By

C.A.Chandraprema

The biggest boost that the joint opposition got last week was the defection of P.Digambaram and (to a much lesser extent) V. Radhakrishnan from the government. There may not be an actual shift of votes in the Nuwara Eliya district because of these defections as Digambaram was elected on the UNP list in any case. As for Radhakrishnan, he was elected to parliament as a member of the CWC at the parliamentary election in 2010 and within a few months he fell out with Thondaman because he was not given a deputy minister’s post. Later he joined the Up-Country People’s Front.

So even though Radhakrishnan is now a leading figure of the Up-Country People’s Front, his moving out may not necessarily mean that the CWC will lose a chunk of its votes since what he had was only one preference in the CWC block vote. As for the Up-Country People’s Front which Radhakrishnan subsequently joined, they do not have an elected representative in this parliament, but they did have a fairly strong base in the Nuwara Eliya district until recently.

The Up-Country People’s Front contested independently in the Nuwara Eliya district in 1994 and 2004 and won one seat on both occasions. They got 23,400 votes in 1994 and 49,700 votes in 2004 which gives us a rough idea of their strength in the district. This however may not mean that the Up-Country People’s Front will have 49,000 votes to take away from the UPFA list. The reason why they got a high of 49,700 votes contesting separately in 2004 could be because of the erosion of support for the unsuccessful UNP government that took office in December 2001.

The CWC contested the 2004 parliamentary election on the UNP ticket and therefore the Tamil vote disappointed with the CWC and the UNP may have gone to the Up-Country People’s Front. The last time the strength of the UCPF was tested was at the Central Provincial Council election in 2013 when they got 23,455 votes in the Nuwara Eliya district (contesting separately) and won one seat. So one may assume that this represents their block vote in the district.

If both Digambaram and Radhakrishnan were to have any hope of being elected to parliament at the parliamentary election that will follow the presidential election, they had to crossover to the opposition. The way things operate in the Nuwara Eliya district is that the Tamil voters on both sides of the political divide cast all three of their preference votes for three Tamil candidates. This has resulted in a situation where the three top scoring candidates on both the UPFA and UNP lists are all Tamils.

In 2010, the three top candidates on the UPFA list were Arumugam Thondaman, V.Radhakrishnan and Perumal Rajathurei. The three top candidates on the UNP list were P.Digambaram, J. Sri Ranga and U.Mylvaganam. Mylvaganan failed to win a seat as the UNP list got only two seats. Be that as it may, the fact is that on either list, only three Tamil candidates can get elected as there are only three preferences per vote. Now that Radhakrishnan has defected to the opposition with whatever votes the Up-Country People’s front can command, there is the possibility that three Tamil candidates may be elected to parliament on the UNP list the next time.

The CWC will also most probably get three candidates elected to parliament next time. This, along with the three Tamil candidates on the UNP list would mean that only one Sinhala candidate may make it to parliament from the Nuwara Eliya district the next time. The CWC can hardly be faulted for wanting to hog all three preferences of the votes coming to the CWC.

If they can get three CWC candidates elected why would they want to share that good fortune with others? So the effort of the CWC has been to push out from the UPFA all smaller parties who show any potential of being able to obtain preference votes that would otherwise have gone to CWC candidates on the UPFA list. If there are only CWC Tamil candidates on the UPFA list so much the better for them.

So what we see is a game of elimination at work in the Nuwara Eliya district with the CWC using its superior bargaining power with the government to push out all competitors like the Up-Country People’s Front and Digambaram’s party from the UPFA. The government too has no option but to dish out step-motherly treatment to its non-CWC Tamil allies in Nuwara Eliya in order to keep the CWC happy.

At every turn, the CWC did everything they could to make Digambaram’s sojourn in the UPFA as uncomfortable as possible. The UPFA for its part has no option but to choose between the CWC and Digambaram as there was no question of being able to satisfy both parties at the same time. We have also to consider the fact that of the three CWC parliamentarians elected in 2010, two have already defected leaving Arumugam Thondaman as the sole Tamil UPFA parliamentarian in the Nuwara Eliya district.

The imperatives of minority politics

As we said earlier, Radhakrishnan was the first to defect within months of being elected because he was not made a deputy minister. Then some days ago, we saw Perumal Rajathurei also defecting from the CWC and joining the UNP. But given the political set up in the CWC, this is hardly likely to have any impact on the CWC vote base in the Nuwara Eliya district because that party is built around the Thondaman family and not anyone else.

