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Sri Lanka Must
Focus on Minorities Now
 The January
presidential election campaign as well as the post-election
developments in Sri Lanka indicate quite clearly that the dominant
political class of the country is deeply and antagonistically
divided.
The tragedy of
electoral democracy in
Sri Lanka
is that elections do not seem to help the political class to
negotiate and settle their contradictions and resolve problems in
the polity. Rather, elections compel the factions of the political
class to resort to false agendas and, in turn, to invent and pursue
enmities.
Although the
civil war is over, the trajectory of the island's post-civil war
politics is still in the process of being formed. One thing though
seems clear. Neither the ruling party nor the opposition (not even
the minority parties) are going to place the rights of the
minorities at the centre of their political agenda. Sri Lanka's
sixth presidential election was held on
26 January 2010.
Although this
election was constitutionally due at the end of 2011, Mahinda
Rajapaksa, the incumbent president, advanced the election by two
years. Rajapaksa obviously wanted to capitalise his huge popularity
gained by crushing the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
militarily in May 2009. His main rival at the presidential election
was his own former army commander, Sarath Fonseka, who strategised
and executed a pretty ruthless and therefore successful war against
the LTTE.
The dispute
between Rajapaksa and Fonseka erupted ostensibly on the question of
sharing the credit for the military victory. A deeper issue was also
involved in this dispute. Rajapaksa and his brothers, who are very
influential civilian officials of the administration, may have tried
to curtail the influence of the military on the post-war policy
process.
Civilian
politicians perhaps became aware of the need to restore the pre-war
balance of power between them and the army. Obviously, this angered
General Fonseka. The opposition which has been searching for a
viable presidential candidate to pit against the popular President
Rajapaksa wasted no time to entice General Fonseka to be its
candidate.
Fonseka was also
the centre of gravity of a new coalition which brought together the
right wing United National Party (UNP), the left-nationalist Janatha
Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), and a significant section of Tamil and
Muslim political parties.
Notable among
the latter was the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main
parliamentary coalition of mainstream Tamil parties which had
maintained political sympathies with the LTTE.
At one level,
the Rajapaksa-Fonseka dispute showed that the war coalition which
President Rajapaksa put together had cracked up from within.
General
Fonseka's challenge to the incumbent president focused primarily on
the issue of corruption and nepotism. These are, of course,
governance issues. However, the debate during the election campaign
was centred less on democratic reforms than on regime change.
Broad policy
issues were not in the campaign agenda of either of the two main
candidates. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has now been reelected with
a comfortable majority of 58% of total votes cast. And his opponent
is in jail.
Clearly, there
were fears that he might challenge the election results before the
Supreme Court, although it is surely a long-drawn out process with
no immediate impact on the outcome of the election.
What is clear is
that the Tamil-Sinhala divide remains deep and entrenched. The
electoral districts with concentration of ethnic minorities have
overwhelmingly voted for the opposition candidate. It is a sad thing
that they did not have another alternative.
So they were
voting for the man who led the assault against them. This is how
democracy fails the people.Minorities are clearly estranged from the
Rajapaksa regime. In this post-election context, reaching out to
ethnic minorities, particularly the Tamils, will be essential to
address this deep sense of minority alienation and for Sri Lanka's
political stability.
10
February 2010
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