Proving poll pundits and his political detractors wrong, incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa has swept the polls for the Sri Lankan presidency, which he ordered 22 months ahead of the due date in November 2011. The 57.88 per cent voting figures is only the second highest after the 62.38 recorded by Chandrika Kumaratunga, the one-time leader of his party, SLFP, in the ‘pro-peace’ presidential elections of 1994 – and despite an ‘anti-incumbency factor’ that was sought to be played up against his ‘achievement’ in trouncing the LTTE militant-terrorists in May last year.
Reasons could be listed out, justifying the people’s mandate that went against the common Opposition candidate, Sarath Fonseka, who before voluntary retirement had been the commander of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) that trounced the LTTE, militarily. Kumaratunga was the last one to jump on to the Fonseka bandwagon before the 26 January polling, convinced as she was of a sure victory for the retired General.
The Rajapaksa victory in a narrower sense would imply that the incumbent has captured the imagination of the masses than urban critics and the parties that they backed has calculated. The island-wide figures, barring those for the Tamil-speaking areas, bear testimony. In a broader sense, the victory confirms earlier predictions that the fulcrum of national politics has moved away from the urban centres and their elite, cut off as they are from, ground reality.
In a way, it is this unsure nature of the urban elitist understanding of the emerging situation that might have done in Fonseka and his UNP-JVP backers. Yet, it is inconceivable how a cadre-based, Left-leaning party like the JVP allowed itself to be led/.misled by the western tools of electoral communication, like rumour-mongering and whisper campaigns.
This gap in the communication with the voter has now caused the widening margin in electoral terms. Unused to the ways of the West, it is possible that the customised voters of the UNP Opposition on which Fonseka relied heavily, became both the tool and victim of such unscientific campaigns that their fears and anxieties might have caused a ripple in sections that they were heard and acted upon – but not in ways that they had hoped for. With Parliament elections due in April, the presidential elections may have given President Rajapaksa the advantage that he needed for winning an absolute majority on his terms, than having to depend on defectors and favour-seekers.
Today, Rajapaksa is the king of all that he surveys in Sri Lanka, and even beyond, so to say, when the issues are related to his country. The decision of the one-time LTTE-centric Tamil Nationalist Alliance (TNA) to favour Fonseka, and the failure of the Tamil parties in his Government to deliver on electoral hopes in terms of votes, coupled with his unquestioned dominance in the majority Sinhala electorate all across the country, may have together cost the Tamil community its leadership material and also the bargaining power for political negotiations.
Otherwise, too, re-election has given President Rajapaksa the time and space that he had sought for ushering in all-round development to a country that had lost its economic role-model status in South Asia three decades ago. Having won the war on terrorism that the LTTE had represented, he had sought to present himself as a visionary, which his detractors nearer home and afar would not grant him. The ‘war crimes’ and other charges of human rights violations that were being hurled against him over the past months had the additional burden of wanting to tie him down to the past, instead of moving forward with his call for, “Future Progress”.
However, the elitist class in the country, and also the West, has looked upon the Rajapaksa leadership in particular and other non-UNP, SLFP-led Governments in general as lacking in an economic vision. Translated, it implies that the UNP alone, while in power, would play ball with them on issues of market economy on the one hand – and their collective, strategic security concerns, on the other. With their purported battle against the incumbent failing to produce results, the West can now be expected to produce a compromise formula, which will provide for a honourable exit / accommodation for their friends in the country.
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For India, Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour whose concerns for the Tamils in the island-nation are too well known, the emerging situation comes up with added responsibility with little or no rights to go with it. For the Tamil community to overcome their current loss of face, political space and leadership, they need to show results in the parliamentary elections, where the concentration of community voters in specific regions of the country would be a boon – provided they know how to make use of it in their collective wisdom.
The possible need for the Tamils to identify themselves with their political past, and also the demoralisation that could be expected to set in, in the UNP camp in particular, could together force the divided political leadership to look at their collective options. Until it evolves into some kind of an identifiable and actionable idea, the lack of responsible leadership could widen the existing vacuum. For now, Fonseka’s apprehensions against possible assassination of all Opposition leaders, holed up as he is in his hotel room and surrounded as his ‘party’ is by army troops, in the heart of the nation’s Capital, has the potential to keep them all together, at least for a time.
Having identified itself with the Sri Lankan nation and the Tamil community over the decades, particularly on the ethnic issue, the global community in general, and the Tamil society and polity in Sri Lanka and India, otherwise, expect New Delhi to find a political solution to the long-standing issue. While the State processes may provide India with opportunities to carry the Sri Lankan Government leadership with it, there cannot be any commitment from the Tamil polity and society on any or all of the issues that need to be hammered out, unless such proposals/solutions fully reflect the sentiments and demands of the Tamils – that too, to the last ‘t’.
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