Advantage Wickremsinghe as race polarises
A prediction by a hardline monks party that November’s Presidential election would be a referendum on the Norwegian peace process seemed to be borne out this week as Sri Lanka’s political parties began to polarise around the two leading candidates.
Whilst hardline Sinhala nationalists long ago threw their considerable weight behind Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka’s minority parties have sat on the fence – whilst sometimes bargaining hard behind the scenes.
This week Rajapakse’s archrival, Ranil Wickremesinghe, secured the estimated 900,000 vote bank of the largest Estate Tamil party, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), and that of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), which, though beset by serious internal differences, is the island’s largest Muslim party.
Rajapakse, who is Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister as well the Presidential candidate of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), last month secured the backing of the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and the monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) at the outset.
The backing of the JVP, Sri Lanka’s third largest party, and the small, but potent, JHU, had given Rajapakse a flying start in the race, but his hardline Sinhala nationalist platform alarmed the island’s Tamil, Estate Tamil and Muslim minorities – and moderates among the Sinhalese.
It also split the SLFP, producing divisions have been exacerbated by the long simmering, but now manifest, acrimony between Rajapakse and President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the SLFP leader.
Wickremesinghe’s supporters have exploited the rift, but had struggled against the Premier’s formidable coalition.
However, the UNP’s publication of a unabashedly populist manifesto last week, setting out a raft of subsidies to tempt the rural poor – the mainstay of the JVP and SLFP – as well as offers to draw in the minorities has swung the race Wickremesinghe’s way.
This week the CWC also pulled out of President Kumaratunga’s ruling coalition, which was already struggling with a Parliamentary minority after the JVP pulled out earlier this year in protest at her signing a tsunami-aid sharing pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“In coming to this decision [to back Wickremesinghe], we have considered the prospect for permanent peace and national development,” CWC leader Arumugam Thondaman told Associated Press.
The CWC had put forward a 19 point set of demands to which Wickremesinghe had reportedly acquiesced, reports said.
Rauf Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress(SLMC) told The Associated Press that his party was supporting Wickremesinghe because of “his consistency in policies.”
The opposition SLMC claims to have 300,000 to 600,000 votes in its grasp and whilst three of its four MPs have rebelled and are supporting Kumaratunga’s government - as is the National Unity Alliance (NUA), a splinter from the SLMC – the party is optimistic of rallying them to Wickremesinghe.
Attention has now turned to the island’s Tamils, who, though critical of Rajapakse’s stances have not endorsed Wickremesinghe either.
The LTTE has already said it does not plan to rally their community for or against either Sinhala candidate, saying “both have victory as their objective and want to use the conflict of the Tamil people for their advantage - one wants to bash Tamils and get the (majority) Sinhala vote while the other wants to be seen as a moderate and win the minority vote.”
The LTTE’s political proxies, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) – a coalition of the island’s main Tamil parties – is also non-committal, insisting even this week that it will study both candidates’ manifestos before making a decision – Rajapakse is yet to publish his.
But the Premier’s electoral pacts with the JVP and JHU have already set out an uncompromisingly hard line on the peace process and, crucially, power-sharing and federalism.
The TNA’s prominent ambiguity is, however, likely to help the UNP – in two ways.
Given Rajapakse’s Sinhala hardline policies, Tamils are likely to gravitate to the Wickremesinghe, even without the LTTE’s endorsement of the former Premier.
An explicit LTTE nod towards Wickremsinghe would, furthermore, bolster the Rajapakse camp’s claim that the opposition leader was a Tiger sympathetic who would sell the Sinhalese out.
Wickremesinghe’s UNP-led government which signed a ceasefire with the Tigers in February 2002 and held peace talks with them was ousted in April 2004 by Kumaratunga’s SLFP-JVP combine which was campaigning on a platform of national security being weakened by the peace process.
This is not to say, this indicates Tamil confidence in Wickremesinghe. Indeed, whilst his manifesto sought to shift the debate to the economy from the ethnic question, it was, at the same time, making overtures to Sinhala nationalists.
Tellingly, the section that outlines the Wickremesinghe’s plans to resolve the island’s protracted conflict is titled ‘Defeat to Separatism’ and calls for a united Sinhala front between the SLFP and UNP to take on the LTTE.
But Rajapakse’s blatant embracing of Sinhala nationalism has made Wickremesinghe the de facto choice for Tamils - and, given that a viable peace process is crucial for economic and political stability, the UNP is seen by the Estate Tamil and Muslim parties as the more likely to deliver on their demands.
As the SLMC’s Hakeem put it: “we are looking at a leader who can take this country forward.” That means cementing a peace with the Tigers.