Whoever gets nominated through the CWC gets the other two preference votes after casting one for Arumugam Thondaman. One may say that the CWC is now more family dominated than it was under Saumyamoorthy Thondaman. At the parliamentary election in 1994, Thondaman Snr. actually came in third among the CWC candidates, getting 10,000 and 7,000 votes less than Muthu Sivalingam and S.Sathasivam. That would have given the Thondaman family the fright of their lives.

They had come within a hair’s breadth of losing control of the CWC. So from the time Arumugam Thondaman came into parliament in 2000, the Thondaman family has ensured that they remain at the top of the preference vote list at every election and they seem to have adopted a policy of clipping the wings of subordinates who may be getting too ambitious or too popular.

So it is not surprising that Radhakrishnan and Rajathurei have both fallen out with Thondaman and defected. But others will replace them and the CWC will go on its merry way. Similar factors appear to have been operational in the defection of Vanni district parliamentarian Hunais Farook from Rishard Baithiudeen’s party. Be that as it may, the return of Digambaram and the addition of V.Radhakrishnan now of the Up-Country People’s Front will give the UNP a boost in the Nuwara Eliya district.

The irony however will be that even though three MPs may get elected on the UNP list in the Nuwara Eliya district at the next parliamentary election, none of them will be really UNP! Even as of this moment the UNP does not have a single MP in the Nuwara Eliya district because both P.Digambaram and J. Sri Ranga who were elected on the UNP list are not members of the UNP but leaders of small political parties. Now even if V.Radhakrishnan manages to get elected to parliament on the UNP list he too will not be UNP.

In fact by giving the leaders of these small political parties nominations on the UNP list, the UNP is actually increasing the government’s votes in parliament. In 2010, both MPs elected on the UNP list in the Nuwara Eliya district subsequently joined the government and at the next parliamentary election if three MPs are elected on the UNP list, there is no guarantee that they will remain in the opposition. On the contrary, the likelier scenario is that they will join the government after winning their seats on the UNP list.

When he joined the government, Digambaram would have been well aware what kind of reception he would get from the CWC. Though he knew he would be stymied and thwarted at every turn by the CWC using the better leverage they have with the president, Digambaram perhaps had no choice but to endure the unendurable and play second fiddle to the CWC in exchange for a few crumbs because minority politics is so patronage driven.

If the CWC was seen distributing goodies whereas Digambaram had nothing to offer, his political career would not have lasted long. This is the dilemma faced by all minority based political parties. The only minority political entities that seem immune to this need for patronage appears to be the TNA and Mano Ganesan’s largely Colombo based party. All the others have to join whatever government happens to be in power in order to have access to patronage.

This is the same problem that besets the two biggest Muslim parties the SLMC and Rishard Baithiudeen’s All Ceylon Makkal Congress. Neither of them can afford to miss the gravy train because it’s the gravy train that keeps them in business. Both these parties have been delaying announcing their decision on whether to support the UPFA or not at this presidential election. The funny part is that both these parties have to support the same candidate if one is not to suffer serious consequences.

So long as both these parties support the same candidate, the balance of power that has been achieved between them can be maintained. The party that decides to support the opposition candidate may get more votes than the other since the Muslims for the most part are now opposed to the government thanks to the extremist Buddhist organizations like the BBS. But if they contest outside the UPFA at this election, there is the possibility that they may have to come back to the UPFA on their bended knees after the election with the concomitant loss of bargaining power.

There is also the very real possibility that they may not be accepted back into the fold of the UPFA if they try to overthrow this government once again. The SLMC and CWC backed the UNP at the 2004 parliamentary elections and had to go to Chandrika Kumaratunga on their bended knees after the UNP lost power. At the 2005 presidential elections the SLMC and CWC supported Ranil Wickremesinghe and after he lost they were compelled to go back to Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Then in 2007, the SLMC became part of the plot to defeat the government at the budget vote and when that failed they had to go back to the UPFA on their bended knees for the third time. At every stage they obviously lost some of their bargaining power and now they are wary about getting into such a situation again. If they make the wrong move this time and a rival Muslim political outfit were to make the correct decision and gain access to patronage without the SLMC having a share of the pie, that would seriously undermine their party.

Courtesy:Sunday Island