
Hali Ela – 47%
Uva-Paranagama – 48%
Welimada – 47%
Bandarawela – 45%
Haputale – 49.6%
Postal Votes – 41%
Total: 47.9%
The following year, a parliamentary election was held. The UNP lost the parliamentary election held in the year 2000 as well while of course winning in the Badulla district where they got 46.3% of the vote as against the 42.7% won by the PA. At this election the UNP had five MPs elected to parliament from the Badulla district against only three for the PA. The UNP’s percentages in the various electorates of the Badulla district at this election went as follows:
Parliamentary Election 2000
Mahiyangana – 57%
Viyaluwa – 45.8%
Passara – 44%
Badulla – 42%
Hali Ela – 44.8%
Uva-Paranagama – 45%
Welimada – 44%
Bandarawela – 45%
Haputale – 46.6%
Postal Votes – 38%
Total: 46.3%
We will not take the results of the December 2001 election into account in this study because the UNP won that election and formed a government. It goes without saying that the UNP which wins the Badulla district even while losing at the national level, won the Badulla district with a handsome 53.8% at the 2001 parliamentary election. Having formed a government in 2001, the UNP would lose again at the April 2004 parliamentary election. But here too while losing at the national level, the UNP managed to win in the Badulla district getting 49% of the vote as against 48% for the PA. At all three parliamentary elections held in 2000, 2001 and 2004, the UNP always got five MPs elected to parliament from the Badulla district as against three from the PA. The electorate-wise breakdown of the percentages received by the UNP in the Badulla district at the 2004 parliamentary election were as follows:
Parliamentary Election 2004
Mahiyangana – 45.5%
Viyaluwa – 45.7%
Passara – 59%
Badulla – 48%
Hali Ela – 50%
Uva-Paranagama – 46.5%
Welimada – 45.9%
Bandarawela – 50%
Haputale – 56%
Postal Votes – 36%
Total: 49%
The next major election to come along was the presidential election of 2005 which the UNP lost. But once again they won in the Badulla district with no less than 53% of the vote. The electorate-wise breakdown of the UNP’s percentages in that district at the presidential election of 2005 was as follows:
Presidential Election 2005
Mahiyangana – 53.8%
Viyaluwa – 48%
Passara – 60.6%
Badulla – 50.8%
Hali Ela – 53%
Uva-Paranagama – 50%
Welimada – 51.5%
Bandarawela – 53.5%
Haputale – 60.9%
Postal Votes – 38.9%
Total: 53%
The presidential election of 2010 marked a departure from the usual pattern of the UNP winning the Badulla district and losing in the rest of the country. This time the UNP did not contest at all and fielded General Sarath Fonseka as a common candidate. At this election, the UNP backed combined opposition lost both the election and the Badulla district. Mahinda Rajapaksa got 53% of the vote while Sarath Fonseka got only 44.5% in the Badulla district. But even in this case, the Badulla district gave the UNP backed Sarath Fonseka the highest vote percentage he received in any Sinhala majority district barring only the Colombo district. Sarath Fonseka got huge majorities in the minority dominated districts of the Northern and Eastern provinces and in the minority dominated Nuwara Eliya district. But he lost all the Sinhala majority districts. Among the Sinhala majority districts he got the highest percentage in the Colombo district with 45.9%. The Badulla district followed closely with 44.5%. The district wise percentages received by the UNP backed Fonseka in the Sinhala majority districts at the 2010 presidential election were as follows:
Presidential Elections 2010 (Sarath Fonseka)
Colombo – 45.9%
Badulla district – 44.5%
Kandy district – 43.8%
Matale – 38%
Galle – 34%
Matara – 32.8%
Hambantota – 31%
Gampaha – 37%
Kalutara – 35%
Kurunegala – 35%
Puttlam – 39.5%
Anuradhapura – 31.9
Polonnaruwa – 33.6
Moneragala – 29%
Ratnapura – 34%
Kegalle – 36%
Thus we see that the only Sinhala majority districts to give Sarath Fonseka anything above 40% of the vote at the 2005 presidential elections, were Colombo, Badulla and Kandy – all well known to be bastions of the UNP. In 2010, parliamentary elections followed close upon the presidential election. At this election too the UNP lost both the election as well as the Badulla district. At the 2010 parliamentary election the UNP got 32% of the vote in the Badulla district. This was substantially less than the figure of 44.5% that Sarath Fonseka got at the presidential elections in the same district just a couple of months earlier. But this reduction can be explained in terms of voter apathy after a defeat at a major election. But even in the shadow of defeat, the UNP still managed to get a higher percentage of the vote in the Badulla district than in almost all other districts in the country. We give below the percentage the UNP got in the various districts at the 2010 parliamentary elections.
Parliamentary elections 2010
Kandy district – 34%
Matale district – 28%
Nuwara Eliya – 36%
Digamadulla – 35%
Trincomalee – 28%
Batticaloa – 12%
Vanni – 11.9%
Jaffna – 8.5%
Galle – 26%
Matara – 27.8%
Hambantota – 29.8%
Colombo – 36%
Gampaha – 28.6%
Kalutara – 28%
Kurunegala – 31.7%
Puttalam – 31%
Anuradhapura – 24%
Polonnaruwa – 26.6%
Moneragala – 18%
Ratnapura – 28%
Kegalle – 28.9%
Badulla – 32%
We see from the above that it is only in the Colombo, Kandy and Digamadulla and Nuwara Eliya districts that the UNP managed to get a better percentage of votes than in the Badulla district at the 2010 parliamentary election. Of these the Digamadulla and Nuwara Eliya districts are minority dominated. So once again, of the Sinhala majority districts in the country, Badulla, Colombo and Kandy gave the UNP the best percentages at the parliamentary election of 2010.
