The Sri Lanka Presidential Election and the International Community

by R. Cholan, TamilNation.org, November 20, 2005

"...A lot of effort has gone into blaming ‘politicians’ for the quagmire Sri Lanka is in, much of this effort by the media and the peaceniks stationed in Colombo to explain away election results and other such events. ‘Politicians do what the electorate wants’ and not the other way around. What the Sinhala electorate in Sri Lanka wants is a ‘unitary government’, where the Sinhala-Buddhist majority rules all aspects of everyone’s life in Sri Lanka all the time, and all ‘others’ have to put-up and shut-up. What I want to ask the international community now is this. What exactly do you want the Tamil people to do?.."

Like all Sri Lankan Tamils, I, too, had absolutely no interest in the hullabaloo of the latest presidential election in Sri Lanka, for understandably obvious reasons. Whether it was ‘Ravana or Rama who rules,’ as the Tamil saying goes, I really did not care who won. But Mahinda Rajapakse, dubbed a ‘hardliner,’ winning the Presidency of Sri Lanka is another matter.

Perverse as this may sound to some people, I would like to say that there is a positive aspect to this result, not merely the outcome of the election itself, but the entire course of events that led to this result. The so called international community has some significant lessons they need to learn from this election, something, incidentally, the Tamils already know by experience and by instinct.

The hand-wringing by the international community has already begun and I am not surprised. It is an open secret that the international community was hoping for a Ranil Wickremasinghe victory, not because he was pro-peace, but because his methods were more agreeable. That he lost primarily because of the Tamil boycott is irritating to the international community.

What the international community desires in Sri Lanka is ‘containment and management’ of the Tamil insurgency, and it does not care much about the political rights of the Tamil people. Tamils (and their claim to rights) can go to pot and the LTTE is the problem. Wickremasinghe would have served their interests well with his ‘containment and management’ strategy. Of course, the international community is now disappointed.

Within hours of the election, Erik Solheim, the Norwegian mediator said, “The situation now is very difficult” [The Independent, 19 November 2005]. The US State Department said, “[the United States] regrets that Tamil voters in the northern and eastern parts of the island did not vote in significant numbers...” [AFP, Nov 19, 2005]. Similar sentiments are probably being passed around in the hallways of the EU Parliament and in the offices of the interested think-tanks at this moment.

All of them need to pause and think about what this election actually means, if they truly mean business, because there are significant lessons to be learnt from this election.

Firstly, the Tamil boycott of a major election is a notable first in post-independent Sri Lankan history. It is a very significant event and what can actually be termed ‘epoch-making.’ That the Tamil people no longer wish to be a part of the body politic of the Sri Lankan state has been clearly and unambiguously stated.

Despite the unconcern and desertion of the Tamils by the departing colonial British rulers and the consequent betrayal by the Sinhala people, the Tamils continued to participate in the polls. This they did against all odds of gaining anything at all from a political setup left by the British, as history has shown. Electing members to the parliament to sit in the back-benches of the opposition, with no real ability to help those whom they represent, is not what one would call democracy. Those who now want to criticize the Tamils for their non-participation need to ask themselves what they did, if anything, to help the Tamils all these decades.

Now, after fifty-seven years of participating but not benefiting from that participation, Tamils have finally said: ‘No More.’ The Tamil declaration at this election is strikingly unambiguous, and the Tamil people could not have said it any better. This is indeed an epoch-making event.

The second lesson in this is in the person the Sinhala people chose to be ‘their’ president. Considering the Tamil boycott of the election, this is clearly the Sinhala people’s choice, without any Tamil input. Tamils had no say in this matter and it was purely a Sinhala choice.

Mahinda Rajapakse is a candidate who contested on a platform to deny any and all political rights to the Tamils. Here is a man who categorically rejected the existence of a Tamil homeland (the people of this homeland have now shown him that it does exist), and rejected their right to rule themselves. He is on record opposing even meager concessions, such as SIHRN, ISGA, P-TOMS, etc. And, the Sinhala people chose him over the other candidate who did not express such extreme views.

The credentials of the other candidate, Ranil Wickremasinghe, are even more significant. What is vital here is that he was not the ‘opposite’ of Mahinda - and by opposite I mean one who opposed Mahinda’s position on Tamil rights.

Wickremasinghe also subscribed to many of Mahinda’s ideas on Tamil rights, except that he was more circumspect and less explicit. His strategy was different, but he nevertheless held the same views as the winner. He lost only because he did not state his views more clearly to the Sinhala electorate.

A crucial lesson for the international community here is that the entire Sinhala electorate, nearly ninety-nine percent, voted for the two candidates who held identical views on the future of Tamils in Sri Lanka, albeit differently shaded. The one who stated his prejudices more clearly to the Sinhala electorate and took a firmer stand won.

Those who now want to criticize the Tamils for not voting must admit the fact that the Tamils really did not have any proper choice in this election. Talk about Hobson’s choice – take the one nearest the door or none at all[i]! By not voting because they did not have a choice, the Tamils also helped with the clarity of the message that came out of this election.

If the Tamils had voted in this election, Ranil Wickremasinghe would be president today, but the message would not have been so clear. The world would have understood it as, the ‘pro-peace’ candidate won. Wickremasinghe would have continued with his strategy of ‘containment and management’ of the Tamil uprising, to the satisfaction of the international community, but to the detriment of the Tamils.

Also noteworthy is that fact that, in this election, no Sinhala candidate came forward to contest on a platform for Tamil rights, not even one willing to meet the Tamil demands half way. Of course, there are Sinhala politicians who talk about support for Tamil rights, but none contested because they knew they could not win.

A lot of effort has gone into blaming ‘politicians’ for the quagmire Sri Lanka is in, much of this effort is by the media and the peaceniks stationed in Colombo to explain away election results and other such events. ‘Politicians do what the electorate wants’ and not the other way around. What the Sinhala electorate in Sri Lanka wants is a ‘unitary government,’ where the Sinhala-Buddhist majority rules all aspects of everyone’s life in Sri Lanka all the time, and all ‘others’ have to put-up and shut-up.

What I want to ask the international community now is this. What exactly do you want the Tamil people to do?
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[i] The Hobson behind Hobson's Choice lived in Cambridge, England during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Licensed to carry passengers, parcels, and mail between Cambridge and London, Thomas Hobson kept a stable of about forty high quality horses. As a sideline, he also rented out his horses to university students. After students began requesting particular horses again and again, the liveryman realized certain horses were being overworked. That inspired Hobson to come up with a new system of rotating the horses for hire. Hobson gave customers looking for horses the choice of taking the one nearest the stable door or taking none at all. Not something what would call a choice.