North Central Province prepares for elections

A stream of devotees continued turn up at the Ruwanweli Maha Seya,  in Anuradhapura as usual this week. Five years back the venue was where the former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa took his oaths.

Contrast to the serene scene at the Ruwanweli Seya and the surroundings, the district is also preparing for a crucial Presidential election in less than a week’s time as like in the 24 other districts across the country. 

The electoral offices of Presidential candidates of  political parties and independent candidates  beside the main roads and few posters on lamp posts and the party supporters going on house to house campaigns in the district are the only indications that the district is on the brink of an election.

But, driving through the district,  many of the party offices we saw were unmanned and shuttered. Some were just a couple of walls or even bare land with the faces and names of the respective candidates, parties and symbols. The strategy has become all too familiar in this election cycle, adopted perhaps with the aim of circumventing election law restrictions on the display of propaganda materials. 

Unlike in the 2019 presidential elections, there are no cutouts in every junction and posters on every lamppost, while incident of election related violations are at its minimal level and as a result there has so far not been any serious violence reported. 

Both the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and National People’s Power (NPP) are aggressively campaigning in the district for every vote for their respective candidates Sajith Premadasa and Anura Kumara Dissanayake.

As the campaign entered its final week, it is the campaigns by the Janatha Vimukthi Preamuna (JVP) backed NPP as almost all of them supporting their candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake have openly come out to express their support,  but other parties too have had their own campaign strategies to attract voters. 

Close to Anuradhapura town, we met a group of NPP activists who had just returned from canvassing door-to-door. Some of them admitted that they previously supported other parties such as the United National Party (UNP) and the SLPP, but were now with the NPP.  

NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake was a distant third in the district at the 2019 presidential election, capturing just 3.9% of the total vote. Five years on, party activists believe he is now poised to win the district convincingly on his way to the presidency. 

Former Anuradhapura Municipal Councilor H.B. Seetha Herath (63), who was among the NPP activists, said the NPP has done better than other parties in engaging with women and making them aware and interested in politics. “We have been doing this since the beginning of the year. The majority of the country’s voters are female and the rulers are elected because of the female vote. But it is the womenfolk who suffer the most. We have pointed out to women that this is all due to politics and that a political change is the only solution to this. We have been stressing to them that it is the women who have the power to bring about that change through their vote.”

As a teenager, Nihal Wijesooriya now, 73 took part in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna’s (JVP) failed insurrection in 1971 and spent 1 ½ years in detention after being arrested. Mr Wijesooriya, who now works in the tourism sector, claimed people are sick of the corruption that is part of the prevailing political establishment and are waiting impatiently to vote for the ‘compass’ symbol of the NPP to elect Mr Dissanayake as President. He acknowledged some people may still be apprehensive about voting for the NPP given the violent past of the JVP, which is the NPP’s main party. “But we returned to the democratic process in 1994 and have not wavered since. I think our record over the past 30 years speaks for itself.” 

“Our campaign teams have been working day and night and sometimes travelling into interior areas to educate the public as to why they should vote for Anura Kumara Dissanayake. This is all voluntary work”, Manori Ratnasekara, one of the NPP campaigners in the Anuradhapura East electorate said.

She said though the Anuradhapura district itself has its unique issues varying from farmers problems to intrusion of wild elephants, at this times election the issue has been theme of having government free of corruption.

Samagi Jana Balawegaya also has put up a number of offices across the district trying to attract a major part of the 741,862 votes on offer in the district with special attention to the farming areas offering solutions to the farmers issues. 

The SJB believes it is the party that has the better chance of winning the district. Its Medawachchiya organiser and Anuradhapura District MP Rohana Bandara claimed they are attracting large crowds even during pocket meetings held during the day. “There were certain villages where we couldn’t even hold a meeting earlier because they were so pro-SLPP, but now, not only are we holding meetings in them, but much of their populations have joined with us,” added Mr Bandara.

He dismissed any talk of the NPP having an edge over the SJB, adding that while the NPP may have grown its support base somewhat, it is still the SJB that had the wider support in both urban centres and rural areas. A major factor behind this is that Mr Premadasa has for a long time, worked closely with the party’s grassroots level leaders in the district, he opined. “He even knows our grassroots level organisers by name. That level of closeness with those who work on the ground has made him popular among the voters.”

The SJB also has been visiting houses for the campaign . 

“Our campaign has been focused on house to house meetings with a couple of main rallies’, says Anurudda Premasiri a SJB campaigner from the Mihintale electorate. 

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) that propelled Gotabaya Rajapaksa to victory is now split, with prominent SLPP MPs in the district such as Shehan Semasinghe and S.M. Chandrasena throwing their support behind President Ranil Wickremesinghe, running as an independent candidate under the ‘gas cylinder’ symbol. While a section of the SLPP is supporting the party’s candidate Namal Rajapaksa, there are hardly any signs in the district indicating he is even contesting. 

Several rallies have been held in the district, with some of them attended by President Wickremesinghe as part of the campaign while the house to house campaigns have been less compared to other main candidates. 

“The farmers who form a majority in this district are well aware as to what the President Wickremesinghe has provided to the farmers compared what was provided to farmers in the previous government. This time the paddy harvest have been better. So there is no necessity going to explain why the President should be given another term’, Siridasa Ranasinghe a farmer from Galnewa in the Anuradhapura district said. 