Now we come to the question as to what happened at the recently concluded Uva PC election. The UNP did not win the Badulla district even though they had always won the Badulla district at every national election held before 2010. Perhaps one could not reasonably expect the UNP to win the Badulla district so soon after the collapse that took place in this district in 2009/2010 in the immediate aftermath of the war victory. But the UNP has managed to regain quite a lot of the lost ground in this most loyal of UNP districts and the leadership that young Harin Fernando provided appears to have been decisive. Even the most loyal UNPers are only human and they too need to be organized and enthused and that part has been achieved.
However, to extrapolate a UNP recovery in the Badulla district into a recovery of the UNP in the whole country would be a mistake. We saw from the examples given above that the UNP has consistently won in the Badulla district while losing elections in the rest of the country. At the recent Uva PC election the UNP managed to claw back a good part of their traditional vote in the district. In terms of absolute numbers, the vote bank of the UNP in the Badulla district can be deduced from the following figures:
1999 Presidential election – 172,884
2005 Presidential election – 226,582
2009 Uva PC election – 129,114
2010 Presidential election – 198,835
2010 Parliamentary election – 112,886
2014 Uva PC election – 197,708
What we see from the above is that at the recent Uva PC elections, the UNP has managed to claw back a good proportion of the votes that they failed to garner at elections in 2009 and 2010. But they are still falling short by approximately 30,000 votes from the high reached in 2005 which explains why they lost despite the high voter turnout and the recovery. A proper recovery in the Badulla district would mean that the UNP would have to win the district as they had been doing at every national election until 2010.
Harin Fernando’s success has been mainly in getting a good part of the existing UNP vote in the Badulla district to the polling booth. This is similar to what Vajira Abeywardene achieved in the Wellawaya electorate in the Moneragala district. Before the election, Vajira told the present writer that Ranil Wickremesinghe got 31,500 and 39,000 votes in the Wellawaya electorate at the 1999 and 2005 presidential elections respectively and that he wanted to get these UNP voters back to the polling booth. Vajira did succeed in that as Wellawaya give the UNP over 35,500 votes at the recent Uva PC election.
After the routs of 2009 and 2010, the UNP seems to have forgotten that Badulla was a district that they always won even at the worst of times with a vote base more loyal than even the Colombo city. They have been touting the recovery in Badulla as a recovery of the UNP countrywide. This would be as big a mistake as interpreting a victory of the UNP in the five electorates in Colombo city as a revival of the UNP in the whole country. Had the UNP done well in a district known to be traditionally pro-SLFP, then that could be taken as a sign that the UNP was gaining ground in the country as a whole and that the UPFA was on the wane. By disturbing the peace with shouts of victory, the UNP has set the alarm bells ringing among the UPFA voters and the patriotic types who will rally to protect their gains.
When a governing party is assured of victory, the number of supporters who go to vote gets reduced due to complacency. We saw this happening at the 2010 parliamentary elections held soon after the presidential elections of that year. Due to complacency on the part if the victor and apathy on the part of the loser at the presidential election, the countrywide voter turnout fell from a high of 74.4% (10.4 million voters) at the presidential elections to 61% (8.6 million voters) at the parliamentary elections of 2010.
But when the pressure is ratcheted up, as what happened with the Sarath Fonseka candidacy even those who would not normally bother to vote, would be motivated to go to the polling booth. President Mahinda Rajapaksa would never have got a majority of 1.8 million votes if Ranil Wickremesinghe had been his opponent in 2010. In such an event UPFA supporters expecting an easy victory would have not bothered to vote and the voter turnout as well as the votes polled by both candidates would have been lower.
Now by shouting from the rooftops about an impending UNP victory due to the result in the Badulla district, the UNP may have unnecessarily thrown stones at a hornet’s nest. We know from experience that even if the UNP wins with massive majorities in certain districts like Badulla, Colombo and Nuwara Eliya that does not necessarily mean that they are going to win in the rest of the country. Just as there are some districts that are favourable to the UNP, there are others that are favourable to the UPFA and more than once, the UNP has fallen through this gap.
If one looks at what happened at the recent Uva PC election, the UNP has recovered a good part of its vote in the Badulla district. The UPFA for its part has got 140,000 votes in the Moneragala district at last week’s Uva PC election in a situation whereas they got only 120,000 votes at the 2010 parliamentary elections. The UPFA percentage of the vote in the Moneragala district is a very comfortable 58%. The UNP got 44% of the vote in the Badulla district and lost by a small margin but even if the UNP wins the Badulla district with a large majority, this still may be vitiated at a national election by the results coming in from pro-UPFA districts. So the UNP should be careful about the rhetoric they spew out.
The next presidential election is due soon. If the UNP propagates the expectation that they are going to win that election and they lose; then people are going to turn on Ranil Wickremesinghe and say that he wasted the ‘victory’ that Harin Fernando had achieved. While it’s true that talk of an imminent UNP victory will have an unsettling effect on the government, that can boomerang on the UNP in a bad way by motivating UPFA supporters and patriotic sections of the voting public. But of course when the UNP sees a recovery as radical as that seen in the Badulla district, it is humanly impossible not to crow about it. The trick however is not to overdo it!
Courtesy:Sunday Island