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Elections and the criminalisation of political culture
View(s):As nominations closed this week for the polls in the Northern, North Western and Central provinces, the campaign period began in the shadow of two disturbing developments elsewhere, calling into question the political context in which elections are held.
One was the standoff between the military and unarmed protesters in Weliweriya, Gampaha, where residents of Rathupaswala and surrounding villages had been demonstrating over contaminated water supply. A 17-year-old student was shot dead and dozens were injured. The other situation relates to the Noori tea estate in Deraniyagala, in the Sabaragamuwa Province. Here media reports of the horrific murder of the superintendent not only brought to light the alleged complicity of local politicians and police inaction, but exposed how villagers had been terrorised by them for years.
In recent years there were other incidents of unarmed demonstrators being killed by law enforcement authorities. A young employee of the Katunayake Free Trade Zone died of gunshot injuries in 2011, and a Chilaw fisherman was shot dead in 2012. In those cases it was the police that were involved in the shootings, but in the Gampaha incident the difference was that the military was called in. Military personnel don’t act on their own, they follow instructions. From where did the instructions come on Weliweriya?
After the Katunayake shooting, one might have expected a public discussion on the use of force by police, leading to some guidelines on the issue of proportionality. That might have reassured the public and restored confidence in their supposed protectors. But all that has happened is that the oppressive trend seems to have worsened. The scene in Weliweriya on Friday with heavy military presence recorded on TV, looked more like a battle zone than the scene in the aftermath of a community protest. There were eyewitnesses to Thursday’s attack, and journalists have described how they were assaulted and their cameras smashed. Such incidents are not exactly the hallmarks of a democratic society.
Sri Lanka’s armed forces are not, as Callum Mcrae would have it, a bunch of village yokels with guns thrust into their hands, given to leering at female corpses. They are a highly trained, highly disciplined, professional fighting force. Unfortunately the question of the role of the military in Sri Lanka’s post-war situation is a subject that has not been subjected to the kind of wide ranging discussion it deserves. It would be regrettable if the failure to address this question leads to a diminishing of the forces’ stature in the eyes of the public.
Criminals as candidates
The criminal activities of many local government and provincial level politicians are common knowledge now, the stuff of daily news reportage. With three provincial elections coming up, including a crucial first in the North, what measures have mainstream political parties taken to eradicate the scourge of violence, and prevent corrupt and criminal elements from getting into the governance system?
In the case of the Noori estate murder, the main suspect arrested is a former Pradeshiya Sabha chairman, whom the villagers allege has the protection of the Chief Minister of Sabaragamuwa. Reports say the former PS chairman had the backing of high ranking SLFPers at the time he was nominated.
It’s clear that the problem starts at the point when parties hand out nominations, with scant regard for the candidates’ background. There is always an intense scramble to get onto the nomination lists of the UPFA. Did the UPFA’s interview boards check whether applicants had criminal records? Apart from paying lip service for the benefit of the media, there is nothing to suggest that any strict criteria were applied during the nomination process.
The bigger priority seems to be satisfying the demands of party loyalists to have their relatives included in the nomination lists. The JVP’s Propaganda Secretary, MP Vijitha Herath has listed at least nine such cases. According to reports they are D.M Jayaratna’s son, Mahindananda Aluthgamage’s brother, C.B. Ratnayake’s brother, S.B. Dissanayake’s brother, Janaka Bandara Tenekoon’s son, Johnston Fernando’s son, Jayaratna Herath’s son, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa’s brother and Salinda Dissanayake’s wife.
Intense competition
During the local government elections in 2011, when asked about the arrest of candidates themselves in connection with election violence, a senior police officer himself admitted that “some are criminals.” On that occasion there were 29,000 candidates competing for 3,022 slots in local government. Getting a foothold in the system with a view to self advancement, seems to be the overriding consideration of applicants. The competition will be more intense in the upcoming provincial elections, where 3,785 candidates will vie for a total of 142 seats on the three Councils — an average of 26 people competing for each post.
There are 56 seats to be filled in the Central Province council which has 1,889,557 registered voters. There are 50 seats in the North Western Province council which has 1,754,218 registered voters, and 36 in the Northern Province council, with 714,488 registered voters.
A feature of the three provinces where elections are to be held in September is that there are significant concentrations of ethnic minorities in them. According to 2012 census data, in Nuwara Eliya district, almost 58% of the population is Tamil (Indian Tamil 53.2%, Sri Lankan Tamil 4.5%). In Kandy 14% is Sri Lankan Moor. Puttalam has a 19.3% Sri Lankan Moor population while the adjacent district of Mannar has 16.2%. In terms of religious minorities it is noteworthy that Catholics are 31.2% in Puttalam and 52.7% in Mannar.
Going by available reports it appears that the Northern Province is the most peaceful of the three provinces at this point. Communist Party General Secretary D.E.W Gunasekera who was in Mullaitivu on Thursday told ‘the Sunday Times’ there were no processions or any of the fanfare that often accompanies the handing in of nominations. There was no visible military presence he said.
With the naming of an eminent retired Supreme Court Judge as the Chief Ministerial candidate of the TNA, which is the party widely expected to win, the likelihood that the Northern Provincial Council will replicate the delinquent tendencies of some its Southern counterparts would seem remote. It would not be surprising if, in spite of the scare-mongering by nationalist forces over the devolution of power in the North, the Northern Provincial Council turns out to be a model for the rest.
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