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Around 1.30 am on Friday, the Jaffna Central College counting centre was chaotic as Special Task Force (STF) personnel on duty made a baton charge, when a group of people tried to enter the counting room. In the ensuing chaos, two people were injured, one of them being a local councillor.

The group, consisting of supporters of TNA candidate Sasikala Raviraj and those who gathered alleged foul play in the preferential vote counting process as she was leading initially but was later pushed to fourth place losing the race once the counting was finalised.

TNA front-liner M.A. Sumanthiran, who was far behind the list earlier, advanced to second place with 27, 834 votes while Ms Raviraj won 23, 098 votes. When Mr Sumanthiran visited the counting centre passed midnight, those who gathered shouted against him alleging he had stolen votes cast for Ms Raviraj. Visibly tired and disappointed Ms Raviraj left the scene, as some of her supporters were crying while others were broadcasting the scene live through their social media accounts.

Mr Sumanthiran who met reporters the next day rejected those allegations asking how she could level such allegations when the difference between the preferential votes between them was more than 4000.

“I do not want to comment on the conduct of Ms Raviraj during this election campaign. She was our party’s female candidate. She was also a first time contestant. It is regrettable that she has lost.” he said.

Sunil Handunetti

Shock over loss of seat for COPE champion Sunil Handunetti

Shocking many voters was the failure of JVP front-liner Sunil Handunetti to secure a seat from the Matara district at Wednesday’s election. Mr Handunetti, who won country-wide admiration for the role he played as Chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE), was widely expected to win a seat this time.

Initial results indicated that Mr Handunetti had secured a seat, leading to wide celebrations across social media. Hopes were dashed not long after however, when more results coming in showed that he would miss out by a few thousand votes.

Social media users were furious. “You had one job Matara,” said one outraged tweet, indicating that it was the district’s duty to elect Mr Handunetti. Many took out their frustrations on voters in Matara, attacking them for not casting their ballots for a man seen as one of the few upright and honest politicians who had represented Parliament in recent times. Some shared Facebook memes noting that the country did not deserve an MP of his calibre. Others contrasted Mr Handunetti’s defeat with the election of candidates with dubious track records, complaining that the country’s voters had little or no idea of the value of voting intelligently.

Monitors express concern over record number of 744, 373 invalid votes

Unlike any other previous election, Wednesday’s parliamentary polls saw some 744, 373 votes recorded as rejected – 4.8 percent of the total polls. Election monitors said that compared to active civil participation with the highest turnout in previous national elections, they were worried about the number of invalid votes.

Some of them indicated that this unusual electoral behavior could be due to a significant number of UNP supporters being confused, since the party is in disarray and there were intra-conflicts.

Rambutan in exchange for a vote

While there were no major incidents of violence on election day, there were many reports of minor violations.

The Centre for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), which had monitors deployed throughout the island, had a running update on Twitter about violations of election laws.

One such report was of an SLPP supporter distributing a chit bearing numbers of the party’s Gampaha district candidates at the Ganhinigama North Community Hall polling centre in Dompe.

The chits were not the only thing the supporter was allegedly distributing. The CMEV had received reports that each chit came with a rambutan. One wonders if the supporter believed that a person’s vote has cheapened to such an extent.

Global Tamil Forum calls on Tamil political parties to step up

Expressing concerns that the Tamil National Alliance’s (TNA) power eroded in North and East in the recently concluded polls, Global Tamil Forum (GTF), an influential body consist of Tamil diaspora organisations, called upon Tamil parties to articulate a long term vision and action plan that should comprehensively address Tamil peoples’ political, economic, educational and cultural aspirations in a principled and pragmatic manner.

“Not properly heeding to this powerful message the election has eloquently conveyed could lead to decay and decimation of Tamil nationalistic politics in Sri Lanka,” GTF warned, while noting that Tamil political landscape is changing even though the TNA unquestionably remains the predominant political party that represents Tamil national interests throughout the Northern and Eastern provinces.

Angajan Ramanathan seen in one of his social media advertisements

Historic win for SLFP in Jaffna

Angajan Ramanathan became the first ever candidate elected from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) from the Jaffna electoral district at the 2020 parliamentary election. Up until Wednesday’s election, the SLFP had never been able to secure a seat from the North at any Previous Parliamentary poll.

Before Mr Ramanathan, the only candidate to have contested on the SLFP ticket in the North was C. Kumarasuriar, who contested the 1977 parliamentary election from the Kilinochchi electorate, but failed to get elected. Kumarasuriar contested at a time when Tamil nationalist parties held a strong presence in the North.

Mr Ramananthan’s achievement is remarkable in that it happened in similar circumstances in the post-war North. He however, polled the highest number of preferential votes (36, 365) in the district, pushing candidates from the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) into second place.

Mr Ramanathan, who was educated abroad, returned to the country in 2010 and was appointed as the SLFP Organiser in Jaffna. In the 2015 parliamentary polls he failed to secure a seat but was appointed under the SLFP national list.

Lord Naseby

Sri Lanka’s elections signal a sea change never witnessed before: Lord Naseby

The result of the 2020 parliamentary elections signals a sea change never before witnessed in Sri Lanka, British Conservative peer Lord Naseby said.

Congratulating Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and his parliamentary colleagues on their election victory, Lord Naseby, President of the UK’s All Party British Sri Lanka parliamentary group, said the old order of the UNP and SLFP have been consigned to history and replaced by the SLPP and the SJB.

“This is a new dawn for Sri Lanka, a fresh era creating the opportunity for the country to come together and finally put to bed the idea of any Tamil Eelam independence movement,” he said.

Lord Naseby said it is now the time for the West to understand the new mood in Sri Lanka; the desire on all sides for reconciliation to become realistic without any interference from the West or the UN Human Rights Council.

“This is a sea change never before witnessed in Sri Lanka. I for one recognise it. So should the UK Government and the factions of the Tamil diaspora in the UK and elsewhere,” he said.

Lankans returning from UAE to arrive at Mattala airport today

A group of 420 Sri Lankans in Dubai who have been unable to return to the country due to COVID-19 related travel restrictions will arrive at the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport today (Sunday) on an Emirates flight.

The group will arrive at 4.30 p.m., according to the Chairman of Airport & Aviation Services Ltd., (Retd.) Major-General G.A. Chandrasiri.

While Emirates used the Mattala airport on just one occasion, in the past, for refuelling purposes, this is the first time it would be touching down with passengers disembarking at the airport.

The Sri Lankan Embassy in the UAE has requested the flight to land at Mattala instead of the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) at Katunayake, where most of the repatriation flights have so far landed.

While the two airports are closed to normal traffic, the authorities have been operating repatriation flights to ferry thousands of Sri Lankans particularly in West Asia – many of whom have lost their jobs – back to their homes.