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Maithri or Mahinda – a toss up
View(s):As campaigning draws to a close in one of the most crucial election in recent times, there is no second-guessing what the people’s verdict will be. The opposition started out on a single-issue platform based on abolishing the executive presidency. But as the campaign progressed it became increasingly clear that the crowd-pulling factor was not the abstract concept of constitutional reform, but the appearance of a new personality — that of Maithripala Sirisena, as the opposition’s candidate.
The Catch-22 is that Sirisena, torch bearer for the ‘abolition’ camp, promises if elected to stand down in favour of a system that will enthrone parliament instead of himself. In a way, he is saying “Vote for me to be not your president.” This has made the choice a complicated one for the voter. A vote for Sirisena, it is now apparent, is actually a vote for Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, already named as prime minister in the event of a Sirisena victory. To complicate matters further is the come-back of former president Chandrika Kumaratunga whose role in a possible Wickremesinghe-led government remains murky. Will she be a bossy, political-matriarch figure, pulling strings in the background? Will she control Sirisena as Sonia Gandhi influenced Manmohan Singh?
People’s court
In the people’s court that holds sway now, the Government is being judged on its past performance while the opposition, with its untested presidential candidate, is being assessed on its promises. This gives a slight edge to the opposition. A build-up of frustrations is inevitable in some quarters after a government has served two terms. President Rajapaksa could perhaps have pre-empted the present besieged position he faces within his own government had he moved to address those frustrations. But he allowed the mutterings about corruption, family rule, bribery, thuggery and intimidation of opponents to grow unchecked to a crescendo, fuelling the project to oust him.
What’s worse is that the Government’s election campaign instead of talking about course correction in respect of these governance issues, has resorted to dishing out ‘more of the same.’ Complaints about vandalising opponents’ election offices, assaults, attacks and abuse of state property are mainly against the Government camp. The daily catalogue of misdeeds highlighted in the media tends to vindicate the opposition’s allegations.
More of the same
The mindless habit of dishing out more-of-the-same has backfired in other areas too. The offering of enticements — part and parcel of the culture of patronage politics — has not served to stem the tide of crossovers. In a cynical display of ‘thumbing their noses’ at government, several politicians who defected from the ruling coalition did so after accepting the enticements intended to prevent them from doing so. The most recent case was that of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress led by Rishard Bathiudeen, whose party’s provincial councillor Amir Ali had only recently been made an MP. Both Palani Digambaram of the National Union of Workers and V Radhakrishnan of Upcountry Peoples Front quit after being appointed as deputy ministers – in August and October respectively.
The hemorrhaging of minority party support has done much damage to the UPFA coalition. SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem announced this week that his party would throw its weight behind common candidate Sirisena. It’s not clear what gains this would translate into in terms of ‘Muslim votes’ for Sirisena, given the SLMC’s rather dismal electoral record in recent times. Muslims are no longer voting on the basis of ethnicity owing to disillusionment with their political leadership. Party leaders have admitted as much.
Strategic blunder
Anti-Muslim violence in Aluthgama and Beruwela last year represented a watershed, likely to shape Muslim political orientation in this and future elections. The connections between Sinhala-Buddhist extremist groups and the Government have undoubtedly been a deciding factor in the defections by Muslims politicians. The needless alienation of the Muslim community is probably one of the biggest strategic blunders of this government, which could have repercussions internationally as well, in forums where Sri Lanka counts on the support of the Islamic bloc.
The TNA too made its stance known this week, categorically asking its constituents to vote for Sirisena and the swan symbol. The main Tamil political formation’s decision was predictable in view of earlier hints supportive of the opposition’s ‘good governance’ agenda, and its requests of people not to boycott the election.
Opposition’s grey areas
Despite the apparent wave in support of Sirisena, mostly visible in Colombo, there are grey areas in his campaign that have created misgivings in respect of national security, the structure of the future Sri Lankan state and foreign policy. Kumaratunga’s ‘Mr Prabhakaran’ faux pas in Jaffna has not been helpful either, in this respect. Rajapaksa, by contrast, in a recent interview with a Tamil Nadu TV station came across as patriotic, while being self-assured in relation to both friend and ‘relative’ in the international arena.
Sirisena seeks to reassure Sinhala voters by saying he will ‘never allow the LTTE to raise its head again.’ But this is hardly saying anything. The threat faced by the state today is not that of military resurgence of the LTTE, but of the LTTE in its new avatar of Tamil diaspora elements domiciled in the West and disguised as human rights defenders.
This is a far more complex and insidious challenge than that of a military resurgence, unlikely to succeed anyway against battle-hardened Sri Lankan forces. It is a challenge that has to be met strategically and diplomatically. Sirisena is not only silent on external relations and diplomacy but allows Wickremesinghe to make vague remarks on his behalf about ‘developing better relations with India and the West.’ Taken in combination with hints at scrapping Chinese-funded mega-projects, these comments could be seen as pandering to the prevailing Western China-phobia, and as part of an appeasement policy in relation to the West. With Non alignment being dropped from the lexicon, what would the international fallout of such an approach be? None of this has been discussed among the opposition’s constituent parties, it would seem. With just four days to go before voting, these are weighty questions for any presidential hopeful to leave unanswered.