Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse’s gamble calling for elections two years ahead of time has handsomely paid off. Though just four years into his six-year presidential term of office, Rajapakse decided to cash in on his popularity in ending – in May last year through a resounding military victory – the 25-year old insurgency mounted by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). UNUSUAL
Though many in Sri Lanka and abroad had expected a much closer electoral contest between Rajapakse and the main opposition candidate, former Army chief, Gen. Sarath Fonseka, such a prospect was belied by the announced results: 57.9 percent of votes cast for Rajapakse and 40.1 for Fonseka.
There were many features of the Sri Lankan electoral joust that rendered it more than a little unusual. Indeed, as D.B.S. Jeyaraj has pointed out in the Hindu recently, “It is extraordinarily rare for an erstwhile Army chief to challenge his commander-in-chief in an electoral contest in the aftermath of an impressive military victory.
“It is as improbable as Bernard Montgomery taking on Winston Churchill immediately after the Second World War ended or Sam Maneckshaw contesting against Indira Gandhi in the wake of the Bangladesh triumph.”
The presidential race was also unusual in that each one’s trump card was his claim for credit for the successful military campaign against the LTTE, one that not only scores of experts, including those of the West, had pronounced impossible but also one which had been prolonged, among other reasons, by generous if clandestine outside assistance for the LTTE, both financial as well as political, including that from a supposedly neutral Norway.
Another distinguishing feature of the competition was that both candidates share(d) the same basic political vision of a unitary state in Sri Lanka. It was also quite remarkable that having pitted the military might of the state against the LTTE, who were basically fighting for a separate state to the north and east of the Island, they should then attempt to woo Tamils for their votes.
Fonseka’s defeat came despite the fact that he, a political novice, was able to quickly muster the support of such disparate parties as the right-of-centre United National Party, the ultra-left Janatha Vimukti Peramuna and minority community parties such as the Tamil National Alliance and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress.
In the event, it turned out that even former president Chandrika Kumaratunga’s public support for Fonseca against her party’s candidate Rajapakse didn’t amount to much.
While support of such a seemingly formidable array of political forces on Fonseka’s side was probably very largely responsible for the expectation of a very closely contested election, according to most post-election assessments, the low turnout of the Tamils – estimated between 20-30 percent in an election where overall voter turnout was around 70 percent – affected Fonseka much more.
ECONOMY NEGLECTED
Another defining feature of the just-concluded Sri Lankan presidential sweepstakes was that neither Rajapakse nor Fonseka paid much attention to one vital area of public, even international, concern: the Island’s stagnant economy.
Be that as it may, one can surmise that, overall, the Sri Lankan voter opted for a civilian over a general, for political experience and savvy over political naivety. Also, if for the Sinhala voter the choice was between two war heroes, for the Tamil voter it was really a case of no choice at all!
If the election campaign was characterized at its later stages by tension and even violence, just ahead of the polls the Opposition had accused the ruling regime of preparing to stage a coup to hang on to power. In the event, as AFP reported it, as votes were being counted up to 80 soldiers with machine guns surrounded the luxury hotel where Fonseka was staying with several opposition leaders.
On the other hand, earlier, the government had accused Fonseka of employing a private militia consisting of Army deserters, a charge vehemently denied by the opposition.
Incidentally, while Fonseka’s charge of rigging by the state in Rajapakse’s favour was generally given short shrift, if for nothing else than the wide margin of difference in the votes they respectively garnered, days later it appears that some Western countries are backing the case for an impartial enquiry into those charges.
Talking of coups, it is interesting that, as Brahma Chellaney has recalled in a recent write up, “After rumours swirled of an army coup last fall, the president alerted India. When Rajapakse decided last November on early elections…he had a surprise awaiting him: anticipating the move, Fonseka submitted his resignation so that he could stand against the incumbent as the common opposition candidate.”
IMPLICATIONS
The foreign policy implications of that revelation, as well as a Times of India editorial, saying in understatement that the poll result was “not a bad outcome from the point of view of New Delhi” and recommending that the two countries should build on their past relationship, including in “business and security affairs” is pretty transparent and straight forward.
Though Rajapakse’s relations with the West, including the United States, have not been the most salubrious, it is notable that, in the flush of victory, he has publicly sought cordial ties with the West, already suspicious of his expanding relationship with China, Iran and Myanmar not to mention the international campaign charging Colombo with all manner of war crimes.
Though Rajapakse has committed to tackling the enormous problems of reconciliation and rehabilitation of the Tamils, particularly the north and east, progress on this front is sure to be closely monitored both at home and abroad.
What is also bound to be scrutinized in the weeks to come is what impact his victory will have on the Army in a land, where, as Jeyaraj perceptively points out, a two-way process vis-à-vis that institution has been underway for decades.
“On the one hand, there has been politicization of the military and, on the other, a militarization of politics and society (albeit to a lesser extent).”
