A vendor displays newspapers for sale at a stall in Kandy on November 16, 2024. Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition won a majority in snap parliamentary polls, provisional results showed on November 15.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The staggering mandate — over a two-thirds majority — that Sri Lanka’s National People’s Power [NPP] coalition led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake received in the November 14 general elections is a first in the country’s proportional representation system.

The unprecedented electoral feat, however, cannot be understood without appreciating the southern alliance’s political breakthrough in regions that are home to the island’s ethnic minorities. In almost all districts across Sri Lanka’s north, east, central and southern hill country, where Tamils, Muslims, and Malaiyaha Tamils live, the NPP has made impressive gains.

Editorial | A resounding victory: On the Sri Lankan election result

In the five electoral districts across the Northern and Eastern provinces, its candidates, all locals, secured 12 out of 28 seats. The NPP beat regional parties hands down in all districts but one, reflecting both the success of its outreach and the unmistakable shift within those electorates. That it did so in Jaffna and Vanni in particular, is historic for a southern political formation.

University of Jaffna academic Sengarapillai Arivalzahanattributes this largely to voters’ “anger and frustration” with long-time Tamil politicians. “Fifteen years after the war ended, Tamil people in the north and east have seen little relief or progress. There is a widely shared sentiment that the local parties and leaders were all talk and no action,” says the mathematician, who supported the NPP.

The prevalent disenchantment with their old leadership was one key reason, but it cannot entirely explain the shift. Tamils have been concerned that the fragmented Tamil nationalist polity, pre-occupied with internal disagreements, was weakening their voice in the national arena.

Further, through the post-war period, most Tamil parties focused mainly on war-time accountability and a political solution to the national question. Barring a few actors who took up local struggles over land grabs by the state, they rarely acknowledged or flagged the enormous financial strain facing most households.

Mounting household debt, joblessness, precarity surrounding rural livelihoods and the abject absence of economic revival that stifled people’s daily lives in the war-affected region did not get their attention. In this context, President Dissanayake’s effective messaging recently appeared to have connected with the ordinary Tamil voter.

Outdoing ITAK

Despite constraints, the formerly dominant Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) that ran alone — its former partners in the Tamil National Alliance contested through other formations — still managed to secure eight seats, points out party member and former Batticaloa MP Shanakiyan Rasamanickam. Apart from the three NPP candidates in Jaffna, former legislator and senior politician S. Shritharan retained his seat, while former MP and lawyer M.A. Sumanthiran, a spokesman of the party, lost his. Jaffna district also saw the re-election of All Ceylon Tamil Congress Leader Gajen Ponnambalam and the entry of an independent candidate.

“Our party [ITAK] had many challenges. Some diaspora groups were bankrolling few local forces and pushing a divisive agenda,” says Mr. Rasamanickam, who emerged the top candidate in Batticaloa. He is also credited with leading a focused campaign in the district, where the ITAK won three seats, while the NPP won just one. It is the only district where any other political party beat the NPP. Reflecting on the verdict, the 34-year-old says: “Going forward, it is clear that Tamil nationalist assertion without a focus on people’s economic and livelihood hardships will not help.”

Meanwhile, the NPP appears to have drawn more Muslim voters in the east, going by its victory in neighbouring Ampara and Trincomalee districts, where many in the community say they have lost faith in their local leadership. All the same, well-known Muslim leaders, Rauf Hakeem of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress who contested from the central Kandy district, and Rishad Bathiudeenof the All Ceylon Makkal Congress, who ran from northern Mannar, that is part of the Vanni electorate district, retained their seats.

‘Workers as people’

The NPP’s performance in the hill country, too, is remarkable, especially in districts that were bastions of the Ceylon Workers’ Congress and its rival Tamil Progressive Alliance.

While the traditional parties saw estate workers as “just a vote bank”, the NPP approached them as “people”, says Krishnan Kalaichelvi, who won from Nuwara Eliya district. Her victory, along with that of NPP candidate Ambika Samuel in neighbouring Badulla district, marks Malaiyaha Tamil women’s entry in to the Sri Lankan parliament for the first time.

“We campaigned hard on the ground, listening to people’s issues over wages, land rights, children’s education. It was the youth who backed us first, they have been waiting for change. Over time, they spoke to their families on our behalf and our support base grew,” says the long-time political activist and daughter of an estate worker. “My father gave his labour to his country till the time of his death… there are scores of people like him. The old political leadership was interested in its own power, not the people,” she says, adding that the NPP “went directly to the people” rather than through “power brokers and middlemen”. In Ms. Kalaichelvi’s view, Mr. Dissanayake’s declaration at a meeting in Hatton town in 2023 that he would recognise our people as “Malaiyaha Tamils” rather than “estate Tamils” struck a chord with many.

It is now amply clear that ethnic minorities have willingly placed their trust in President Dissanayake, observes the Jaffna-based academic Mr. Arivalzahan. “The President and his government have a moral obligation to keep their promises now,” he adds.

