Is Sri Lanka witnessing a shift in its ethnic politics?

For the first time, Tamil voters in northern Sri Lanka seem to back a Sinhalese president who promises to return their land and change old politics.

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is selling hope ahead of the November 14 Parliamentary elections. Not just for the Sinhalese in the south, but for the Tamils in the north. The election of Dissanayake in late September this year as President was a breath of fresh air for a country long dominated by a set of influential political families.

Many voters this reporter spoke to—both in Colombo and Jaffna—said they would vote for “AKD” as the President is popularly known. Dissanayake’s National People’s Power (NPP) alliance received just over 27,000 votes in September from Jaffna. Today, the situation looks different. Jaffna-based analysts are speaking of a “small wave” in favour of the President.

Addressing a well-attended public meeting in Jaffna town, the President appeared conscious of the change on the peninsula. “We got just over 27,000 votes in Jaffna. This was because we did not convey our message effectively to the Tamil-speaking people. It was also because we did not work as hard in the north as we did in the [Sinhala dominated] south,” he said.

Women had come out in large numbers to attend the rally addressed by the President—his first visit to the northern part of the country since taking over Sri Lanka’s top job. The enthusiasm was evident with the crowd bursting into loud cheers from time to time.

“So many of you showing up today shows that you are willing to place your trust in us,” President Dissanayake said. “I invite all of you, the people of Jaffna, to join me in this effort to change the political culture of our country.”

Restoring land and trust

Saying what the people wanted to hear, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader promised that the lands taken over by the State during the war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would be returned to the people. This is a long-standing demand of the people in the north.

Shantini, who teaches business studies in Jaffna, told Frontline on the sidelines of the President’s rally that the election of AKD had generated a lot of hope. “It was good that the war ended in [2009]. We are part of a teachers union [pointing to her colleague Shyla] and had a meeting with the President six months ago.”

After the economic crisis of 2022, which the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimated led to the out-migration of 5,35,000 Sri Lankans for jobs abroad between January 2022 and September 2023, mothers like Shantini are also looking at the future of their own children.

Asked by this reporter whether she would send her two children abroad, Shantini smiled and replied: “We will take a decision on whether the children should go abroad based on what President AKD is able to do.”

Whether they were the PickMe (a Sri Lankan Uber) auto drivers or people at Jaffna eateries, it was quite common to hear the acronym “AKD” when asked who they would be voting for. There was no hesitation or ambiguity in the response.

“I will be voting for Anura Kumara Dissanayake because he represents change for the country. After a long time, we have a President who is seeking votes from the northern Tamils,” one hotel manager who preferred anonymity told Frontline. Some established Tamil nationalist politicians, he believed, were in danger of losing their seats in the Jaffna electoral district.

At least one NPP candidate had a good chance of winning from the Jaffna electoral district, Sritharan Thirunavukkarasu, who has long been associated with the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), said.

“The Tamil parties have splintered. The future is the NPP. Many Tamil people will vote for the NPP,” Sritharan said, adding that in his personal capacity he had come out in support for NPP candidates in the north.

‘A pivotal moment’

Ahilan Kadirgamar, who teaches sociology at the University of Jaffna, told Frontline that Sri Lanka was at a pivotal moment. “Sri Lanka is going through its worst economic crisis since probably the Great Depression of the 1930s. The huge social and political changes we are seeing is related to this crisis. So, it’s definitely at a pivotal moment and it’s also significant here in Jaffna because it’s been 15 years since the end of the war.”

“We’ve gone through this long 26-year-old civil war. And what do you do after the war? In the south, the Rajapaksas decided to use it for their own consolidation. So they even strengthened Sinhala Buddhist nationalism and militarized the country and particularly the north even further in a very humiliating way towards the minorities here, the Tamil community in particular,” he said.

“That was part of the reason, but there wasn’t also the kind of self-criticism that was necessary within the Tamil community. The political elite here, whether it’s the parliamentary parties or the militants, and then eventually the LTTE…they owe some responsibility to where they have brought the Tamil community. And there should have been some self-criticism on the kind of strategies that we should adopt to move forward. That didn’t happen. So the same slogans.”

Pointing out that the LTTE had wiped out the entire second-generation leadership in the Tamil community, Kadirgamar added: “So there weren’t enough people left. There were a number of them who were put forward as their proxies. When the LTTE disappeared from the scene, these proxies decided to kind of hold on to the parliamentary mantle and politics there without really mobilizing the people, without really engaging the people”.

“Their claim was that with the support of the international community, using the diaspora and with the support of India, they will be able to deliver some kind of a solution. But I think it was clear to many of us that when you have political leadership that cannot mobilize the people, no solution is going to be a real solution…”

Whether the churn happening is going to be significant will be known on the night of November 14-15 when the results of the parliamentary elections come in. The word in the street—both in Jaffna and in Colombo—is that the JVP-led NPP coalition with President Dissanayake at its head will be able to secure a majority in the 226 member Parliament.

Given that the President had virtually no support in the outgoing Parliament, the results of this election will determine whether he is able to deliver a better life to the people of Sri Lanka. The crowds for new passports show that the crisis in Sri Lanka is far from over.

The hope for change is very real in a country long divided on ethnic lines. It is not a moment to be missed.

Amit Baruah is a former diplomatic correspondent of The Hindu and foreign editor of Hindustan Times.