On Tuesday President Wickremesinghe addressing a rally in Medawachchiya and  on Wednesday he addressed professionals and businessmen on Wednesday. Similar meetings have been held to convince voters to vote for him. 

In this predominantly agricultural district with 741, 862 registered voters, the main concerns include food security, unemployment, health, education and the human-elephant conflict. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the district handsomely at the 2019 presidential election, securing nearly 59% of the total valid votes. 

Voters meanwhile, expressed differing views on who they would prefer to run the country for the next five years. Saman Anura De Silva, used to run a bookshop in Anuradhapura town, but his business went bankrupt during the economic crisis. He now sells lottery tickets. Mr De Silva said he has now been able to get back on his feet thanks to his new trade. He felt now is “not the time to experiment” as “it was by trying to experiment that we created a situation that led to fuel and gas queues.” He plans to vote for President Ranil Wickremesinghe as he believes the country will be better off if he is allowed to carry forward his programme over the next five years. 

Trishaw driver Sampath Thusitha though, plans to vote for Sajith Premadasa as he feels he is the only candidate who can bring about meaningful change. “Mr Premadasa did much for us even without being in government. He provided buses to several schools in Anuradhapura town. These are things that should be done by the government of the day but they chose to steal from the people.”

Retired soldier Ajith Thilakaratne, who now works as a security guard opined that people seem to have forgotten that “without Mahinda Rajapaksa, we wouldn’t even have a country.” He said the ‘Aragalaya’ (struggle) led to the destruction of the SLPP but that Namal Rajapaksa is now rebuilding the party. “He is an intelligent man who has a vision. You can see it when he speaks,” he added. 

ANURADHAPURA DISTRICT SECRETARY

Anuradhapura is Sri Lanka’s largest district, accounting for nearly 11% of the country’s total land area. This, coupled with the district’s widespread human-elephant conflict, presents some particular challenges when it comes to holding an election of this magnitude, noted Anuradhapura District Secretary K.G.R. Wimalasooriya. 

The Padaviya Divisional Secretariat Division is the DS Division that is furthest from Anuradhapura town. The distance to the Padaviya DS office alone from Anuradhapura is 100km, with the furthest polling centre in that division located some 25-30km from Divisional Secretariat office. Certain special arrangements have been made to ensure that ballot boxes from these polling centres can be transported to Anuradhapura for counting speedily. This includes allocating one vehicle for one polling centre, said Mr Wimalasooriya. Experienced officers who have been identified for their ability will also be deployed to these more distant polling centres to ensure that everything runs smoothly. 

There are 636 polling centres and 95 counting centres in the Anuradhapura district. Postal votes will be counted at 35 of the counting centres while 60 will be counting ballots cast on Election Day. A total of 10, 287 officers will be directly involved in election duties. 

No incidents of election violence have been reported. Most complaints relate to violation of election laws, with the vast majority involving the display of illegal propaganda such as posters and cutouts, and going on canvassing in large groups, Mr Wimalasooriya further noted. 

Two police officers will be deployed for security at each polling centre on Election Day. Special security will also be provided for the district secretariat and the counting centres. The special security plan for Election Day and the post-election period will be reviewed closer to the polling date. Meanwhile, a special traffic plan will also be implemented on the evening of September 21, with some roads being closed to make it easier to transport the sealed ballot boxed quickly to counting centres. 

There are 22 Divisional Secretariat Divisions in the Anuradhapura District, and the threat from wild elephants is found in 21 of them, with only the Anuradhapura town being exempt, the District Secretary noted. “We have spoken to the Department of Wildlife Conservation on the matter and have obtained Ali Wedi (Thunder Flashes) for polling centres through Grama Niladharis. We don’t expect any major problems,” he added. 

Polonnaruwa District 

The Polonnaruwa district, with 351, 302 registered voters this time, has produced a President in the past in Maithripala Sirisena. Mr Sirisena has opted to remain neutral during the upcoming presidential poll. Another sitting MP, former Sports and Irrigation Minister Roshan Ranasinghe, has thrown his hat into the ring and is contesting this year’s presidential election as an independent candidate. Former MP Sidney Jayarathna too is contesting as an independent candidate. 

Of the three other sitting MPs in the district, SLPP MP Jagath Samarawickrama is supporting President Wickremesinghe, SJB MP Kins Nelson is supporting Mr Premadasa while former State Minister of Highways Siripala Gamlath is supporting Mr Rajapaksa. 

A peaceful atmosphere prevails in the district, with no major incidents of election violence, save for one complaint of an alleged assault. Other complaints relate to violations of election law. 

A major complaint from farmers in the Polonnaruwa District, especially in the Mahaweli B and C Zones, is that they have not received a good price for their paddy. This has placed the government at a disadvantage.  

Reports by Anthony David and Sandun Jayawardena

Additional Reporting by B.G. Chathuranga – Anuradhapura Correspondent and Nimal Jayarathna - Polonnaruwa Correspondent

Samaratunga Herath

W.A.Sanath

Vinitha Abeynayake

Jeewanthi Liyanage

Vinitha Abeynayake