By
C.A. Chandraprema
One may say that this has been one of the most low key parliamentary election campaigns we have ever experienced. One just does not see the poster wars that characterized previous elections. There are no processions or droves of people going canvassing. Even the election invective sounds subdued. One no longer hears the sensational allegations that one heard from the election platform at the last presidential election. Now we do not hear any specific allegations being made against anybody. We hear only generic accusations. Yet, this is the election that will decide who will rule Sri Lanka for the next five years. The subdued election campaign would mean a lower voter turnout. The voter turnout at the January presidential elections was 81.5%. But the signs are that the turnout may be much less than that at this election. A turnout of around 75 to 76% may be a more reasonable expectation at this election.
Everything hinges on which side will have greater motivation to go to the polling booth. In that respect perhaps a visible fact is that the yahapalana euphoria has worn off and nobody now takes the good governance pledges seriously. In contrast to that, the Mahinda loyalists within the UPFA are motivated and keyed up and they have been on a mission since February this year. Furthermore, the UNP led coalition has been making costly mistakes. The injunction obtained by Sujeewa Senasinghe against the publication of the COPE Subcommittee report on the bond scandal sent all the wrong signals to the urban constituency. It gave the impression that the UNP was attempting a cover up.
Last week, the dissolution of this injunction because Senasinghe himself withdrew his case was an even bigger fiasco. If the UNP wanted to take out an injunction against it, the plaint should have been filed by a politician from a remote district where no one knows what the bond scandal was about. Why cause this embarrassment to an ex-MP from the Colombo district, a professional himself, who appeals to the professional classes in the Colombo district and can’t afford this kind of fiasco?
The UNP manifesto
The UNP put out its manifesto last week. Every party puts out the manifesto that it thinks will attract voters to their side. Thus every manifesto is full of good intentions. There are however some political issues in the UNP manifesto that need to be commented on. One point in the UNP manifesto which will find as much resonance within the UPFA as it does in the UNP is the proposed constitutional provision that the president will exercise his powers only on the advice of the prime minister and the cabinet. As of this moment both the UNP and the UPFA want the president out of the picture and power transferred to the prime minister. The fact that the JVP too has said in their manifesto that they will abolish the executive presidency altogether creates a kind of confluence of interest in the legislature that has never existed before.
One of the provisions that will draw the loudest howls of protest from the other side will be the plan to ‘legalize’ the infamous police Financial and Corruption Investigation Division (FCID) through an Act of Parliament. Whether this legislation will ever see the light of day is in doubt because the FCID flies against all present day norms. If such a bill is introduced in Parliament, it will almost certainly be challenged in the Supreme Court. But by merely including this in their manifesto, the UNP has taken an unnecessary risk. If they lose the election there is a good possibility of this unit being used against the UNP itself and the UNP will not be able to say anything in their defence as this unit was started by them and they had wanted to formalize it through an Act of Parliament.
Another provision in the UNP manifesto that will no doubt draw much flak is the pledge to implement ‘maximum devolution of power under a unitary state’. The open ended nature of this statement is worrisome. If they had said full implementation of the 13th Amendment, it would have been less contentious even though that too would have raised a hornet’s nest. If the UNP has any chance of forming a government, it will only be with the help of the TNA which will bring in around 14 to 17 seats. When such a provision is implemented by a government which is kept in power by the TNA, there is bound to be much instability in the country. Even though there is nothing in the UNP manifesto about war crimes, it does have a provision which says that discussions will be held about the last phase of the war (yuda samaya) with the UN Human Rights Council and the member nations of the UNHRC and after discussions with all communities in Sri Lanka, to ‘respond’ to this within the framework of the local law. This is obviously a reference to the ‘local mechanism’ to try war crimes that have been spoken about.
This raises the question as to what the UNP wants to do after the next election. Do they want to run a government or do they want a major problem on their plate? The economic plan that the UNP has put forward in this manifesto gives one the impression that the UNP wants to run a government the way J.R.Jayewardene did after 1977 with rapid economic development and all that. But the political program that has been put forward ensures that the UNP will be doing no such thing and that from day one they will be running around like headless chickens trying to control political unrest. Just picture a government that maintains its parliamentary majority on the sufferance of the TNA implementing ‘maximum devolution’ while at the same time setting up local mechanisms to try alleged war crimes! Doing just one of these will place a strain on any government not to speak of a government which may be formed against the wishes of the majority of the majority community.
