By Godwin Constantine –

Dr. Godwin Constantine

Anura Kumara Dissanayake , though not securing a 50+1%,  won the recently concluded presidential election and has become the ninth executive president of the country. In this election as well as in the previous election, the vote of the Tamil people went to the unsuccessful candidate.

Anura kumara did not win in any of the Tamils dominated districts.  There are many comments and criticisms on this issue in the social media. These commentators often do not have deep understanding of politics and express their knee jerk reactions towards this sensitive issue.

The basic reason for the difference in the voting pattern of the Singhalese and the Tamils is due to the different socio-political issues faced by these populations. Tamil people and Sinhalese people have different problems, different views and different political aspirations.  Corruption, abuse and frauds are not the political concerns of the Tamil people. Getting rid of frauds and corruption will not change the living conditions or political aspirations of the Tamil people.

But as far as the Sinhalese are concerned corruption, nepotism and fraud are the main curse of this nation since independence. Since independence people voted for different camps of corrupt politicians hoping that one would be better than the other. When they came to power the amassed wealth and protected those in the opposition. These politicians played the ethnic card to capture the votes. Since the 2015 election people voted for change, especially towards a corruption-free state.

In 2015, Sirisena-Ranil duo contested on a ‘good governance’ stance and people trusted them and voted for them. After which this people voted for Gotabaya as he was not a ‘typical politician’, hoping that he would make the change they wanted. In the end these two governments did not take any action against their corrupt colleagues. In this election people regarded the National People’s Power as the savior of the nation and voted for Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

However, the main political party of the NPP, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has a record of harbouring anti-Indian and anti-devolution sentiments.  It was the JVP that through legal action demerged the Northern-Eastern provincial council. The North-East merger was the only meaningful positive political step that was taken by a Sri Lankan government since independence to address the Ethnic issue. Even the meteoric rise of Anura Kumara Dissanayake is partly due to his stand against the 13^th amendment to Sri Lanka’s constitution. And later stance of  the JVP regarding the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS) signed between the Chandrika’s government and the  LTTE is all well known.

Nowhere in the presidential election campaign the NPP addressed the political aspirations or the grievances of the Tamils or the Muslims. In the initial stages of the campaign there was a controversy that the NPP would scrap the non-secular element in the Sri Lanka’s constitution that gives primary place for Sinhala language and Buddhism. But Anura Kumara himself rejected this at one point by saying that the there was no mention of the article 9 of the constitution at the Constitutional Council meetings convened to draft a new constitution, so that clause will stay as it is. It is worth noting that when Minister Vijitha Herath assumed duties as the Minister of Religious and Cultural Affairs he again asserted this position.

All that Anura Kumara said during the presidential election was that all races and religions are equal and everyone will be treated as equal citizens. Mahinda said the same thing at the end of the war and Gotabaya expressed the same sentiments in his presidential inaugural speech. In a multi-cultural country accepting the racial and cultural differences between people and ensuring equality through constitution and legal processes and assuming that there are necessary conditions for every citizen to be equal are two different things.

Every citizen in this country should be treated as equal is probably what NPP really wants to do, they may be very genuine in what they are saying and want to mean what they say. Unless there is a political structure that will ensure equality, a single persons perception or a party’s ideology will not stand the test of time. If the NPP is really genuine they should appoint a member of the minority community as the prime minister. If they are not bold enough to do that all their utterance is useless. In this backdrop Tamils not overwhelmingly supporting the candidature of Anura Kumara Dissanayake is not surprising.

Tamil’s position

This presidential election has once again shown that the concept of  ‘Tamil nationalism’ has not been accepted as a ‘political weapon’ by majority of Tamil people in the North and East. The failure of the Common Tamil candidate clearly illustrates this.

In this presidential election, the “Tamil Thesiya Pothu Kattamaippu” (Tamil national general structure) put forward a Tamil presidential candidate. Though the idea of a Common Tamil Candidate was to bring all Tamils under one umbrella and show the world that Tamils are standing together to highlight the lack of political will of the successive governments of Sri Lanka to solve the issues faced by the Tamil population, it was not sucessful.   