Whilst hardline Sinhala nationalists long ago threw their considerable weight behind Premier Mahinda Rajapakse, Sri Lanka’s minority parties have sat on the fence – whilst sometimes bargaining hard behind the scenes.
This week Rajapakse’s archrival, Ranil Wickremesinghe, secured the estimated 900,000 vote bank of the largest Estate Tamil party, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), and that of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), which, though beset by serious internal differences, is the island’s largest Muslim party.
Rajapakse, who is Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister as well the Presidential candidate of the ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), last month secured the backing of the ultra-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Perumana (JVP) and the monks’ party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) at the outset.
The backing of the JVP, Sri Lanka’s third largest party, and the small, but potent, JHU, had given Rajapakse a flying start in the race, but his hardline Sinhala nationalist platform alarmed the island’s Tamil, Estate Tamil and Muslim minorities – and moderates among the Sinhalese.
It also split the SLFP, producing divisions have been exacerbated by the long simmering, but now manifest, acrimony between Rajapakse and President Chandrika Kumaratunga, the SLFP leader.
Wickremesinghe’s supporters have exploited the rift, but had struggled against the Premier’s formidable coalition.
However, the UNP’s publication of a unabashedly populist manifesto last week, setting out a raft of subsidies to tempt the rural poor – the mainstay of the JVP and SLFP – as well as offers to draw in the minorities has swung the race Wickremesinghe’s way.
This week the CWC also pulled out of President Kumaratunga’s ruling coalition, which was already struggling with a Parliamentary minority after the JVP pulled out earlier this year in protest at her signing a tsunami-aid sharing pact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
“In coming to this decision [to back Wickremesinghe], we have considered the prospect for permanent peace and national development,” CWC leader Arumugam Thondaman told Associated Press.
The CWC had put forward a 19 point set of demands to which Wickremesinghe had reportedly acquiesced, reports said.
Rauf Hakeem, leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress(SLMC) told The Associated Press that his party was supporting Wickremesinghe because of “his consistency in policies.”
The opposition SLMC claims to have 300,000 to 600,000 votes in its grasp and whilst three of its four MPs have rebelled and are supporting Kumaratunga’s government - as is the National Unity Alliance (NUA), a splinter from the SLMC – the party is optimistic of rallying them to Wickremesinghe.
Attention has now turned to the island’s Tamils, who, though critical of Rajapakse’s stances have not endorsed Wickremesinghe either.
The LTTE has already said it does not plan to rally their community for or against either Sinhala candidate, saying “both have victory as their objective and want to use the conflict of the Tamil people for their advantage - one wants to bash Tamils and get the (majority) Sinhala vote while the other wants to be seen as a moderate and win the minority vote.”
The LTTE’s political proxies, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) – a coalition of the island’s main Tamil parties – is also non-committal, insisting even this week that it will study both candidates’ manifestos before making a decision – Rajapakse is yet to publish his.
But the Premier’s electoral pacts with the JVP and JHU have already set out an uncompromisingly hard line on the peace process and, crucially, power-sharing and federalism.
The TNA’s prominent ambiguity is, however, likely to help the UNP – in two ways.
Given Rajapakse’s Sinhala hardline policies, Tamils are likely to gravitate to the Wickremesinghe, even without the LTTE’s endorsement of the former Premier.
An explicit LTTE nod towards Wickremsinghe would, furthermore, bolster the Rajapakse camp’s claim that the opposition leader was a Tiger sympathetic who would sell the Sinhalese out.
Wickremesinghe’s UNP-led government which signed a ceasefire with the Tigers in February 2002 and held peace talks with them was ousted in April 2004 by Kumaratunga’s SLFP-JVP combine which was campaigning on a platform of national security being weakened by the peace process.
This is not to say, this indicates Tamil confidence in Wickremesinghe. Indeed, whilst his manifesto sought to shift the debate to the economy from the ethnic question, it was, at the same time, making overtures to Sinhala nationalists.
Tellingly, the section that outlines the Wickremesinghe’s plans to resolve the island’s protracted conflict is titled ‘Defeat to Separatism’ and calls for a united Sinhala front between the SLFP and UNP to take on the LTTE.
But Rajapakse’s blatant embracing of Sinhala nationalism has made Wickremesinghe the de facto choice for Tamils - and, given that a viable peace process is crucial for economic and political stability, the UNP is seen by the Estate Tamil and Muslim parties as the more likely to deliver on their demands.
As the SLMC’s Hakeem put it: “we are looking at a leader who can take this country forward.” That means cementing a peace with the Tigers.