Sri Lanka's next battle

The stakes are higher and the issues are more complicated than ever before for the electoral adversaries in the October elections.

WHEN Chandrika Kumaratunga won the Sri Lankan presidential elections in December 1999, the strategists of the People's Alliance (P.A.) advised her to dissolve Parliament and hold general elections immediately. Their expectation was that the P.A., led by Kumaratunga's Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), would win a bigger majority than it had obtained in the 1994 parliamentary elections. The President did not heed the advice.

In hindsight, one can say now that elections might have been the best course for the P.A. then. For, by the time Kumaratunga dissolved Parliament on August 18 and set October 10, 2000 for fresh parliamentary elections, the ruling coalition's image had ta ken quite a battering.

An offensive by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the Jaffna peninsula in the intervening months provided the Opposition good ammunition for an attack on the government. Further, the increased military expenditure to counter the LTTE, combin ed with the global economic conditions, led to a sharp increase in the prices of cooking gas and diesel, which in turn resulted in an overall increase in the cost of living. And hardline Sinhala Buddhist groups, which were solidly behind Kumaratunga at t he time of the presidential election when she promised to vanquish the LTTE, are now ranged against her, objecting to her plans to introduce a new Constitution. Her move cast a shadow over her image among the majority Sinhala community.

After August 2, when the government decided to put off voting on the Constitution Bill, Kumaratunga was left with few choices, especially because the six-year term of Parliament was due to end on August 24. Allowing the House to drift on until the last d ate would have given rise to speculation that the government was planning to get a vote taken on the Bill. That would have triggered more protests by Sinhala hardliners. A more sensible way out was to dissolve the House at the earliest and call for elect ions. The elections could well turn out to be a referendum on the proposed Constitution.

Now the stage is set for the next round of battle between the P.A. and the United National Party (UNP). The two main parties have not yet started their campaigns, but the contest will revolve around two issues: the Constitution and the cost of living.

The P.A.'s campaign will be based on the contention that the proposed Constitution had the potential to resolve the prolonged ethnic conflict but the UNP came in the way of it being approved.

The UNP will question the government's claim about the Constitution and the attempt to push it through Parliament. The other major campaign issue for the UNP will be the increase in the prices of essential commodities.

Addressing a meeting of party workers in Kegalle, 70 km from Colombo, Kumaratunga said that devolution of powers through a new Constitution was the only way to end the war. "A war cannot be won only with weapons. If (LTTE chief) Prabakaran is killed, ano ther Prabakaran can emerge, so we must grant the people in the north and east their just rights through the new Constitution." Describing UNP members as "animals", she appealed to the voters to chase out the party that opposed a Constitution which would have ended the war. Being conscious of the popular discontent over the price rise, she said that prices would automatically come down if the war ended.

On the same day, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe attacked the government for creating a situation in which "people are finding it hard to get three full meals a day". He also accused Kumaratunga of attempting to subvert democracy in her hurry to get the Constitution approved by Parliament. To this end, Wickremesinghe said, she had tried to break his party but failed.

He declared as undemocratic Kumaratunga's stated plan to convert the next Parliament into a Constituent Assembly in which only a simple majority was required for constitutional amendments.

But underlying the campaign rhetoric will be the competition between the two main parties to establish their Sinhala credentials. This is not unusual, going by the experience of many elections in Sri Lanka. But a new dimension is the Sinhala-Buddhist fer vour whipped up by the Buddhist clergy against the proposed Constitution. Both parties will have to deal with this problem. Adding to their pressure will be the nationalist Sinhala Urumaya, recently recognised as a political party, which is projecting it self as an alternative to the P.A. and the UNP. So, while Kumaratunga has been hard-selling the new Constitution, her new Prime Minister, Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, has been entrusted with the task of wooing the Buddhist clergy.

Within days of assuming office, Wickremenayake held a meeting with the prelates of the Malwatte and Asgiriya chapters of the Siam sect of Buddhism, the two most influential prelates in Sri Lanka. After the meeting he asserted that the Constitution Bill w ould not be reintroduced unless the Mahasangha, as the clergy are collectively known, approved its "every para and every line". He took pains to emphasise the provisions in the new Constitution that are aimed at safeguarding Buddhism.

Kumaratunga has an additional task: to paint Wickremesinghe as a politician who does not have the interests of the majority community at heart. The fact that the UNP leader has throughout maintained that the proposed Constitution should be discussed with the LTTE could prove useful to P.A. campaigners.

Wickremesinghe, for his part, has one hand on the escape hatch with his promise to build a "national consensus" on the areas of agreement in the Constitution - an effort which will have to involve not only the LTTE but also the Buddhist clergy and "all o ther parties concerned".

Meanwhile, Wickremesinghe was fighting on another front as the government stepped up an investigation against him for his alleged involvement in an illegal detention centre outside Colombo, where many Sinhala youth were tortured before they disappeared. This activity allegedly took place in the late 1980s, when the UNP, then in power, tried to put down an armed insurgency by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).

Given the fact that southern Sri Lanka accounts for the bulk of the 225 seats in Parliament, the contest will be mainly between the SLFP and the UNP. But the parties representing minority Tamils and Muslims, which are preparing to contest seats in the em battled north and east, hold vital cards in a proportional representation system of elections in which it is impossible for parties to get anything more than a simple majority.

The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, which has emerged as a major pro-Kumaratunga force in recent years, is yet to decide whether to contest as part of the P.A. again. While some Tamil parties have announced that they will contest all seats in the north and th e east, the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) is yet to announce its plans.

The LTTE has been a silent spectator. But without ever contesting an election, the terrorist organisation has made its presence felt through a combination of strategies - covertly backing one party or the other, launching military strikes, killing candid ates, intimidating voters, and so on. In the 1994 elections, the LTTE, which was then in total control of the Jaffna peninsula, ensured that an overwhelming majority of the nearly 600,000 voters then present in the district kept away from the polling boo ths. The voter turnout was only 2.97 per cent. Although Jaffna is now not fully in the LTTE's hands, the Tigers' recent military victories in the peninsula will make it difficult for contestants from the Tamil parties, most of whom are on the LTTE's hit- list, to campaign fearlessly.

The Army is gearing to face fresh LTTE attacks ahead of the elections. Aid workers who visit the peninsula frequently have described the situation as "tense", with the military stalemate having continued for too long. The government forces, which have eq uipped themselves with new Mi-27 bombers, besides the Israeli Kfir fighters, have conducted bombing missions on LTTE positions in the Thenmarachchi division of the peninsula. But they have made little gains. Although millions of rupees have recently been spent on acquiring offensive ground weapons also, the military have not yet gained any decisive advantage in Jaffna.

This situation could now work to the LTTE's advantage, which could enable it to set the agenda for the elections and even influence the outcome. The main challenge before President Kumaratunga is to prevent that eventuality.