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New equations in Sri Lanka

The election verdict and the LTTE infighting have drastically changed the ground situation in Sri Lanka. V.S. Sambandan reports.

Sri Lanka's President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, with her new Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa ... a bumpy road ahead. — Photos: Sriyantha Walpola

SRI LANKA'S already difficult peace process has been further complicated. The third general election in four years has put more hardliners, Sinhala and Tamil, in Parliament and a minority government in office. Besides, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has split and the two factions are fighting.

All this has challenged some key premises that have formed the basis of the two-year-long peace process. So, the peace dynamics could change considerably in the coming months, both within Parliament and outside it.

The new Parliament, which is to meet on April 22, reflects every possible opinion in the nation. Leading the numbers in Parliament is the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), an electoral combine of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which won 105 seats but fell eight seats short of a majority in the 225-member House. The United National Party (UNP), which was in power when the elections were called four years ahead of schedule, ended second with 82 seats, losing all but four of the 22 electoral districts in the island.

Though the UPFA and the UNP as the two largest entities in Parliament, the House has a larger presence of hardline Sinhala and Tamil representatives than last time, making it imperative more than ever before for the two main parties in the country to forge a consensus, at least on the peace process.

Parties representing ethnic minorities such as the Ceylon Workers Congress (eight seats), the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (five seats), and the Eelam People's Democratic Party and the Upcountry People's Front (one seat each) will have a say in government formation. But the JVP does not seem too keen on the support of these parties, particularly the CWC and the SLMC, thus making the UPFA lean more on the nine MPs of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), a grouping of the Buddhist clergy.

The most formidable challenge for the new Government will lie in translating its electoral victory into effective governance. The verdict has seen the emergence of all shades of political opinion — pro-peace, anti-peace and devolution groups, those that support the LTTE and those who oppose it and those who want greater economic reform and those who want to restore Sinhala-Buddhist glory.

Survival of the Government will depend on the JHU' s support from outside. However, given the vast contradictions that dominate Sri Lankan politics, the swiftness with which the constitutionally powerful President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, moves to forge a broad and inclusive consensus holds the key to any progress on the peace process.

The drastic change in voter mood from the 2001 polls, when the UNP-led United National Front won, is the result of a combination of political and economic factors. The electoral arithmetic for the UPFA, based on the 2001 poll results — the PA won 37.2 per cent of the popular mandate and the JVP secured 9.1 per cent, adding up to a total of 46.3 per cent — was its biggest advantage in the elections held under the proportional representation system.

Its two main poll planks, the spiralling cost of living and the charge that the UNP was not handling the peace process properly, thereby leading to a possible division of the island, struck the right chord among the voters.

Stability was another factor that swung the polls. A war-weary nation had voted for the UNP, which promised peace, in 2001. By 2004, Sri Lanka had become a poll-weary nation, a factor that played a major role in the success of the UPFA. Unlike the 2001 situation, when President Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe were from opposing parties, the victory of the UPFA, led by Ms. Kumaratunga, has ended the governance of cohabitation.

However, the UPFA has its own frictions. Its two main constituents, the SLFP and the JVP, have differences on the two main issues that dominated the polls. While some middle ground was reached on the economic issues when the alliance was formed early this year, the two parties have held on to their respective positions on a solution to the ethnic conflict.

While the SLFP is for devolution of powers and a move away from Sri Lanka's unitary system, the JVP opposes devolution and is an ardent advocate of the unitary structure, which it says is synonymous with the island-nation's unity. Added to this fundamental difference is the fact that 39 of the 105 UPFA MPs in the new Parliament are from the JVP, which could emerge as an in-built resistance to change, despite the pre-poll promise that the JVP would go with the majority decision on how the conflict should be resolved.

Besides, the position adopted by the nine Buddhist monks of the JHU — to save the island from domination by the minorities — is a natural inhibitor to the path charted since 1994, when Ms. Kumaratunga first proposed devolution as a solution to the ethnic conflict. The JVP and the JHU together have 48 MPs, representing the southern hardline view on the conflict.

On the opposite side is the 22-member Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which contested as an LTTE proxy, and wants the rebels to be accepted as the only negotiators of the Tamils. It is all for an interim administration for the North-East, as proposed by the Tigers.

The way out would be for the two main parties, the SLFP and the UNP, which together can muster the required majority in the House, to bring in the constitutional changes. However, given the intense rivalry between the two parties, there is not much scope for optimism. A dangerous consequence would be the further strengthening of the hardliners.

The clearest indicator of the rise of the hardliners in the election is in the relative performance of the SLFP and the JVP in the same electoral districts they contested. In the Gampaha district, considered an SLFP stronghold, the party's main candidate, Anura Bandaranaike, who is also the brother of Ms. Kumaratunga, came second to a relatively unknown JVP candidate, Vijitha Herath.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the emergence of the Tamil hardliners is evident from the defeat of those who opposed the LTTE. With the exception of the EPDP's sole MP, Douglas Devananda, the others, including the veteran political leader of the Tamil United Liberation Front, V. Anandasangaree, lost the election.

While the UPFA's victory signals the end of a cohabitation government, it marks the beginning of a frictional phase in Sri Lankan politics. The external support given by the JHU places restrictions on the SLFP's ability to offer its desired peace package on issues such as devolution, even if it were to silence critics in the JVP.

To make peace work, the UPFA would have to assure its constituents and supporters in Parliament that their sensitivities would not be affected. The second stage involves issues that have been placed on the board by the LTTE, and largely accepted by the UNP in the past two years — that the Tigers are the "sole representatives of the Tamils" and that they would have a free run on issues relating to the North and the East. The SLFP is unlikely to maintain continuity, especially on giving the Tigers a free run in their areas.

The two sticking points in resuming the negotiations with the Tigers are the latter's demand for a "sole representative" status, and their insistence that their proposals for an Interim Self-Governing Authority for the North-East (ISGA) be the basis for restarting talks. On the first issue, the UPFA has kept the option open by saying that separate discussions would be held with other groups. On the second, it has said that it is willing to discuss "everything and anything" except a separate state.

Rather than as an outright rejection of the peace process, the UNP's defeat is to be interpreted as popular disagreement over the manner in which the process was handled. Importantly, despite the UPFA's criticism of the peace process, it has emphasised that the ceasefire agreement will continue and that there will be no return to war.

The ground level changes since April 2 are most important as far as the peace prospects are concerned. With the LTTE launching an all-out offensive against the rebellious former eastern military commander, V. Muralitharan (`Col.' Karuna), the conflict has entered an entirely new phase. After an initial thrust by the northern LTTE forces on April 9, a standoff appears on the cards on the eastern front. At stake in this battle between the Tigers is the claim of being the "sole representative of the Tamils" made by the LTTE leader, V. Prabakaran. By directly challenging Mr. Prabakaran on issues such as traditional homelands, `Col.' Karuna has changed the course of the decades-long separatist conflict.

On the international front, the new Government's call for a "greater Indian involvement" is yet to crystallise in formal terms. The manner in which the role of the international community, led by Norway, is going to be handled is another area that will indicate the pace, progress, and more important, the direction in which the next phase of Sri Lanka's peace process evolves.

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