Political cooks will have country in a soup

By H. Chanda Dhamma

Officially, after quite some procrastination during which the country waited in suspense Elections Commissioner Day-ananda Dissanayake on Thursday afternoon declared the elections concluded, having for cosmetic purposes annulled the results in 23 polling booths.

And while the SLFP's general secretary S. B. Dissanayake was busy pronouncing that the polls were largely free and fair and claiming that the PA will form the next government more impartial people thought otherwise- the Mahanayake Theras, the Committee Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV), the Peoples' Action Front for Free Elections (PAFFREL), and the Commonwealth and European Union election monitors along with the ordinary Punchi Singho on the street were convinced that the poll was rigged at least in some crucial areas.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga, by then mourning the loss of her mother Sirima we understand had observed that the reports of alleged rigging were exaggerated. But then, if she had any doubts she only had to call her PA general secretary D. M. Jayaratne to get a better picture of the events in Kandy.

Jayaratne, who went to the extent of complaining about alleged malpractices to a private television network on Tuesday showed how dexterous a politician he is by announcing on Thursday- after he had lost the Kandy district 'manaapa' battle to General Anuruddha Ratwatte that the polls reflected the verdict of the people.

The new kid in the Muslim political bloc, Rauf Hakeem was more diplomatic. There was blatant fraud, he said and implied that NUA was watching how the PA would deal with the perpetrators. But he qualified that by saying that the 'fraud' did not distort the final result of the election!

The UNP together with the JVP cried foul and called the election a 'chanda mankollaya' ( a highway robbery of votes) and even attempted to make a case to the Elections Commissioner to have the Kandy district results annulled. UNPers with a sense of black humour said that Ms. Sirima Bandaranaike's passing away was a great loss for the PA because had she died before voting, the PA could have impersonated her vote too!

Perhaps a more objective assessment of the whole issue would be that the UNP has good reason to be aggrieved about the rigging. The final result is as we predicted a close finish even now and the PA- UNP gap would have been significantly narrower in a cleaner poll- and that could have affected the PA chances of forming a government. But having said that, the UNP must concede that the election was, as the European Union spokesman said, a 'reasonably fair' poll in most regions in Colombo and in the South. Anyway, the PA polled a good 423,000 more votes than the UNP and all of that could not have been rigged- so the PA deserves to be called first to try and form a government.

The Northern and Eastern provinces were of course a different story. Low polling was seen in Kayts and Kilinochchi with disastrous consequences with the EPDP allegedly grabbing votes by brute force and thereby anointing themselves as the new kingmakers of Sri Lankan politics.

This must surely be a new kind of democracy- a kind of fa‡ade democracy with a T-56 flavour. The pirate EPDP has grabbed high office by sheer force of arms making President Kumaratunga possibly an unwilling accomplice in sharing her cabinet portfolios with them.

Her brief TV interview shortly after meeting Douglas Devananda on Thursday night where she said that given the complexion of the newly elected Parliament she was compelled to have the EPDP share power in Colombo gives an insight into the President's dilemma- she has to shower portfolios to a blatantly militant party and a blatantly communal party in order to stay in power.

The EPDP's new role must surely be a worrying factor in Tamil politics- quite apart from its impact on national politics. In the Tamil political spectrum, the unarmed Tamil political grouping, the long suffering TULF has now been replaced by the LTTE on one side and the EPDP on the other. Of course there are those who say that even the TULF has now been infiltrated by the LTTE!

In national politics, President Kumaratunga and the PA merely to remain in power have to strike a deal with and share the cabinet with a group that still carries the 'Eelam' tag as part of their official name. And as one caustic, true-blue SLFPer from the deep south put it, even if either Douglas Devananda or Rauf Hakeem demanded Ratnasiri Wikrema-nayake's job, President Kumaratunga would have no choice but to accede to that request! That is the plight of the PA after this general election.

