7th November 1999

Who will get the Tamil support?

There is a big gap between the rate of acceptance Mrs. Chandrika Kumaratunga enjoyed at the time she came to power in '94 and that of today, five years after her coming to power. In the five years after her triumph the people's confidence in her has declined rapidly. She has not been able to consolidate it. In these circumstances the contest between her and Ranil Wickremesinghe will inevitably be a close one.

Consequently both the leaders are pinning their hopes on the Tamil voters of the North and East to get the additional votes they need to win. Mrs. Kumaratunga uses the 'package' to lure those votes.

At the Presidential election of 1994 the Tamil people had high expectations about Mrs. Kumaratunga. However, even on that occasion, it was a minority and not a majority of the Tamil people of the North and East who supported her.

Although before the Presidential election Mrs. Kumaratunga was committed to a declaration of a cease-fire and to discussions with the LTTE, the people of the North were not in a mood to support her activity. At that Presidential election Mrs. Kumaratunga was able to get only 6934 votes or 3% of the potential votes from the total number of 596366 votes. From the Wanni too, of the total number of 178697 registered voters, only 33585 or 19% had voted for her.

The number was higher in the Eastern province. But even there, only some of the Tamil people, and not a large majority, went so far as to exercise their vote in her favour. At the parliamentary election of '94 the PA could get only 97314 votes in the Eastern province. However, at the Presidential election Mrs. Kumaratunga's share of the vote here was as high as 390957.

At that presidential election the TULF and some other Tamil groups in addition to the SLMC supported her. The vote she obtained was equal to the combined total that the PA, SLMC, TULF, EPRLF and PLOTE had obtained at the parliamentary election. Thus Mrs. Kumaratunga had been able to get only 88367 or 28% of total potential of 311354 Tamil votes in the East.

Even on that occasion when Tamil people had great confidence in her the percentage of the votes that Mrs. Kumaratunga could get, either due to the adverse influence of the LTTE or due to lack of confidence in the two main political parties of the South, was only 6.51% of the Tamil vote in the North and 28% of the Tamil vote in the East.

Mrs. Kumaratunga's five year administration has not enhanced the Tamil people's confidence in her. At the coming Presidential election, even the TULF is prone to avoid extending direct support to her. The other Tamil political groups too appear to follow a policy of abstention. In these circumstances, the Tamil people of the North and East are unlikely to follow a policy of supporting her, whatever hopes she might have. It is also unlikely that they will support the UNP instead. The only possibility is that a majority of the Tamil people of the North and East will either abstain from voting or spoil their votes.

Mr. Thondaman's death will inevitably lead to a split in the CWC. The activists of the CWC are not happy about Mr. Thondaman's grandson, Arumugam Thondaman. In this situation, while some groups in the CWC will support the PA others will inevitably be driven to the policy of supporting the UNP as usual.

There are clear indications that a majority of the Tamil people of Colombo too are going to make this Presidential election an occasion for a protest vote. At the last provincial council election it appeared that a majority of the Tamil people of Colombo abstained from voting while a majority of those who voted, sided with the UNP. The PA has surmised that they had received only about 4000 votes from the Wellawatte constituency where the Tamil community is predominant

.

In these circumstances the Tamil people are not going to make a major impact on the coming Presidential election. What it means is that, in the final analysis, the winner will be determined not by the Tamil people but by the Sinhala and Muslim people of the South.

The heightened offensive of the LTTE on the Army camps in the North will probably weaken the will of even those among the Tamil people who are interested in the electoral process to cast their votes. In the final analysis, this Presidential election will be to Prabhakaran's advantage. Rather than getting the Tamil people to join in a common political process, it is likely to draw them further away from it and sharpen the existing ethnic division.

From the Blue Corner

Editorial/ Opinion Contents