Editorial

Like night follows day, the JVP/NPP alliance romped home to victory at this week’s parliamentary elections after their success at the presidential poll in September. The final results had two surprises, both firsts in Sri Lanka’s parliamentary electoral history: the first for a monolith alliance to win a two-thirds majority and, arguably even more significantly, a party from the ‘South’ defeating a regional alliance in the ‘North.’

Without rubbing off the gloss from the victory that rightfully belongs to the alliance, the relatively low turnout of 68 percent on Thursday, of whom 5.6 percent spoiled their vote, either deliberately or by mistake, and 5 million of the 17 million registered voters—2 million more than at the presidential election—not showing up at all does not augur well for representative democracy when the national average has been in the high 70s.

It means that only two-thirds of the total voters were counted. It is a factor to reckon with and gave the eventual victor an advantage as people back a winner, not an opposition that provided a lacklustre, fractured challenge to the Red juggernaut. The people opted for a ‘strong government,’ not a ‘strong opposition,’ or didn’t care either way.

The previous lowest voter turnout was at the 1988 presidential election—55 percent—followed by the 1989 parliamentary election—63 percent—when it was the then JVP, ironically, that had ordered the boycott of those elections.

It was a welcome sign that even those radical elements who were at the forefront of the ‘Aragalaya’ (struggle) of 2022, wanting all 225 MPs to quit and had an elected president with a massive parliamentary majority hightail it out of office, contested Thursday’s elections—even if they didn’t make it on the scoreboard.

The JVP once took the extra-parliamentary route to power and place, failed, and then opted for the democratic route. Winning only one seat (in 1994), going up to 39 (2004), and then dropping to three seats (2020), it kept tenaciously faithful to the democratic path and is now in office with 159 seats, in complete control of the Executive and the Legislature.

Some old-timers see a replay of the 1956 election when the voters hailed bringing in “Ape Aanduwa” (our Government), a government more attuned to and representative of the masses. Landslide victories there have been many since—in 1970, 1977, and 2020—two-thirds and five-sixths, but as the President has observed, most of them enacted draconian laws and fell by the wayside, unable to meet the high expectations of voters, ending in disaster for the people and themselves.

‘To the victors go the spoils’ is an old adage in politics. There will, no doubt, be jockeying for places in the Cabinet, for high government posts, and as ambassadors. The new political leadership of this country is savvy enough and, for now, has the humility to realise they have been dealt a winning hand due to the corruption, bungling, and divisiveness of their opponents. Yet, they are only human and susceptible to the hysteria of omnipotence, believing they are the darlings of the masses that can mar their judgement.

The burden falls on them to deliver on their platform pledges, ensuring they are transformed into the wider and far more complex panorama of governance. How soon the fruits of victory can spoil.

Washington-Tehran- Arugam Bay

Notwithstanding the euphoria of their stunning electoral victory, the newly elected Government will need to be on alert to the multiple intersections between the local and global in today’s hyper-connected world.

A case filed in the USA links a drone attack that killed an Iranian military leader in Baghdad with a recent assassination attempt by an Iranian agent on US President-elect Donald Trump and the safety of Israeli tourists in Arugam Bay in eastern Sri Lanka.

This would straightaway bring Sri Lanka to the focus of the incoming Trump administration and in all likelihood, place added strain on this country as Washington could well increase diplomatic pressure to act against a friendly country—Iran.

Iran has strenuously denied the twin allegations now before a US court. On the first count of the assassination bid on Trump, Iran’s foreign minister tweeted that the accusation is the work of scriptwriters of a “third-rate comedy.” The Iranian embassy in Colombo, commenting on count two—of an Iranian-backed move to target Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka—opted to ‘kill the messenger,’ accusing the pro-Zionist media (instead of the USA) of making false claims against Iran.

Local investigations based on US/Israeli intelligence reports have drawn a blank on any Iranian intrigue in Sri Lanka.

The boorish behaviour of Israeli tourists spending unusually extended periods of stay in Sri Lanka has been cause for alarm, contributing to a potentially explosive socio-economic powder keg in a multi-ethnic tourist destination. But if the Iranians have set their eyes on harming them in Sri Lanka as retaliation for the killings of their proxies in West Asia, viz., Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, it is an unfriendly act against this country.

The list of countries considering extra-territorial assassinations as legitimate self-defence targets is increasing. Israel has been a past master of this. The US, too, and was only recently accused of assassinating Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian-born Hamas leader in Tehran, soon after the Iranian president’s inauguration. India is facing accusations by Canada of striking dissidents abroad.

The Eastern Province, with its ethnic and religious mix, seems to require greater national security attention and can be anything but the idyllic setting for sun and surf unless more eyes and ears are focused on the goings-on there. The radicalisation of Islamic elements and the possibility of them being proxies for foreign powers cannot be ruled out entirely.

In the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, new voices can be heard agitating for pan-Tamil federations with Sri Lanka, dismissing the domination of Hindi Bharat at home.

On the wider front, this episode where the new Government commendably navigated the potential geopolitical tripwires, is a reminder of the globalised unresolved apocalyptical situation in West Asia engulfing the region and the world—from Palestine to Baghdad, to Tehran, to Washington, to Arugam Bay.