{"id":66363,"date":"2019-11-17T21:38:03","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T02:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=66363"},"modified":"2019-11-17T23:03:40","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T04:03:40","slug":"voting-pattern-of-sri-lankan-presidential-elections-indicating-deep-polarisation-between-the-sinhala-majority-and-tamil-and-muslim-minorities-cause-for-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=66363","title":{"rendered":"Voting Pattern of Sri Lankan Presidential Elections Indicating Deep Polarisation Between the Sinhala Majority and Tamil and Muslim Minorities is Cause for Concern"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Meera Srinivasan<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the outcome of Saturday\u2019s presidential polls in Sri Lanka became clear, some voters\u2019 message to the winner Gotabaya Rajapaksa was even clearer.<\/p>\n

The island\u2019s minority Tamils and Muslims, most of whom live in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, had voted decisively for ruling party candidate Sajith Premadasa, giving him over a million votes \u2014 about 80% of the vote share in the regions.<\/p>\n

In effect, they had rejected Mr. Rajapaksa, a powerful former defence secretary accused of war-crimes \u2014 which he has denied \u2014 and linked to reactionary anti-Muslim groups.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cWe respect the mandate of the people of the country and congratulate Mr. Rajapaksa, but we cannot lose sight of the fact that he polled so low in the two provinces. This is an issue we must address, and he must engage with elected representatives of the minorities,\u201d Jaffna legislator and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) spokesman M.A. Sumanthiran said.<\/p>\n

According to Sri Lanka Muslim Congress Leader Rauff Hakeem, a Minister in the incumbent government, the voting pattern demonstrated \u201ca deeper polarisation\u201d of communities. Pointing to \u201cmany challenges\u201d and \u201chard decisions\u201d ahead, he said the most urgent priority was to maintain law and order, respect rule of law and nurture the country\u2019s pluralistic and democratic values.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fervently hope for peace and amity, restoration of harmony and lasting goodwill among all communities under your administration,\u201d he said in a letter to President-elect Mr. Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n

For Tamils, Mr. Rajapaksa\u2019s former avatar brings back disturbing memories of stifling military surveillance and many enforced disappearances \u2014 for which families are still seeking answers. The brutal finish to the war with the Tamil Tigers in 2009, took away lives of tens of thousands of civilians and the wounds have hardly healed in the last decade.<\/p>\n

For Muslims, on the other hand, it is fear, according to N.M. Ameen, President of the Sri Lanka Muslim Council. The post-war years saw frequent attacks on Muslims and the Easter bombings in April made the community a target of hate and violence unleashed by hard-line groups.<\/p>\n

Anti-Muslim attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEven if people don\u2019t associate Mr. Rajapaksa with the anti-Muslim attacks that followed Easter, they fear that forces behind them might feel emboldened under his presidency,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Rajapaksa knows this, as his tweet on Sunday indicated.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the President of not only those who voted for me but also those who voted against me and irrespective of which race or religion they belong to,\u201d the newly-elected leader said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a very welcome message and shows his willingness to reach out,\u201d Mr. Ameen noted. \u201cNational leadership in a plural country like ours only grows stronger with the support of all communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courtesy:The Hindu<\/em><\/p>\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Meera Srinivasan As the outcome of Saturday\u2019s presidential polls in Sri Lanka became clear, some voters\u2019 message to the winner Gotabaya Rajapaksa was even clearer. The island\u2019s minority Tamils and Muslims, most of whom live in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, had voted decisively for ruling party candidate Sajith Premadasa, giving him over a …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Voting Pattern of Sri Lankan Presidential Elections Indicating Deep Polarisation Between the Sinhala Majority and Tamil and Muslim Minorities is Cause for Concern’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66363"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66369,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66363\/revisions\/66369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}