by Tisaranee Gunasekara

“There is no such thing as charismatic power…only charismatic situations”– Daniel Levi.

‘Let’s Arise with Mahinda’ was the theme of the well-organised and well-funded comeback campaign of the Rajapaksa raj.

The truth turned out to be polar opposite. On August 18th, the UPFA collapsed into a crushing defeat with Mahinda, again.

Not only did Mr. Rajapaksa fail to add a single new vote to the UPFA’s January 8th tally; he also failed to retain 19% of the votes he got at the presidential election.

Under Rajapaksa aegis the UPFA’s electoral base eroded by a massive 1.1 million votes, in just seven months, one week and two days.

At the presidential election of January 8th the UPFA got 5.8 million votes. At the August 17th parliamentary election, the UPFA could score only 4.7 million votes.

At the presidential election, the UPFA obtained 47.58% of the national vote; at the parliamentary election its national average went down to 42.38%. That’s a rate of decrease as high as 10.9% in just seven months,

Mr. Rajapaksa failed to add one extra vote to the UPFA not just nationally but also in the district he himself contested. The UPFA received 556,868 votes in Kurunegala in January; this went down to 474,124 votes in August, a decrease of 82,744 votes in just seven months. This amounts to 7.5% of the UPFA’s national vote-loss.

So much for Rajapaksa electoral magic!

The responsibility for the UPFA’s humiliating defeat falls on Mahinda Rajapaksa who sacrificed the party for his personal gain, those UPFA leaders who used him to regain their parliamentary seats and the SLFP seniors who succumbed to pressure like nine-pins, displaying a distressing want of intelligence and courage.

Within days of his January 8th defeat, Mr. Rajapaksa began to stoke the fires of factionalism within the SLFP. While he busied himself with temple-hopping, his acolytes demanded his anointment as the UPFA prime-ministerial candidate. Soon the party was in turmoil and teetering towards a deadly breakup. When parliamentary election was called, Mr. Rajapaksa threatened to contest separately, if President Sirisena did not concede all his demands.

Having bludgeoned Mr. Sirisena into agreeing to the nomination of himself and almost all of his key acolytes, Mr. Rajapaksa turned the parliamentary election into an election about himself. The campaign’s theme song was about him (‘You will come and lighten the darkness; you will give life to the county. Like a father, you are our shelter’ were some of its familiarly sycophantic lyrics).

Its propaganda showcased Mr. Rajapaksa and his achievements. His acolytes carried out a schismatic campaign, attacking and ostracizing those SLFP candidates seen as faint of faith of the Rajapaksa creed.

The parliamentary election was turned into the second-phase of the presidential election. Both nationally and within the UPFA/SLFP, pro-Mahinda vs. anti-Mahinda became the main line of demarcation.

Faced with the prospect of a Rajapaksa-return, many non-UNPers (some of whom may have voted for the JVP or even abstained) rallied round the UNP.

The end result was a second and a far more comprehensive defeat for Mr. Rajapaksa and the UPFA, just eght months after the first one.

The UPFA contesting under Mr. Rajapaksa suffered significant vote-losses in 20 out of 22 districts. Even in the Kurunegala district where Mr. Rajapaksa himself contested, the UPFA’s total vote and average vote both decreased. Despite Mr. Rajapaksa’s personal leadership, the UPFA was unable to hobble over the 50% line in the Kurunegala district. The combined vote of the UNP and the JVP was higher than the UPFA vote.

The lesson is obvious. The Lankan electorate, Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim, has rejected Mr. Rajapaksa, again. Mr. Rajapaksa is dead politico-electorally. Will he accept his demise, at least now? Or will he try to use those legislators who’ll stay with him (some will pole-vault) to make both parliament and the country as chaotic as possible?

Falling with Mahinda

Mr. Rajapaksa was defeated decisively at the presidential election. But he and his acolytes did not regard it as a real, genuine defeat. From his very first impromptu speech at Medamulana on January 9th, Mr. Rajapaksa claimed that he was defeated because Northern, Eastern and Plantation voters turned against him. His acolytes took up the cry and took it round the country.

The minority vote played a decisive role in Mr. Rajapaksa’s January 8th defeat. That was the truth, but not the whole truth. Mahinda Rajapaksa lost not just because he failed to gain the support of minority communities. Mahinda Rajapaksa lost also because he failed to retain the support of the majority community.

No party in this country can win a presidential election with just minority support. In every single district outside of the North and the East, including his home-base of Hambantota, Mr. Rajapaksa’s vote declined significantly between the presidential election of 2010 and the presidential election of 2015. Without that massive shift, Maithripala Sirisena could not have won, even with minority support.

Had Mr. Rajapaksa understood and accepted this truth, he could have avoided the disaster of August 17th. Unfortunately logic and reason were in short supply in the echo chamber that was the Rajapaksa-faction, post-January 8th. Mr. Rajapaksa’s acolytes claimed that he was defeated because Sinhala voters were deceived and misled by traitors and international conspirators. They argued that Sinhala voters were weeping hysterically about what they, in their ignorance, did to their hero. They opined that millions of misled Sinhala voters were yearning to right the wrong they did. They insisted the UPFA would win the parliamentary election with a huge majority if it contests under Mr. Rajapaksa’s leadership. Some in-house electoral analysts even claimed that a UPFA led by Mr. Rajapaksa will succeed in obtaining 7.2 million votes. It was on the basis of these faith-based calculations Mr. Rajapaksa insisted he will get 117 seats at the parliamentary election.

