24th October 1999

Will her surprise move patch up cracks?

The President's intention was to present an election budget and then hold the presidential election. However she felt there was a subtle move to defeat the government at the vote on the budget and decided to go for a snap election.

Intelligence reports had warned that there was a tendency within the government ranks to join the UNP and defeat the government at the budget vote.

In addition to this, a revolt against the government from within its own ranks was brewing for some time. The main factor that contributed to it was a sense of uncertainty about the future in the minds of many senior members. Many party seniors feared that if the president were to go for the Presidential election before the parliamentary election and won, she would get rid of problematic members and bring to the fore people who toed her line.

Many ministers were unaware until Wednesday that the decision to hold the presidential election even without presenting the budget would be announced on that day. Even the PA election committee did not know about the decision, though the party had endorsed her as the presidential candidate.

Had the president made her intentions known to the cabinet or the PA executive committee, there could have been various disagreements and arguments against the decision to go for elections at this stage — those members who entertain the fear of being dropped out of the next administration may have sought for assurances that they would be safe.

But such a discussion would have made decision-making difficult and would have had an adverse effect on the presidential election.

In any event, the presidential move is likely to aggravate rather than lessen the internal unrest.

One minus point in the presidential strategy is that it does not give much time for the government politicians, let alone the opposition, to prepare themselves for the campaign and work out an effective strategy.

The question of lack of unanimity affects not only the PA but also the UNP. Like in the PA where the crisis revolves around the leader, the UNP too faces a rift centering on leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. There is a possibility of defection by a group — similar to a possible move from the PA ranks.

Although the contest at the presidential election will be in the main, between these two parties, people are disenchanted with both parties. According to an estimate based on the recent provincial polls, the number of votes each party will get are as follows:

Registered voters 10,574,301 100%

PA (SLFP, LSSP and CP) 2,744,819 25.95%

UNP 2,515,093 23.78%

JVP 417,105 3.94%

CWC 145,350 1.37%

SLMC 43,118 1.35%

MEP 87,165 0.82%

The North-East based Tamil political parties 769,961 6.91%

According to this assessment the gap — around 200,000 votes — between the two main parties is narrowing. Neither of the two main parties can get 51% of the votes even with the support of other parties. Accordingly, the second preference will inevitably have to be counted. The winner will finally be decided by the Tamil people of the North-East.

The last provincial council election results also showed that support for both the main parties had declined rapidly, compared with their performance at the 1994 parliamentary election.

At the 1994 parliamentary elections, the UNP obtained 2,893,305 votes from six provinces but by 1997 its share of the votes in these areas had dropped to 2,498,282 and by the time of the provincial elections this year, it had further declined to 2,382,046. The rate of decline was 17.66%.

The PA had got 3,267,465 votes in these six zones at the parliamentary election of '94, but this figure had dropped to 3,007,545 by the time of local government election of '97 and to 2,647,502 by the time of the provincial elections of '99.

The rate of decline was 18.97%.

Some recent controversies such as the anti-media onslaught, the Channel 9 scandal, appointment of the Chief Justice, might have contributed to a further erosion of the PA vote bank.

The impending presidential election will inevitably be a violent one. At the Wayamba election, government showed its readiness to win the elections in a manner that is as violent and deceitful as any the UNP was capable of in former times.

The government has so far done nothing to correct such anti-democratic trends. It is going to hold an election without taking any reformatory action to make the process of elections free and independent, and while also keeping the Commissioner of Elections out of the picture. It may be presumed that the government will do anything to win this presidential election at any cost.

If the presidential election becomes a violent one, the result will be that the existing divisions in the country will become worse and the country will again find itself in a situation where people will be fighting each other.

From the Blue Corner

Editorial/ Opinion Contents