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Ho hum, another election, said stay-home Jaffna voters
On Monday, the people of Jaffna began their day-to-day businesses, apparently forgetting it was election day and that they should be heading for the polling booths. It took nearly one hour after the polling booths opened at 7am for people to flock in numbers to cast their votes. Voting went well until mid-afternoon when an unexpected downfall of rain occurred, interrupting everything. People shut themselves in their homes without turning up at the booths. Voting ended at 4pmwith a turnout of less than 60 per cent.
Voting in Jaffna. Pic by N. Lohathayalan
As a fresh voter, R. Kajeepan was excited about exercising his franchise to elect a representative from his electorate but with different hopes from the majority of voters. “The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) failed to fulfil our immediate needs since the end of the war. How can we talk about the political solution for the national question when our people are struggling to lead their day-to-day lives?” he asked.
The TNA, campaigning as the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi, secured five seats with 69 per cent of the vote while the Eelam People’s Democratic Party obtained one seat with 30 per cent and the United National Party the remaining seat with 6.6 per cent. Two other parties including the United People’s Freedom Alliance received around 5 per cent each and the rest, including the controversial party of former LTTE cadre campaigning under what they said was a “tiger-faced spider” emblem, received less than 1 per cent each.
Mr. Kajeepan said development and efforts to achieve a lasting solution for the ethnic conflict should be in parallel channels. “We have to develop the Northern Province in order to increase our financial capabilities and create job opportunities for the youths, otherwise we cannot do anything,” he said.
The Jaffna electoral district voter turnout (61.56 per cent) in this week’s parliamentary polls was significantly down compared to the presidential election in January (66.28 per cent) and the 2013 Northern Provincial Council election (67.52 per cent).
In the 2010 general election only 23.33 per cent of the district took part in the polls. Civil society activists reasoned that the low turnout then could have been caused by the fact that the polls took place just a year after the end of the 30-year civil war.
Another disturbing trend this week was the high number of rejected votes: 25,496 votes (7.83 per cent) were rejected on the basis of errors in marking the symbols in the ballot papers.
According to the counting observers on election day, many votes were rejected due to lack of knowledge on how to cast votes and on preferential votes for a particular candidate. Voters found it difficult to understand the procedure even though they encountered the same electoral process in recent local council, presidential, provincial elections.
Sinnathampy Kantharasa, a former government servant, said that the people of the North voted for the TNA in the expectation of reaching a lasting solution for the national question since there would be a national government bringing this party together with the overall winning party.
Mr. Kantharasa said the statement from the Chief Minister of Northern Provincial Council, C.V. Vigneswaran, gave a clear picture to the voters as for whom they should vote. “Even though some political parties have claimed that the Chief Minister is indirectly supporting them, people gave them a clear verdict,” Mr. Kantharasa said.
He said that the main parties contesting in the North failed to create an “election hype” atmosphere to engage with the voters in a meaningful way.“Many people did not know that there was an election on the way. That election mood was missing in the region. Maybe that’s why the voter turnout was low,” he said.
Putting a stop to rumours and confusion about a reported scandal over the preferential counting process, Jaffna Government Agent N. Vedanayagan told The Sunday Times there had been no recounting and the three-phase system of counting had been followed.
“First we checked the votes from the particular booth against votes cast, and counted the party votes and then followed the preferential votes of the candidates. There is no truth in those rumours: it’s natural that defeated candidates talk like that,” he said.
Mr Vedanayagan said that the election had been held in a very peaceful atmosphere without any major incidents of violence.
“Except for some minor incidents of violations no serious incidents reported. Whatever complaints we received were forwarded to the police. They did a good job, we should appreciate that,” he said.