Big hitters square up for election match

By Marwaan Macan-Markar

Nikkei Asian Review: “This is the home of soldiers,” says Faiz Kitchilan, standing at the entrance to a clothing shop in Kurunegala in north-western Sri Lanka. The 50-year-old local gestures towards a crowd of nearly 700 people packed into a nearby strip of land, where speakers at a political rally were expounding on the theme of good governance ahead of the country’s Parliamentary elections on 17 August. “Some of them or their families may be there,” he adds.

That military undercurrent extends across the entire Kurunegala District, which connects Colombo, the capital, with other northern and central cities in Sri Lanka. Studies show that a third of the district’s families had somebody in the military by the time Government troops defeated the Tamil Tigers in May 2009, ending a bloody 30-year ethnic conflict. The area of paddy fields and coconut plantations is dotted with small war memorials, some tucked by the side of roads, bearing the names of soldiers who died.

This martial imprint has made the area fertile ground for Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former President and ex-Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, as he seeks support for a Parliamentary seat in Kurunegala, the island’s third largest voting district, in the general election. In January, voters dashed Rajapaksa’s hopes to secure an unprecedented third term in office as the all-powerful executive president. The defeat ended his nearly 10-year authoritarian-style regime and his designs to build a political dynasty and rule for life.

The 69-year-old’s quest to resurrect his political fortunes suggests that the themes of his failed campaign still have a shelf life. The manifesto of the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), of which Rajapaksa is the de-facto leader, is aimed at the county’s majority Sinhalese-Buddhist community. The latter, who account for 70% of the 15 million registered votes, closed ranks behind Rajapaksa during the war years and hailed him as a “warrior king” after the troops under his watch vanquished the rebels.

This appeal to nationalist sentiments has defined the UPFA’s efforts to emerge the winner in the election, with 225 seats up for grabs in the Legislature. “We will not allow separatists, encouraged by foreign forces, to destroy this land gained through the sacrifice of blood and tears of war heroes,” declares the manifesto: “Assurance for the Future.” “Are you going to vote to divide this country?” Rajapaksa asked at its launch.

That question was a dig at his opponents, and chiefly the United National Party (UNP), which is part of an alliance that, after putting their support behind Maithripala Sirisena, a former Rajapaksa ally, in January presidential polls, formed a minority government after a surprise victory. The 6.2 million votes that Sirisena got were drawn from the country’s Sinhalese majority and ethnic minority Tamil and Muslim communities. Sirisena’s “rainbow coalition,” as it was called, campaigned on the platform of good governance to defeat the Rajapaksa regime, which had gained notoriety over allegations of unprecedented levels of corruption and State plunder.

The UNP’s campaign, led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, is trying to woo voters on similar themes: playing on the country’s multi-ethnic character, trumpeting anti-corruption slogans and promoting an economic vision built on boosting annual exports to $50 billion (an ambitious fivefold increase from the current $11 billion).

 

Stark political polarisation

The political polarisation could not be starker. In the final days before the polls, Rajapaksa’s UPFA camp sounded confident in staking its Parliamentary fortunes on the 5.7 million voters from the Sinhalese heartland that supported him at the presidential polls. The UPFA will win “more than 117” seats, Rajapaksa triumphantly declared at a press conference on 9 August.

But that forecast, which would give the UPFA a four-seat majority to govern, is wishful thinking, according to independent observers monitoring Rajapaksa strongholds across the country (including Hambantota, his southern home province). For one thing, the UPFA’s campaign for this poll is shorn of the significant political assets it had access to when Rajapaksa ran as the incumbent in the January poll. These included round-the-clock propaganda from a supine State media, the weight of the State machinery, and bureaucrats at the grassroots level who reportedly used carrot-and-stick tactics to pressure rural voters into endorsing him.

“The Rajapaksa strategy is to polarise the Sinhala electorate by appealing to the fear and insecurity of the Sinhalese, and hope to benefit from it,” says Jayadeva Uyangoda, a professor of political science at Colombo University, referring to Rajapaksa’s spin that a vote for the UNP would mean the country could be divided, with the north going to the Tamils. “But this is a fatal mistake, since the UPFA has callously disregarded the public sentiment for clean politics that emerged with the presidential election.”

The UNP, a party of pro-Western moderates, has its own share of worries about whether it can edge the UPFA into second place, an outcome pivotal to the ability to choose the next prime minister. A poll of the Sinhalese for their choice of prime minister by the Centre for Policy Alternatives, a local think tank, revealed that Wickremesinghe (with 32% of the votes) was trailing behind Rajapaksa (36%). This affirms the strong appeal of Rajapaksa’s personality, while Wickremesinghe often comes across as aloof and snobbish.

To close that gap, UNP campaign strategists are highlighting the climate of fear that prevailed under Rajapaksa. One strategist has likened his regime to a “mafia state”.

Such appeals are aimed at the floating voters, including many of the country’s social media savvy youth. Yet expectations of a close finish, with neither the UNP nor UPFA getting even a one seat majority, is what some seasoned political observers are preparing for. That is partly due to the absence of a dominant, galvanising issue in either camp.

Another reason is the structure of Sri Lanka’s Parliamentary polls, which are conducted under a proportional representation system. “This system tends to promote hung parliaments, because the two main political parties contesting are reasonably strong,” Nihal Seneviratne, former Secretary General of Parliament, told the Nikkei Asian Review. “Post-election coalitions are the norm after elections.”

For the first time, the make-up of such a coalition has become a potent campaign issue that the UNP is trying to exploit. President Sirisena made an unequivocal statement (even during a July interview with the NAR) that he will not choose Rajapaksa as his next premier if the UPFA wins, while pictures of Sirisena and Wickremesinghe appearing together have adorned campaign advertisements and banners.

 

Climate of economic uncertainty

It is an alliance that would need a comfortable Parliamentary majority for there to be political stability. Both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have had seven months’ experience of running a minority government to know the cost of a weak caretaker regime. A climate of economic uncertainty prevailed after the presidential poll, with the Wickremesinghe-led Government hamstrung to find money to pay for its spending programs, and fearing they would lose a Parliamentary vote on new tax bills.

“The private sector is hoping that this uncertainty will end with the elections,” says Anushka Wijesinha, Chief Economist for the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, Sri Lanka’s largest business group. “The big concern is to have a Parliament elected by the people and legitimate to govern for the next five years.”

Not surprisingly, such political quicksand has got under the skin of international ratings agencies. “The gaps we observe in Sri Lanka’s policymaking capacity partly reflect the political uncertainty associated with two election cycles with seven months,” Standard & Poor’s stated in early August. “We believe this hinders responsiveness and predictability in policymaking and weighs particularly on business confidence, investment plans, and overall growth.”

Whether or not Rajapaksa gains his coveted Parliamentary seat in Kurunegala and his brand lives on, the stakes are high for Sri Lanka. Will the Sinhala nationalists come out in force for their former President, or will we see a deflated strongman?