Tallies and pointers

An overview of the electoral outcome in terms of the patterns of the victory.

THE Sri Lankan electoral system was, as in the case of India, based on the Westminster model earlier. The first-past-the-post winner system was replaced with the Proportionate Representation (PR) scheme by J.R. Jayewardene by means of the 1978 Constituti on. The PR system itself underwent further modifications.

The parliamentary election procedure in the island entails 22 electoral districts going to the polls and electing 196 members in the first stage. For administrative convenience, each electoral district is divided into a number of electoral divisions base d on population figures. The voter is required to vote for the party or independent group of his or her choice and also cast three preference votes for individual candidates. Each list will have a number of candidates in excess of the number of seats all ocated to a particular district. After the votes are counted, each party or group will be entitled to a certain number of seats within each district in proportion to the votes received. Thereafter, candidates obtaining the highest number of preference vo tes within the respective lists would become MPs, the choice being made in the descending order.

A further 29 seats would be filled proportionately to each party or group on the basis of overall votes received on a nationwide basis. Parties are required to submit at the time of filing nominations a "National List" of candidates, from which these MPs would be selected. The National List candidates do not face the hustings directly.

The latest elections saw 5,048 candidates from 29 accredited political parties and 99 independent groups vying for 225 seats in all. Some 55,000 police and military personnel were deployed to guard the 9,845 polling booths where a record 12,38,704 person s were expected to vote. In all 9,080,400, or 75.43 per cent, of the total electorate cast their votes, of which 478,454, or 5.27 per cent, were rejected as invalid votes. And 8,601,948, or 94.73 per cent, of the votes were accepted as being valid. The P eople's Alliance (P.A.) obtained 3,892,075, or 45.25 per cent, while the United National Party (UNP) got 3,463,822, or 40. 27 per cent, of the votes. On this basis the P.A. won 94 seats directly and a further 13 on the National List, making up 107 seats, while the UNP got 77 seats with another 12 on the National List, totalling 89. Both parties, however, registered a drop in voting percentages in comparison with the 1994 elections. In these elections, the P.A. got 48.94 per cent of the votes and 105 sea ts while the UNP won 94 seats with 44.02 per cent of the votes.

Apart from the seats won by the P.A. and UNP, 29 seats were shared by seven parties. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or People's Liberation Front got 517,620 or 6.02 per cent, of the total votes and gained 10 seats: eight directly elected and two on the Na tional List. The Sihala Urumaya or Sinhala heritage party got 126,137 votes or 1.47 per cent that entitled it to a solitary seat on the National List. It failed to win a single seat in any district. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) that contested two districts on the P.A. symbol fielded candidates in several districts under the name of the National Unity Alliance. It won four seats, including one on the National List after getting 183,790 votes, constituting 2.14 per cent of the total.

Among the Tamil parties the moderate Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) retained the same number of seats it had in the earlier Parliament. The TULF won five seats with 105,907 votes, or 1.23 per cent, but failed to get any National List seat.

The Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) that had nine seats in the previous Parliament, won four seats directly with 50,702 votes, or 0.59 per cent. It gained another seat indirectly when its nominee on an independent group contesting in an Eastern di strict also was elected. The EPDP tally was thus five.

The All Ceylon Tamil Congress got one seat with 27,289, or 0.32 per cent, while the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) got three seats on the basis of 25,830 votes, or 0.30 per cent.

The PR system has its paradoxes: parties are able to get seats by virtue of getting a higher percentage in particular districts while being negligible entities on a national scale. Likewise, parties may be able to aggregate a high number of votes at the national level but fail to get even a single seat because they lack sizable numbers in any single district. This situation is of particular advantage to parties which have their principal support base among the minority communities and that are able to f ocus on particular regions and gain representation on a limited scale. Such examples in the latest instance include the TULF, the EPDP, the NUA, the TELO and the ACTC. None of them, except the NUA, was eligible to get a National List member, while the Si hala Urumaya that gained a National List seat failed to win any seat at the district level.