Supporters at President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s recent rally in Ampara, in Sri Lanka’s Eastern Province.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

AsPresident Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s ruling alliance eyes a parliamentary majority in Sri Lanka’s November 14 general elections voters in Ampara, located on Sri Lanka’s east coast, reflect all that is going well for the new leader and the challenges that remain.

Also known as the Digamadulla electoral district, Ampara is an interesting case-study for voter sentiments across Sri Lanka’s ethnic groups. The island’s three main ethnic communities — Sinhalese, Tamils, and Muslims — cohabit this district which, along with Batticaloa and Trincomalee, makes up the Eastern Province. Ahead of the parliamentary polls that come barely two months after the presidential election, voters’ views range from hope to scepticism.

The rise of a leftist politician from the margins of Sri Lanka’s political mainstream to presidency made global headlines in September. While Mr. Dissanayake’s win was a remarkable milestone for his party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP of People’s Liberation Front), and broader alliance, the National People’s Power (NPP), his government’s ability to influence policy and legislation, as the country’s ravaged economy pulls itself out of an unprecedented crisis, will be determined in the crucial general elections. The new government is asking voters to “cleanse the parliament”, so its members can have a majority in the 225-member House.

Winning minorities’ trust

Mr. Dissanayake was not the most preferred candidate for President among voters in Ampara, where he won only 25.74 % of the mandate. His chief rival, former opposition leader Sajith Premadasa secured 47.33 %, consistent with his performance in other districts in the island’s north and east where Tamils and Muslims reside in large numbers.  

However, locals note that this week’s election may reveal a shift towards the NPP among the ethnic minorities, especially the youth. This “more recent” switch, according to them, is rooted in anger and frustration with their elected representatives from regional parties.

While some voters are keen to elect someone well known to them, from their own networks, others are “tired” of the old guard of politicians leading prominent Muslim parties and are “looking for change”, according to K. Nihal Ahamed in Addalaichenai town. A prominent land rights campaigner in the eastern region, where residents are agitating to reclaim their land taken over by state agencies or business interests, he notes: “Our [local] leaders have not done anything about it – not while in government, not while in opposition. They have instead used regionalism or religious nationalism for their own political gains. Our people have had enough, they want the former MPs to ‘go home’.” He was playing on the popular demand, “Go home, Gota”, that dominated citizens’ protests during the 2022 meltdown.  

Sri Lanka’s Muslims, especially those living in the Eastern Province, vividly remember voting amid great fear in 2019 when Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the presidency. The election came on the heels of the deadly Easter Sunday terror attacks, that shook the island. While it was executed by a network of Islamist radical suicide bombers, who the local Muslim community emphatically denounced, “locals had to deal with enormous surveillance and harassment at the time,” Mr. Nihal Ahamed recalls. Citing Mr. Dissanayake’s pledge to bring the real perpetrators to book, he says: “We feel a sense of relief that we are no more seen as a threat to national security.”

Women are “more determined” to see change, says Sainulabdeen Janeeta, a feminist activist. “The traditional Muslim parties are facing fierce opposition. Many, even in the older generation are talking about boycotting them this election. People are frustrated and see hope in the NPP,” she says.

Reason for hope?

T. Selvarani in nearby Thirukkovil shares a similar frustration with her own elected representatives from Tamil parties, but the NPP is yet to win her trust. “President Anura says he will bring about change for the country. That is definitely a good thing. But will life for people like me also change?”, she asks.

For over a decade now, Ms. Selvarani has been relentlessly looking for her husband, who surrendered to the army in the final years of the civil war. She leads the struggle of Tamil families of disappeared persons in the district and is frequently summoned by the police for questioning. “I am waiting hear the President’s message to us. How will he solve our problem?”. While chasing her husband’s whereabouts, Ms. Selvarani single-handedly supports her son, the only surviving family member with her, after she lost two sons to the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. While she has no hostility towards the country’s new President, she has no reason yet to be hopeful. “I wish he is different to the past leaders and addresses our issue. They say his own party cadre have also faced enforced disappearances. Let us see,” she says.  

While it remains to be seen how President Dissanayake might inspire confidence in war-affected Tamils, his alliance may also have more work ahead to win over sections of the Sinhalese, especially in the east. Land is premium in this scenic, tourist stretch and conflicts over land have impacted all communities, including the Sinhalese. Farmer Punchirala Somasiri, leader of a local movement to protect residents’ land in Panama village, says he had little support or solidarity from the JVP or NPP in all these years. “Farmers here have been agitating for long to secure our lands because of this aggressive push to develop tourism. They have been taking over people’s land and giving it to private companies. Where was this party all these years?” he asks.  “The President says his government will bring about system change. I am waiting to see if what he says translates to action.”

Published – November 12, 2024 08:31 pm IST