Col R Hariharan
Minority vote
Battle lines in the contest between President Mahinda
Rajapaksa and the challenger Maithripala Sirisena, his former colleague and Sri
Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) are getting more clearly drawn in the Presidential
election to be held on January 8, 2015, with more crossovers between the ruling
UPFA coalition and the Sirisena’s opposition front.
The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) led by Rauf Hakeem and the
All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC) led by Risad Bathiutheen both have quit Rajapaksa’s
UPFA coalition government to support common opposition candidate Sirisena. They
have accused Rajapaksa of failing to check the Buddhist extremist attacks on
Muslim minority. After a lot of introspection, the Tamil National Alliance
(TNA), which commands most of the Tamil votes, has also decided to support Sirisena.
Thus cumulatively Sirisena stands to gain most of the minority votes which form
20 per cent of the total.
Maithri’s manifesto
With the manifestos of the two main candidates out, its pros
and cons are being debated hotly particularly on issues like executive
presidency, corruption, economic development and accountability.
Maithripala has focused on three weaknesses of the Rajapaksa
rule – corruption, cronyism and accumulation of power in the hands of the
President and his family. The manifesto promises to replace the “present
autocratic Executive Presidential System” by introducing a “constitutional
structure with an executive that is allied to parliament through the cabinet.”
He hopes to build a corruption free “ideal country” in two
stages: within 100 days form a multi-party National Unity Alliance government
to address urgent issues, and then hold the general elections to repeal the 18th
Amendment to the Constitution by bringing 19th Amendment to free
national institutions like the judiciary, election commission etc from the
President’s control in the next six years.
He said he would carry out only domestic enquiries into on alleged human
rights violations. However, he has been silent on specific minority issues like
the full implementation of the 13th Amendment.
However, Rajapaksa’s manifesto is a follow up of his earlier
manifestos of 2005 and 2010 presidential elections. Conscious of the focus on
executive president’s powers, Rajapaksa proposes to amend the constitution
based peoples’ concerns on the issue. Before last presidential election also
Rajapaksa had promised to abolish the executive presidency; so there is not
much credibility in his promise on this issue.
Other electoral issues
Electoral violence: There had been marked escalation in pre election
violence. Even the residence of former President Mrs Chandrika Kumaratunga and
one of the election offices of Sirisena and the UNP have not escaped attacks by ruling coalition’s
goons. The Police have arrested 53 suspects relating to 113 complaints about
election violence they have received. According to the police 10 serious
incidents of violence among them involved local government politicians The
Campaign for Free and Fair Elections (CaFFE) have received 574 complaints of
election related incidents including 500 cases of election law violation cases.
There were 47 cases reported with regard to election violence and 16 out of
that are firearms related incidents.
Abuse of state resources:
a. The Peoples Action for Free and Fair Elections
(PAFFREL), an official election monitor, has said abuse of state resources for
election purposes in this presidential election had exceeded the last one. A
total of 150 violations relating to abuse of state power, resources, and misuse
of state sector employees for election purposes have been reported during the
first 35 days of pre-election period as against only 53 instances of abuse of
state resources for campaigning during the 2005 election.
b. Transparency International (TI) has requested the
Elections Commissioner (EC) to immediately stop a government plan to distribute 800,000 packs of religious
attire (Sil Redhi) costing about Rs. 1000 Million from state funds to muster
support for President Rajapaksa in violation of electoral law. The Executive
Director of TI said the presidential secretariat had authorised the expenditure
to be financed by the Ministry of Industry and commerce.
c. Ms
Vasanthi Arasaratnam, Vice Chancellor of Jaffna University has forwarded to all
deans a letter dated December 23, 2014 from the University Grants Commission as
directed by the UGC chairman. All the deans were required to sign and return
the UGC letter which was clearly written to gain support for Rajapaksa.
Populist measures: There had been a number of populist actions by the
government clearly to curry favour for President Rajapaksa. State banks have
been directed to give interest-free distress loans to public sector employees increasing
the maximum amount from Rs 30,000 to Rs. 250,000 per year with the Treasury
bearing the 10 per cent annual interest on the loans.
Rajapaksa’s on relations with India
In the first ever interview to a Chennai Tamil TV channel,
President Rajapaksa was effusive in his praise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
for “opening up” India’s foreign policy. Refuting that he was not allowing the
Northern Provincial Council government to function, he said it was the TNA
which did not want to use the powers at its disposal but wanted more.
He was optimistic the fishermen issue between the two
countries would be solved amicably. He was equally optimistic that he would
increase his tally of votes to 35 per cent in Northern Province as younger
generation of Tamils wanted development.
Overall assessment
The emergence of Sirisena as the common opposition candidate and
defection of some of key parliament members and provincial councillors of the
SLFP to the opposition ranks have clearly upset President Rajapaksa’s confident
move in calling for early elections. He has used both the carrot and stick to
retain his flock of supporters. There are indications that in Gampaha and Kandy
he is losing ground. Sirisena’s chances of edging out the President would
brighten if he manages to gain at least 15 per cent of Southern Sinhala votes.
Written on December 31, 2014
Courtesy: South Asia Security
Trends, Vol 8 No. 12 January 2015
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