This time, 47 persons who were MPs in the previous House, including four who were Ministers and 10 who were Deputy Ministers, were defeated. The highest number of preference votes was recorded by Ranil Wickremasinghe: with 363,688 in Colombo district. Pr ofessor Gamini Lakshman Peiris, the Minister responsible for drafting a new Constitution, was first on the P.A. list for Colombo with 139,123 votes. Ratnasiri Wickramanayake, who was later reappointed as Prime Minister, came first in Kalutara with 148,40 5 preference votes.

In keeping with the South Asian tradition of dynastic politics several MPs with family connections continued to retain their seats or won for the first time. Of the new entrants, four are noteworthy. Former President Ranasinghe Premadasa's son Sajith cam e first on the UNP list in the southern district of Hambantota with 98,968 votes. Former Opposition leader and UNP Minister Gamini Dissanayake's son Navin won in Nuwara Eliya with 55,587 preferences votes. Ferial, widow of the Muslim Congress leader M.H. M. Ashraff, won in Amparai (Digamadulla) with 83,353 votes. Surangani Ellawela, widow of former MP Nanda and mother of another former MP Nalanda who was gunned down a few years ago, won in Ratnapura with 54,517 on the P.A. ticket. Two persons charged wit h that killing also won from the same district on the UNP ticket.

The ethnic ratio in the 22 electoral districts is distributed somewhat unevenly. Ten of the districts, namely, Gampaha, Matara, Galle, Hambantota, Moneragala, Kegalle, Matale, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Kurunegala, are Sinhala dominated. Another six - Colombo, Ratnapura, Kalutara, Puttalam, Kandy and Badulla - have a Sinhala majority with significant Muslim and Tamil segments. In Nuwara Eliya district, in terms of numbers Tamils of recent Indian origin have a slight edge over Sinhala people. In the E ast, Batticaloa has a Tamil majority and a substantive Muslim minority. Amparai district has Muslims in a majority with Sinhala coming a close second and Tamils trailing far behind. All three communities are more or less evenly distributed in Trincomalee with Muslims staying ahead. Jaffna is nearly totally Tamil, while the Wanni is Tamil dominated but with Sinhala and Muslim minorities also present. The districts of Colombo, Puttalam, Gampaha, Wanni and Jaffna have significant concentrations of Christia ns too.

Of these 22 districts, the P.A. topped the list in 15 including Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee and Amparai. The UNP came first in Colombo, Hambantota, Badulla and Polonnaruwa. The EPDP edged out the TULF in Jaffna while the latter did the same to the NUA in B atticaloa. TELO came first in the Wanni. The UNP got seats in every district in the country including Jaffna. The P.A. also won in every district except Jaffna.

A remarkable phenomenon was the emergence of the JVP as a major political force. The leftist outfit, responsible for two insurgencies in 1971 and 1988-89, was suppressed in both instances through the use of excessive force. In recent times the JVP has mo ved somewhat to the right in terms of acquiring neo-fascist tendencies while clinging to some outdated leftist cliches also. It has been critical of both the major parties/formations and their "capitulation" to the minorities. The JVP organised demonstra tions against concessions being made to Tamils in the aborted draft Constitution mooted by the P.A. in August. It draws its support from the rural peasantry as well as urban lumpen elements but not from the proletariat.

In a significant gesture, the JVP nominated a Muslim woman as one of its two National List MPs. Its leader Somawansa Amerasinghe, self-exiled to France, is expected to return and take up the active leadership of the organisation.

The election has also seen the rise of Sinhala chauvinist organisations such as the Sihala Urumaya. Lionised by sections of the mainstream media, the S.U. was expected to become the third force in Sinhala politics but has fared miserably. Still it manage d to win a seat on the National List. The S.U., however, has since cracked up with its leader, S.L. Gunasekera, a lawyer, and eight other central committee members quitting the organisation over the party's objection to Gunasekera, a Christian, represent ing Sinhala Buddhists in Parliament as a National List MP. Party secretary Tilak Karunaratne is now expected to fill the seat.

A related development is the victory within the P.A. folds of another set of Sinhala hardliners from the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna (MEP) led by Dinesh Gunewardene. The MEP component, the JVP and the S.U. in association with P.A. hawks are likely to obstru ct any meaningful action on the part of President Chandrika Kumaratunga to resolve the national problem equitably.

