The Hindu : ELECTIONS IN SRI LANKA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2004

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

ELECTIONS IN SRI LANKA

WHETHER THE SRI Lankan President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, was justified in dissolving Parliament four years ahead of its six-year term when the ruling United National Front still had a working majority is more or less an academic question. Under the Constitution, the executive President is empowered to do so at any time after one year in the life of Parliament. In this case, dissolution was the logical denouement to the cohabitation crisis that began last November and culminated in the recent alliance between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which President Kumaratunga leads, and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. Given the circumstances, the surprise was that the UNF Government lasted two years. During much of this time, President Kumaratunga gave Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe a free hand to run the country and the peace process with the LTTE. During this period of non-fighting, the Tigers were able to strengthen themselves militarily as well as politically. The President, who was a tireless critic of the appeasement of the Tigers, chose to intervene with her executive powers only when it became clear there was a political threat to her Presidency. As Sri Lanka marches to its third parliamentary election in four years, scheduled for April 2, the crucial questions are whether a stable government will emerge and how the electoral outcome will affect the Norway-assisted peace process.

Norway, which suspended its facilitation when the cohabitation crisis erupted, wanted political "clarity" in Sri Lanka in order to take the peace process forward. It is unlikely that clarity will emerge from these elections, the most complex in recent times. On the face of it, the SLFP-JVP alliance has arithmetic on its side. Also in its favour is the spectre of another cohabitation deadlock should the UNF come back to power. Mr. Wickremesinghe will seek to showcase the two-year ceasefire as his administration's big achievement. Even if there is no demonstrable peace dividend, the non-fighting has brought relief of a kind both in the north-east, the main theatre of conflict, and in the south, which provided the armed forces the manpower to conduct the war. The first priority of the political combination that forms the next government will be to prevent a return to war. The SLFP-JVP alliance, which has called for alterations in the ceasefire agreement on the ground that it gives far too much to the LTTE, is unlikely, if elected, to press for any dramatic shift in this respect. The real challenge will come if and when political negotiations resume with the Tigers.

While describing the elections as a "grave setback" to the peace process, the LTTE has declared its willingness to negotiate with the winner of the people's mandate. However, it has made no secret of its antipathy to the SLFP-JVP combine. It is quite conceivable that the JVP and the LTTE, the polar extremes of the Sri Lankan polity, will gain most from the parliamentary election. The JVP bids fair to make inroads into the vote bank of the SLFP, as it has done in every election since 1994. Despite its apparent rejection of Sri Lankan elections, the LTTE is not averse to seeking leverage in Parliament through the agency of Tamil political parties. The Tamil National Alliance, which had 15 members in the dissolved Parliament, can be regarded as a virtual proxy of the LTTE; it can be expected to flex its muscle to bring about an increase in this number. If the result turns out to be close, the Tigers as well as the JVP will hope to have the political resources to engage in some heavy power play.

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