Another hugely retrograde step in the UNP manifesto is the provision to rename the Constitutional Council as the Rajaya Sabha and to amend the constitution so that other than the prime minister, the opposition leader and the Speaker of parliament, everyone else on it will be members of ‘civil society’. It is contended by some that what is meant here is not genuine members of ‘civil society’ but representatives of foreign funded NGOs. The vocal foreign funded NGO sector in this country is so powerful that they have managed to convince the UNP that all politicians are undesirables who cannot be trusted to run the country without their input. The UNP manifesto also has provision for a higher advisory body of Parliament with the ability to refer legislation back to Parliament for consideration. This too does not appear to be an elected body but one that is made up of appointed representatives. Of all the political parties in the country, it is the UNP that is most affected by this lack of self esteem. None of the other political parties whether it is the UPFA, the TNA or the JVP has this problem of people’s representatives thinking that they have to be supervised by somebody else.
The battle for the Colombo district
As the parliamentary election campaign enters the final three weeks, there is no objective and fool-proof way to predict which way the cookie will crumble. Opinion polls have been proved to be notoriously unreliable in India as well as Sir Lanka especially because opinion polls themselves have become tools used by political parties in the campaign. Last week, cabinet spokesman Dr Rajitha Senaratne read out what he claimed was the results of a survey done by the State Intelligence Service (SIS) which predicted 127 seats for the UNP, 64 for the UPFA, 14 for the TNA, 10 for the JVP and 10 for other parties (which would include the EPDP which is contesting separately and Sarath Fonseka’a party.) This is a classic case of quoting the results of a survey which probably does not even exist as a part of the political campaign. One can say with great confidence that such will never be the outcome of this election.
In 2001 with the PA having ground the country into the dust, the economy recording negative growth rates and the ruling party itself split in what was up to that time the largest crossover in Parliament which included the general secretary of the ruling party, and a countrywide trend favouring the UNP, the latter was able to win only 109 seats. They cannot even dream of getting anything in the range of 127 in the present conditions. Even President Premadasa got only 125 sets at the 1989 parliamentary election which followed soon upon the Presidential election of December 1988. The only occasion on which any party has broken Premadasa’s record is in 2010 when once again a parliamentary election followed soon upon a presidential election that was won by a huge margin with the war victory in the background. The fact is that for anyone to barely scrape through with a clear majority of 113 seats, there will have to be a massive swing one way or the other.
Though we cannot say which way things will go as yet, there are certain things that can be said if we look at the prospects of those contesting elections. Many of the last minute crossovers from the UPFA to the UNP may not stand a chance of getting re-elected. Champika Ranawaka who is on the UNP list in the Colombo district will have a tough fight on his hands. Back in 2001, the Colombo district had no less than 21 seats. This has now gone down to 19 as seats get reallocated according to shifts in the population. What this means is that even if the UNP scores a resounding victory in the Colombo district, the maximum number of seats they can get is 10. (In the unlikely event that the UNP gets in the Colombo district the same number of votes that Maithripala Sirisena got in January this year with – 55% of the vote, the UNP will get 11 seats. But such a scenario is a virtual impossibility with both the JVP and Sarath Fonseka contesting separately. Thus the maximum that the UNP can hope for is 10 if they win the Colombo district.)
There are three Muslim candidates in the Colombo UNP list which means that the three preference votes of the Muslim voters will go to these three candidates. There are two Tamil candidates on the list and the UNP’s Tamil voters will vote only for the Tamil candidates and will most probably not cast their third preference for fear of bolstering someone else’s chances. Every effort will be made by the minority communities in the Colombo district to get three Muslims and two Tamils elected from the Colombo district on the UNP list. If five seats go to the minority communities, that will leave only five seats for the UNP’s Sinhala candidates. The UNP already has seven holders of ministerial portfolios, Ranil Wickremesinghe, Ravi Karunanayake, Rosy Senanayake, Wijedasa Rajapakshe, Sujeeva Senasinghe, Harsha de Silva and Eran Wickremeratne vying for those five slots.
If an outsider like Champika Ranawaka is to make it to parliament, he will have to either push out one of the present ex-MPs or prevent one of the minority candidates from getting in. In fact if the sitting Sinhala ex-MPs and Champika are to get into parliament, they will have to squeeze out the minority candidates and restrict them to just two MPs – which is not going to be easy at all. In the foregoing, we were assuming that the UNP will win the Colombo district. But there is no guarantee of that either. At the last presidential elections, Maithripala Sirisena got 162,459 votes more than Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Colombo district. That looks like a massive gap that can’t possibly be bridged until you realize that the JVP and Saratha Fonseka’s party got a combined total of 145,962 votes at the WPC elections held last year. This time, both Fonseka and the JVP are contesting separately and the UNP will not have their votes.
