Sun, 2008-05-11
15:45
By
Philip Fernando in LA
Terrorism
failed. Unity and ethnic partnership message of President
Mahinda Rajapaksa was heard very well in the East. UPFA
secured a majority and according Asian Tribune analysts
Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims rallied to form a viable
administration. Pillaiyan would most likely be the Chief
Minister once the preference votes are counted. Talk of
David and Goliath! The new kid on the block gave a deadly
blow to the Ranil-Rauff coalition.
The
“blossoming coalition” as dubbed by a Sunday
paper in April when Ranil and Rauf met, could not thwart
the growing support to government’s effort to bring
about democracy to the East. Ranil tried several stunts:
But the voodoo curse remained. He has lost elections like
nine pins in a bowling alley. The East escaped his grasp
too. (See election results in full elsewhere on Asian
Tribune),
Ranil
chanted his favorite mantras. “Thoppigala is a jungle,
let there be thousands of Sunday Pola meetings, I can
paste wall posters better than Somawansa, let us smash
pots and pans with a vengeance, Banks don’t lend
money to Sri Lanka and UPFA had a secret pact with the
Tigers, Rajapaksa is a dictator." Those and many
more flops failed. Ranil has adjourned to the quietness
of the political barracks and lying dormant for now. Pillaiyan
announced during the campaign “lands confiscated
by the Tiger will be given back to the Muslims”.
That was a master stroke.
The
analysis here took into account the dynamic of the East
arising like Phoenix from the ashes of a terrorist war.
Ranil-Rauff coalition completely misjudged it. This is
Pillaiyan’s very first foray into national politics,
the baptism of fire that promised him the stature he needed.
He out-foxed Ranil and Rauff brilliantly. There is no
stopping him in his march to fame. The western diplomat
who protested that elections should not be held in the
East must be eating crow now.
The
Easterners have decisively smashed attempts to let LTTE
creep back into the Eastern Province. They were adamant
that the terrorists should never ever be allowed to raise
their ugly head again confirming Presidents call that
the LTTE would never gain a foothold in the East again.
What they had suffered was immense pain. They witnessed
hosts of many armies invade in their homes, raped their
women and abducted their men and children. There had seen
armed groups belonging to the LTTE, EPDP, EROS, EPRLF,
PLOTE, the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF), and the
Karuna Faction. This is over for good now.
It
is fascinating to read how the Ranil-Rauf coalition came
about. Here is what the political column of that Sunday
paper which had the scoop on the UNP-SLMC coalition described
it on April 6th under the heading-- UNP-SLMC alliance
holds edge in east.
There were several meetings between Opposition leader,
Ranil Wickremesinghe, SLMC leader, Rauff Hakeem and India's
High Commissioner Alok Prasad. It was only thereafter
that Wickremesinghe had flown to New Delhi to attend a
wedding reception of a family friend after which he conferred
with Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shanker Menon. Thus
goes the theory that the new alliance had the 'blessings'
of India.
Meanwhile,
on the government side, one of the prime movers behind
the exercise, Basil Rajapaksa, senior Advisor to the President
and the man who is personally spearheading development
programs in the East, won over Hisbullah, a one-time Mangala
Samaraweera protégé. UNP-SLMC was caught
napping. They huddled for talks. The issue was who was
going to be the chief minister. The UNP believed that
it should be Naushad Majeed of the UNP and no one else.
Others had other ideas. Again they were surprised to hear
that Hisbullah had gone across to the Government side.
The
next day the SLMC emerged with a strong response: Hakeem,
Basheer Cegu Dawood and Hassan Ali - all Members of Parliament
- would resign their seats in parliament and contest the
Provincial Council elections. They wanted the trio be
permitted to lead the respective Districts, Hakeem (Trincomalee),
Cegu Dawood (Batticaloa) and Ali (Ampara) in the Alliance.
The UNP Tamils protested at the demand to make the Muslim
Congress trio the District leaders, but Wickremesinghe
was able to explain to them the wider interest in allowing
this. He said that after-all; the SLMC leaders had sacrificed
their parliamentary seats for this. Now is looks like
a major blunder on hind sight, of course.
The
UNP-SLMC Alliance then agreed that the two parties will
campaign separately, the SLMC in the Muslim villages and
the UNP in the Tamil villages. The UNP has also put forward
some former MPs Sinnamaru, Sinna Thowfeek, Sunil Shantha
Ranaweera etc, to Trincomalee, Galappati and Daya Gamage
for Ampara, Arasaratnam Sashidharan to Batticaloa. Once
again, this strategy was not successful on hind sight.
Underneath
all this was the belief that the Tamil National Alliance
(TNA) would 'unofficially' back them. Officially, the
TNA has declared that they were shunning the elections
on their theory that it was wrong to be a participant
in an electoral process, the objective of which is diametrically
opposed to such fundamental principles and a reversal
of what the Tamil people has stood for, during more than
the past half a century." Blunder number three-either
you participate or get into the fray, saying one thing
and then secretly participating was damning. .
In
a three-page statement the TNA said "No other Government
since independence has inflicted such immense harm on
the Tamil people as this Government has done in the past
two years. The Tamil-speaking people should not fall into
the dangerous trap that is being laid to bring about their
downfall in their areas of historical habitation. This
is an election at which through the visible or invisible
fire and muscle power of the TMVP and Government armed
forces, President Rajapaksa hopes to implement his insidious
political agenda." Once again, the people felt otherwise.
The
nominations came and saw in Batticaloa, 14 registered
political parties handed over nominations. Four of them
rejected were Muslim Liberation Front (MLF), Eelam People's
United Front (EPUF), United National Alliance (UNA) and
the Tamil United National Front (comprising TULF, PLOTE,
EPRLF - Sitharthan Group, the LSSP and the Communist Party.
Nineteen independent groups were also contesting.
In
the Batticaloa Distrcit 14 political parties handed in
nominations. One of them was a purported political wing
of the LTTE calling itself Viduthalai Pulikal Makkal Munnani
(Liberation Tigers People's Front or LTPF). The LTTE,
however, denied it had entered the fray. But some analysts
believed that LTPF has the backing of an influential section
of the Government in order to show that LTTE too had embraced
the political process and was entering the democratic
process through the EP polls. Sixteen independent groups
were also contesting. In the Ampara district too, 14 political
parties submitted nominations. However, three were rejected.
Also contesting were 26 different independent groups.
So
the Sunday newspaper commented “Down in Kataragama,
Opposition Leader Wickremesinghe was breaking coconuts,
while in Colombo and elsewhere, his party organizers and
followers were breaking pots and pans. The Opposition
seems to feel that the Eastern Province elections will
be the turning point to the Government's popularity in
the country. Something like the Provincial Councils victory
of the Southern Province in March 1994 was the turning
point for the then almost invincible UNP Government.”
Sometimes good intentions of men and mice end up empty.
Basil Rajapaksa and Pillaiyan were better soothsayers
and definitely superior political campaigners than most
inside Ranil-Rauf coalition were willing to concede. Thoppigala
is definitely not a jungle but a tailor-made launching
pad for Pillaiyan. .
I
repeat here the prophetic words of Pillaiyan given to
a Asian Tribune a month ago. “When I suggested that
they need to work hand in hand with the other political
parties representing Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala communities,
it meant we would always work with them as long as they
work for the people of the East; the East requires democracy
and not dominance by outsiders.”
Courtesy - Asian
Tribune