Sajith Premadasa, leader of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya, party gestures as he arrives at the Election Commission in Rajagiriya to submit his nomination papers for the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for September 21, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), a prominent political party representing Tamils of Sri Lanka’s north and east, on Sunday (September 1) pledged support for presidential aspirant Sajith Premadasa in the September 21 election.

The move, which reflects one significant position within the island nation’s fragmented Tamil polity, comes even as the ITAK’s former coalition partners — along with other political groups — back former parliamentarian and ITAK member P. Ariyanethiran as a “common Tamil candidate” in the presidential race, in which incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mr. Premadasa, and opposition politician Anura Kumara Dissanayake have emerged as key contenders.

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The central committee of ITAK met on Sunday and decided the party will not back Mr. Ariyanethiran, instead announcing its support for Mr. Premadasa, who Tamils voted for in large numbers in the 2019 presidential election, principally to reject Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Further, ITAK sources said the party would request Mr. Ariyanethiran to withdraw from the race, to arrest the apparent divisions within the Tamil electorate.

The ITAK was the chief constituent of the former Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a formidable grouping representing Tamils of the north and east in parliament. The TNA collapsed in recent years amid differences among members. The ITAK, too, is grappling with internal differences that have only aggravated after senior party member and noted Tamil leader R. Sampanthan passed away in July.

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The ITAK’s position on the presidential polls was awaited by many, especially in the wake of party member and legislator S. Shritharan recently endorsing the “common candidate”. His party and parliamentary colleague M.A. Sumanthiran, meanwhile, has termed the idea of fielding a Tamil candidate a “nonsensical one”, arguing that the move would weaken Tamils’ bargaining power with the winning candidate, who will invariably be a contestant from the island’s southern, Sinhala-Buddhist majority.

Tamil voters are faced with different positions of their political leadership, ranging from backing a Tamil candidate, or a preferred Sinhalese leader, or boycotting the elections, as the All Ceylon Tamil Congress has decided to, protesting the many failed promises of past leaders.  

Following the ITAK’s announcement, Mr. Premadasa said on social media platform X: “Together, we’ll create a future where everyone wins — a future with no racism, no discrimination and a future built on unity, strength, and shared purpose.”

Mr. Premadasa, who released his manifesto last week, has pledged a new constitution where Sri Lanka’s current political system would be converted to a parliamentary system “with maximum devolution based on the 13th Amendment under one country”. The contentious 13^th Amendment, which assures a measure of power devolution to Sri Lanka’s nine provinces, was passed in 1987 following the Indo-Lanka Accord. It is yet to see full implementation in nearly four decades. Successive Sri Lankan leaders have refused to part especially with land and police powers although many Tamil leaders see the legislation as inadequate for meaningful power-sharing.