The JVP is almost certain to get more votes at this parliamentary election than they did at the last WPC elections. Fonseka’s position however is unclear and there is the possibility that he may lose this time in the Colombo district, but not without siphoning off tens of thousands of yahapalana votes. Even if we assume that the JVP and SF combined will get only the 145,962 they got at the WPC elections last year, that narrows the gap between the UPFA and the UNP to just 16,497 votes. If the JVP and SF pull out just a little more of the yahapalana vote, the UNP will lose the Colombo district to the UPFA. Many of the reasons that would have made Colombo voters turn against the UPFA would by now have been found to be false and there could be a swing in the UPFA’s favour as their vote bank in the area outside the Colombo city comes back to normal. In fact if the UNP manages to win the Colombo district it will be entirely on the merit of the reduction in fuel and gas prices and the reduction in the electricity tariff and certain food stuffs. No wonder the UNP had put up huge hoardings in Colombo reminding people of the price reductions.
So these are obviously tension filled times for the UNP and particularly for outsiders like Champika Ranawaka who are trying to make it to parliament on the UNP vote. Apart from the seven sitting UNP ex-parliamentarians competing for the few slots available for Sinhala candidates, there are other UNP personalities like Manjusri Arangala, Niroshan Padukka, Upul Shantha Sannasgala and Srinath Perera who are vying for a place in the sun. To what extent will people like this be happy about outsiders like Champika Ranawaka and Hirunika Premachandra asking for UNP votes while claiming not to be UNP?
Bona fides of the Muslim community
Among the last minute entrants to the UNP lists, one who stands the best chance of getting re-elected is Dr Rajitha Senaratne because the UNP Kalutara district list is very weak. If Senaratne had joined the UNP straightaway after he left the Rajapaksa government, he would have come right on top of the Kalutara list with a huge margin. The UNP just does not have anyone of his calibre in that district. The only thing that introduces an element of uncertainty to his prospects of getting elected is the fact that he took Maithripala Sirisena’s side and bullied the UNP into compromising more and more on the 19th Amendment until there was nothing left of the pledge to abolish the executive presidency and to give executive powers to the prime minister.
That and the fact that he had spoken against the UNP government on matters like the bond issue will seriously hamper his bid to win UNP preference votes. The fact that these last minute crossovers still maintain that they are not UNP though they are contesting on the elephant symbol, is not going to help either. The fact that Ranil Wickremesinghe himself says that these new friends can function independently once elected, almost sounds like a signal to UNP voters not to cast their preference votes for them. Senaratne is in this soup today because he opted to back Sirisena instead of Wickremesinghe. But in the midst of all this gloom, he does have one advantage which is the rapport he had with the Muslim community. Muslims account for about 9% of the population of the Kalutara district and a good proportion of the UNP vote is made up of the Muslim vote.
There are only two Muslims on the UNP list in the Kalutara district. If the Muslim voters cast the third preference vote for Senaratne, he may be able to make it to parliament. Had there been three Muslims on the UNP nomination list, Senaratne might as well not have contested because the minority communities now vote only for candidates of their own community and will settle for someone else only if there is no one from their community. But what Rajitha Senaratne has to watch out for is the desire of the Muslim political parties to increase Muslim representation wherever they have even half a chance of doing so. This time, with the SLMC and ACMC joining hands with the UNP, there is the possibility that the Muslims will make a concerted effort to get a Muslim MP elected to parliament from the Kalutara district.
To ensure that it is a Muslim who gets elected on the UNP list and not another Sinhalese, the Muslim voters will have to cast preference votes only for the two Muslim candidates and refrain from casting the third preference vote to anybody lest this preference vote increases somebody else’s votes and he gets into parliament instead of a Muslim candidate. If the Muslims cast their third preference votes for Rajitha Senaratne, there is the possibility that he will get into parliament while the two Muslim candidates lose. But Rajitha Senaratne has stuck his neck out for the minority communities and if Muslim exclusivism results in Senaratne’s defeat, that is going to send a very bad signal to the whole country.
After the recent Khettarama incident, the Muslim community understood that Muslims cheering for Pakistan was sending the wrong signal to the Sinhalese and the next time Muslims were seen cheering for the Sri Lankan side and displaying banners to offset the negative effect of the Khettarama incident last weekend. Well, if Senaratne loses due to the Muslims not casting their third preference vote for him, that is going to send a much more negative message to the majority community than any cricket match incident. If Senaratne fails to get elected because the Muslims did not vote for him, everything that Sinhala extremist organizations like the BBS have been saying will start ringing true to the average Sinhalese.
Courtesy:Sunday Island