News
New alliances form, old ones break on the path to Northern polls
View(s):By S. Rubatheesan
Following the huge setback in the recent Parliamentary polls, Northern Tamil political parties are engaged in negotiations to form electoral alliances to face the upcoming local council elections.
An attempt by the main Tamil political party Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchchi (ITAK) to revive its one-time powerful electoral alliance- the now defunct Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was unsuccessful as other political parties formed an alternative coalition ahead of the polls.
The one-time electoral allies of TNA- Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) formed an alliance called the Democratic Tamil Nationalist Front (DTNF) along with six other political parties.
Left to right: N. Sri Kantha of the Tamil Nationalist Party, E. Rasathurai of the Tamil People's Alliance, Suren Gurusamy (TELO), Suresh Premachandran of EPRLF, T. Venthan of the Democratic Cadres party, M. Santhirakumar of Samaththuva Katchcii and T. Navalan of DTNF. Pic by N. Lohathayalan
Spokesperson of DTNF Suresh Premachandran told reporters in Inuvil, Jaffna this week that the alliance will contest under conch shell symbol in Jaffna and Kilinochchi electoral districts as an alternative force to ITAK. The constituent parties which contested separately in the last Parliamentary polls failed to secure any seats in Jaffna and Kilinochchi districts.
However, sources within the alliance told the Sunday Times that there are still some concerns among political parties on accommodating outfits that were former paramilitary groups or ones that worked closely with the government.
Meanwhile, ITAK Acting President C.V. K. Sivagnanam told the Sunday Times that his party tried to revive TNA by reuniting former electoral partners but noted that as one time three parties in the alliance went ahead and joined the other camp as political negotiations were still going on.
“We will have to face the polls separately and we will, but we are still open to the idea of working together among us (parties) when it comes to forming local government bodies,” the ITAK leader said.
The veteran ITAK leader also said that the current mixed electoral system makes it difficult for any single political party to secure majority votes in an electorate, forcing minor parties to join in electoral alliances on the basis of socio-economic realities in those respective regions.
Former MP M. A. Sumanthiran who is currently Acting General Secretary of the party said that the party is putting its campaign on the lines that “the country is with Anura (President Anura Kumara Dissanayake), but local people are with us” in the upcoming polls.
“For the next five years, the National Peoples’ Power (NPP) is going to be in power at the centre. That does not mean we should let them to handle local, grassroot level affairs,” the former MP said, addressing a media briefing at Vadamaarachchi Press club this week.
The other Tamil political
party, the All-Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) led by MP Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam is to face the polls separately.
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