The Tamil common candidate failed to win the first place in any of the Tamil districts. Even in Jaffna he was only able to secure the second position.  A similar result was seen in the 2015 parliamentary election where the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) which campaigned with an extreme Tamil nationalist stand, failed to secure a single seat.

These results illustrates that Tamil people don’t want politicians to use ‘Tamil nationalism” for their survival. The conventional Tamil political parties and their leaders have created a situation where the day to day life and the problems in the society are overlooked and political rhetoric based on “Tamil Nationalism” is used to stir up people emotionally when faced with an election. Political parties have become a refuge for self-centered “political businessman”. The minorities have become victims of this ‘politics of emotions’.   

The minorities in this country want to live peacefully with dignity, as equals with fellow citizen of the majority community. This is not a pure political issue this is a socio-political issue. When there is no political framework with legal assurance, it allows room for politicians to use this as a spring board for their survival.

Challenges facing the new president

The challenges of NPP’s do not end with the victory in the presidential-election, this is where the real challenges begin. This victory is simply a reflection of hatred harbored by the people who experienced 70 years of corrupt politics. People have been voting for a change since 2015. However, corruption is not really a major factor in our economic crisis faced by the country.

The main challenge for President Anura Kumar is to sail successfully through this economic crisis and build a strong economy for the country. The upcoming parliamentary election is going to be the testing ground to prepare for this journey.

The NPP will need a parliamentary majority to work smoothly. The other major parties will work together after elections to ensure their political future. The main issue faced by NPP is that unlike other parties NPP does not have a very strong electoral/ district based leadership.

In the 2019 presidential election Gotabaya won 16 districts and in 15 districts he got more than 50% votes and in four districts more than 60%, in this election Anura Kumara won 15 districts but in only four districts he got more than 50% votes and he did not receive 60% votes in any of the districts.. Viewed in this background, it will be a challenging task for NPP to achieve parliamentary majority.

There is a possibility that in the upcoming parliamentary elections, the mainstream political parties will formulate various plans to retain political power. If the other parties fail to get significant number of seats, their existence in the future will become an uncertainty. However, since the election victory the NPP and the President have gained confidence of the masses and have moved towards fulfilling some of the election promises.

There is no doubt that the NPP government will be much better than any other previous governments in taking steps to eradicate corruption, create a better social environment and promote good governance. Now there is a situation where politicians can be subjected to legal proceedings for their unlawful acts and made to comply with court rulings. All these days politicians and even their supporters got away without facing the consequence of their unlawful acts.   If the President and his economic advisors are able to manage the economy properly and drive us towards economic recovery other political parties may become irrelevant with time. This possibility has made the upcoming parliamentary elections as a struggle for their existence.

All major political parties in Sri Lanka including the minority parties have become very unstable and being increasingly rejected by the people. The major parties are hunting to form coalitions for the upcoming election. In this backdrop a new political platform for the minorities is emerging. The Tamil, Muslim and upcountry people need to change their political strategy and ensure parliamentary stability of NPP government. The NPP is unlikely to join hands with corrupt political heavy weights of the traditional minority parties. The NPP has to find reliable partners from the minority groups.

Prioritising ethnic identity and religious identities are essential to maintain unity within the minority groups and uniqueness of the cultural differences. However, these should not be used as a political weapon to ensure survival of politicians or political parties. We need new political leaders with new strategy to create a new political culture.

It is essential that minority ethnic groups and religious groups to have their identity based political parties especially in a country like Sri Lanka where the constitution gives special place to the religion and language of the majority community. This situation invariably necessitates separate political discourse as well.

After going through so many years of confrontational politics now the time has come to work with the party in power to uplift the socio-economic status of our people through development process while maintaining our political identity. There should be give and take in this process of working together. If good will and mutual respect and understanding prevails we can look forward for a bright future.