But what then of the UNP? As any reader of this column would have noticed, we did sound out to the UNP that it had done insufficient groundwork in rural Sri Lanka. They were indeed lucky to win Polonnaruwa because of the recent bungling by the PA on the paddy prices issue. And, at Hambantota by all accounts Sajith Premadasa deserves the kudos for demonstrating that the good old ploy of nursing an electorate at grassroots level can indeed yield dividends.

But as the results showed in no uncertain terms, the UNP was all at sea in Galle, Matara, Ratnapura, Kurunegala and Anuradhapura - districts where the rural vote of the peasant farmer families have a significant clout.

We have said it before and we will say it again- the UNP is far too Colombo oriented. It is dominated by, as one UNP old-timer says, "Ingreesiyen hithala Sinhalen kathaakarana minissu" -people who think in English and talk in Sinhala. 

That type of thinking does have its advantages but for the fact that the slogans and strategies that emanate from it have little or no mass appeal to the average peasant farmer. In addition people who are know-alls who travel more to Kentucky than to Kandy and cannot stay in a town in this island unless it has at least a four-star class hotel with hot water on tap surround the UNP leadership.

Even for such people, no doubt their day will come- when the ordinary people of this country get more and more into peril with an unprincipled government which pays only lip service to democracy and democratic values and is unable to deliver either the economic goods or savour the spoils of war with the LTTE. And, if one is to go by the way the PA handled these issues ineffectively in the past six years such a scenario is a possibility but right now- with the people having just delivered their verdict- the question is when will that day come.

That doubt must cloud the brow of every loyal UNPer because now, opportunistic politics is the name of the game- and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is not a very good exponent of it. 

If one were to be charitable to Ranil Wickremesinghe, one could say that he does not wish to 'auction' the country for a mess of pottage but even UNPers must be wondering now whether such principled politics is worth the sacrifices it demands- like for instance, remaining in the Opposition for maybe six years more! And if that happens, Ranil Wickr-emesinghe will be 57 years old, his hair will most certainly be all grey and no black, and even the new star Sajith Premadasa will be a year shy of his 40th birthday- not a very comforting thought for them!

These reflections will not be complete without some observations on the stance taken by Rauf Hakeem and his NUA. 

They know they can extract their political kilo of flesh from President Kumaratunga if she is to remain at Temple Trees - quite in contrast to Ranil Wickremesinghe who has not got what it takes to inspire confidence and also does not have the skills for political negotiation to strike a deal with the NUA- which after all was once a staunch ally of President Ranasinghe Premadasa.

So, the NUA is holding a political knife at the President's back, asking her to do as they please- they have indeed become the Queen-makers and their present political strength would have M. H. M. Ashraff smiling contentedly from his celestial whereabouts.

The result is a Cabinet which is best described in Sinhala as a 'kenda heliya'- a minority government in more ways than one where too many political cooks could surely put the country in a soup as the six years roll by.

For those who cherish democracy and for those political puritans who shudder at the acrobatics of some of our 'leaders', general election 2000 must have been a nightmare. 

Just consider- the Sihala Urumaya which performed reasonably with 127,000 votes gets one solitary seat in Parliament, the NUA with 198,000 votes gets four seats and two portfolios, the TULF with 106,000 gets five seats and the EPDP with only 50,000 votes gets five seats and entry to the cabinet- so much for democracy being the fairest of means for representative government!

The final result of general election 2000 then has been a weakening of the government in Colombo a government that will be dictated to by the EPDP-NUA elements in the South and the LTTE in the north. The latter of course must be purveying the election results with voyeuristic delight and earmarking its next prey- and that must be a factor which those in power in Colombo must never forget. 

That is because even though the UNP or the JVP might just be happy to sit in the opposition benches until 2006, Velupillai Prabhakaran must surely be asking himself now, "what next?"

Nevertheless, as we conclude this series, we must wish the government-elect-allegations of rigging notwithstanding: "Devo Vassathu Kalena, Sassa Sampaththi Hethucha, Peetho Bhavathu Lokocha, Raaja Bhavathu Dhammiko" "May the rains be timely, may the harvests have good yield, may wisdom prevail and may the rulers be just."

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