So the opera of ignorance wended its loud and frenzied way. Mr. Rajapaksa ran a parallel campaign, touring temples island-wide and being greeted by adoring crowds. All that made exciting news.

Amidst the drama, Mr. Rajapaksa and his acolytes forgot a cardinal fact: free and fair elections are decided by real numbers and not by choreographed theatrics.

The Failure of Extremism

The Rajapaksa power-project was premised on Sri Lanka being an exceptional state, forever menaced by internal and external enemies, permanently in need of a ruler enjoying absolute sovereignty unhampered by law and unmitigated by notions of human rights or individual/civic freedoms. This notion played a key role in the parliamentary election campaign. From Mahinda Rajapaksa downwards, most UPFA leaders invoked Eelamist, Jihadist, Indian and Western spectres and argued that only Rajapaksa power can keep the country and people safe.

Addressing an election rally for his brother in Kuliyapitiya Gotabhaya Rajapaksa drew a terrifying picture of the menaces confronting a post-Rajapaksa Sri Lanka. He claimed that the situation in the North had regressed to what it was in the decade of 1980s. He proclaimed that the TNA was trying to achieve what the LTTE could not – Eelam. In a website identified with Wimal Weerawansa the story was carried with a caption which embodied the main electoral theme of the Rajapaksa-led UPFA, ‘People, this is the last bus to a unitary Sri Lanka’.

That racist fear-mongering failed not just nationally but also in the very electorate Gotabhaya Rajapaksa made his incendiary – and mendacious – speech. At the presidential election the UPFA won the Kuliyapitiya electorate with 50.61% of the vote. This time the UPFA’s vote went down to 45.19% and it lost Kuliyapitiya to the UNP.

Postal voters are police and military personnel and government employees engaged in election duties and essential services. Though exact figures are not available, the absolute majority of postal voters are Sinhalese.

In 2005 and 2010, Mahinda Rajapaksa won the postal votes by huge margins. In 2015 he was defeated in postal votes as well. This was a clear indication of the erosion of his support among the majority community.

This downward trend in the postal votes continued at the parliamentary election. Even in his own Kurunegala district, Mr. Rajapaksa failed to win the postal vote. That is perhaps the clearest demonstration of the failure of the ‘Terrify, Divide and Win’ strategy adopted by the Rajapaksa camp.

The Southern electorate not only rejected Mahinda Rajapaksa for a second time. It also resoundingly defeated the Bodu Jana Peramuna, the hasty electoral-avatar of the infamous BBS and Bhikku Galagoda-Atte Gnanasara.

The rejection of extreme solutions was evident in the North as well, where the moderate TNA won a huge and convincing victory. In his election analysisiii, Ahilan Kadirgarmar points to humiliating defeat suffered by the extremist Tamil National Peoples’ Front (TNPF). The TNPF failed to win a single seat and scored even less votes than Mahinda Rajapaksa’ UPFA in Jaffna!

Eric Hobsbwam warned that “bad history is not harmless history”iv. Mr. Rajapaksa and his hardcore supporters fabricated a bad history about the 2015 election. They tried to regain political relevance by creating an unbridgeable divide between majority and minority communities. They endeavoured to create a wave of fear and hatred and ride it back to power. They sowed extremisms in the hope of reaping rich electro-political rewards.

And they failed, again.

In voting out Mahinda Rajapaksa and voting in Maithripala Sirisena, the really existing ethno-religiously pluralist Sri Lanka asserted itself over the imaginary ethno-religiously monolithic Sri Lanka. The defeat of Mahinda Rajapaksa was not a Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim enterprise, but a Lankan enterprise.

The really-existing pluralist Sri Lanka asserted itself again on August 17th and it did so in even clearer terms. Sinhala extremists were defeated in the South and Tamil extremists were defeated in the North. Racism failed, fear and suspicion failed.

Mr. Rajapaksa will not heed the electorate message, but hopefully other politicians will.

The economy needs revitalisation, but the cost of doing so must not fall primarily on those at the bottom end of the income totem pole. Austerity is self-defeating economically and opens the door wide to racism and every other form of extremism politically. The ethnic problem requires a just resolution and the living conditions in the North-East need urgent improvement. Democracy must be further strengthened and basic rights of all people assured, both in law and in practice. Judicial independence and the rule of law need further bolstering. Corruption and waste must cease to be normal. Justice must be done in a seeming manner.

And the SLFP must be turned into an electable party again, by removing it from the extremist quagmire and removing extremists from its upper and middle ranks.

In the South and in the North ordinary voters have done their duty. It is to them that paeans of praise really belong. They resisted the deadly appeal of ethno-religious racism; they refused to succumb to mindless fear; they voted with responsibility and maturity. In the North and in the South they voted for a Lankan, rather than a Sinhala, Tamil or Muslim, future.

Now it is the turn of the politicians.

i Quoted in ‘The Demigods – Charismatic Leadership in the Third World’ by Jean Lacouture

ii https://lankacnews.com/sinhala/main-news/134814/

iii https://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/42751

iv Identity History is not enough – On History