The EPDP, which had nine seats from Jaffna in the last Parliament because the majority of Jaffna voters could not exercise their franchise, found its number shrinking to four in the North. The EPDP got four seats, polling around 41,000 votes - of which i ts stronghold Kayts provided about 12,000 votes amidst accusations by rival political parties. The TULF, which did not contest in Jaffna last time, did so this time and got three seats. The oldest Tamil political party in the Island, the Tamil Congress, got one seat while the UNP got the other. The Tamil Congress had been out of Parliament since 1977 while the UNP had last won from Jaffna in 1952 when Suppiapillai Natesan defeated Federal Party leader S.J.V. Chelvanayakam in Kankesanthurai.

About 1,32,000 voters, or 21 per cent of the electorate, cast their votes in Jaffna despite the ongoing war. The Wanni saw TELO win three seats. Its leader and sitting MP Adaikalanathan alias Chelvam, gained a large number of Catholic votes. The Muslim C ongress, contesting as the NUA, got another seat while the UNP and the P.A. got one seat each: both these winners are Sinhala.

The East saw the Muslim Congress component of the P.A. in Amparai (Digamadulla) district winning four seats on the P.A. symbol. The sympathy factor in the wake of Muslim Congress leader Ashraff's recent death (Frontline, October 13) triggered a massive s wing in favour of the P.A. The UNP got two Sinhala MPs in, while an EPDP candidate won on an Independent list. Tamil organisations have come together on a combined list in order to prevent the fragmentation of votes and ensure adequate Tamil representati on. In Trincomalee, Tamils lost parliamentary representation for the first time in the island's history of representative democracy. From M.M. Subramaniam in the Legislative Council in 1924 to R. Sambandan in the dissolved Parliament there has been a Tam il representative from Trincomalee. Excessive division of Tamil votes among contending parties and independent groups was the reason for no Tamil being elected this time. The P.A. got two Muslim MPs and one Sinhala MP, while the UNP had a Muslim in Trinc omalee. Batticaloa saw two TULF candidates and one P.A. candidate win. Apart from these three Tamils, two Muslims were returned on the UNP and NUA ticket respectively. A Tamil candidate from the P.A. won for the first time while the TULF suffered a decli ne. The TULF, which got 75,000 votes last time dropped to 54,000 with the number of preference votes in favour of its star candidate Joseph Pararajasingham dwindling from 43,000 to 12,000.

A notable feature with regard to the predominantly Tamil and Muslim North and East was the success of Sinhala dominated parties as opposed to the lacklustre performance of the TULF and other Tamil parties. There are altogether 31 seats from the North and the East, of which 15 are from the North and 16 the East. The break-up was: P.A. - 9 , UNP - 6, TULF 5, EPDP 5 (4+1), TELO - 3, NUA - 2 and ACTC - 1. The ethnic composition was 12 Tamil, two Sinhala, and one Muslim from the North, and eight Muslim, four Tamil and four Sinhala from the East. One reason for the drop in the number of Tamil MPs was the out-migration of Tamils owing to the war and the inflow of Sinhala settlers sponsored by the state over the past few years. A visible pattern in the electio n was that of a plethora of Tamil parties and independent groups fragmenting the limited number of Tamil votes through excessive competition among themselves. Also, the Tamil lists were exclusively Tamil in heterogenous electorates like those in Trincoma lee, Batticaloa, Amparai and the Wanni while the major parties had multi-ethnic lists comprising Muslims, Tamils and Sinhala candidates.

The plantation Tamils, who had eight elected and two National List MPs in the last Parliament, have only five elected MPs this time. In 1994 the Ceylon Workers Congress contesting under the UNP symbol won three seats in Nuwara Eliya, two in Colombo and o ne each in Kandy and Ratnapura. Another two were appointed on the National List. The Up Country People's Front had one seat in Nuwara Eliya. This time the CWC split in two with the faction led by Arumugam Thondaman going with the P.A. It contested on the P.A. symbol in some districts and separately in others. The other group led by former Minister Devarajan, contested on the UNP ticket. Chandrasekeran, leader of the UCPF, Mano Ganeshan of the Democratic Workers' Congress and Sellasamy of the National Wo rkers' Congress also were with the UNP. Arumugam Thondaman, Muttu Sivalingam and Jegatheesan were elected in Nuwara Eliya on the P.A. ticket. The CWC was defeated elsewhere. Likewise only Chandrasekeran and Sathasivam won from the UNP in Nuwara Eliya. Ma no Ganeshan failed to win a seat by 96 votes in Colombo. The UNP, however, has appointed three other Up Country Tamils - Sellasamy, Devarajan and Kanagaraj - as National List MPs. It remains to be seen whether the P.A. too would appoint plantation Tamil s on the National List.

THE spectre of violence and electoral fraud cast a shadow over the polls. The most serious situation witnessed in the South was in Kandy district where the P.A.'s "War" Minister and President Kumaratunga's uncle, Anuruddha Ratwatte's supporters were accu sed of staging a violent, intimidatory and corrupt election campaign. The votes cast in at least 20 booths were nullified by the Elections Commissioner. Though Ratwatte got the highest number of P.A. preference votes for the district (152,511) his image has been tarnished by the alleged tough tactics of his sons Lohan and Chanuka. Both were arrested and Lohan was produced in court for alleged offences, including attacks on the office of the district's Deputy Inspector-General of Police and opening fire on Muslim Congress supporters killing two persons and injuring 54.

Another bigwig against whom allegations have been made is the P.A. strongman from Nuwara Eliya, S.B. Dissanayake, who is now the Sports Minister. Preliminary reports submitted by election monitoring bodies such as PAFFEREL and MFFE noted that the electio ns were relatively free and fair in 12 of the 20 electoral districts monitored by them including three Eastern districts. Of the other eight districts of Kandy, Anuradhapura, Puttalam, Matale, Gampaha, Kegalle, Kurunegala and Nuwara Eliya, the PAFFEREL-M FFE reports observed "a high level of violence, intimidation, and ballot stuffing leading in some instances to an interruption of the poll."

Another monitoring body, the CMEV, stated that the voting process in 578 booths was flawed and that around 700,000 votes were cast in these booths. As such the CMEV claimed that this would have had a major impact on the outcome of the polls.

The opinion of the local monitoring bodies contrasted sharply with those of the foreign observer teams that tended to deliver a generalised clean chit to the overall exercise.

If this was the situation in these districts, that in the Tamil dominated Jaffna and Wanni districts was not very different. In fact, no organisation attempted to monitor elections there. The situation there was pre-judged with Lord Naseby of Great Brita in commenting that it was not possible to have a "full and fair election because of the terrorist activity of the LTTE and the possible unreliability of the voter registers". The election day itself saw heavy artillery fights raging between the LTTE and government troops in several areas of the Jaffna peninsula.

A structural defect in the elections in the north was the disparity between actual voter numbers and figures in the voter registers. This was owing to massive displacement and migration of Tamils. Moreover, a substantial number of Tamils were living in L TTE controlled areas and were unable to vote. Other regions like Weli-Oya were totally de-populated of Tamils. The TULF complained about this, stating that "it participated in the contest in an undemocratic environment". It alleged that in Jaffna "one po litical party was able to behave as if it was the government. It was able to dispense favours even while the election was on." In a severe indictment of the results in the North and the East, TULF secretary-general R. Sambandan observed: "We do not look upon the election results as reflecting a genuinely democratic verdict of the people in the north. I would say it is an aberration of existing ground reality."

There is no denying that the elections were not conducted perfectly and peacefully. While the difficulties of conducting an ideal poll in a war situation have to be appreciated, premeditated violence, election malpractices and the abuse and misuse of power b y those in authority cannot be condoned. In fact, such fraudulence and violence has to be penalised wherever possible. Nevertheless, what is positive in the entire situation is the overwhelming desire of the Sri Lankan electorate to uphold and maintain d emocracy in the face of tremendous odds. John Cushahan of the European Elections Observations team summed it up aptly: "The overall result reasonably reflected the political intentions of the Sri Lankan people who demonstrated their own commitment to the democratic process by turning out in such high numbers."