The decision of the TNA to endorse SF with a real chance of winning the forthcoming PE has a significance that goes beyond those elections..!!!

The importance of Ranil Wickremesinghe...........................by Jehan Perera

The decision of the Tamil National Alliance to endorse one of the two leading candidates with a real chance of winning the forthcoming presidential election has a significance that goes beyond those elections. The delay of the alliance in arriving at a decision itself suggests the importance of the issues at stake. There were three strong points of view expressed by the membership of the alliance which constitutes several Tamil political parties that had come together due to the pressures put upon them by the LTTE when it was the dominant power in the Tamil polity. Two of the options available to the party had already been exercised by some members of the alliance.

One option was for the alliance to put forward its own Tamil candidate to contest the elections. The other option was to boycott the elections entirely. The problem was that both these options have been tried before but without yielding benefits to the Tamil people. The past experience of putting forward a Tamil presidential candidate in the past had only a symbolic value as the candidate got very few of even the Tamil voters to support him. The obvious inability of a Tamil candidate espousing Tamil concerns to obtain victory at such an election would have served to discourage Tamil voters from casting their votes for a sure loser. On the other hand, the experience of boycotts of elections by the Tamil people has proved to be even more disadvantageous to the community.

In 2005, the LTTE ordered the Tamil people to boycott the Presidential elections that pitted the then Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa against the former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. There is no doubt that the current TNA leadership was intimidated into going along for fear of LTTE reprisals. During his brief tenure as Prime Minister in the period 2002-4, Ranil Wickremesinghe had signed the Ceasefire Agreement with the LTTE. Although the LTTE withdrew from the peace talks that accompanied that ceasefire, Mr Wickremesinghe promised to restart them if he was elected President. This was a promise he could have fulfilled had he won the elections. The peace process he championed was backed by the international community and he would have been armed with the full complement of executive powers that he had lacked as Prime Minister.

If the Tamil boycott had not taken place and Mr Wickremesinghe had won those elections with Tamil votes, the Tamil people might have been spared the destruction of war. The other example of a fateful boycott of elections by the Tamil people took place in 1931 during the British colonial period. The Tamil political leadership at that time called for a boycott of the polls as they wished a speedier programme of self-government for the country. The Tamil boycott led to the legislature becoming overwhelmingly Sinhalese, with the result that the ethnic minority voice in it became marginal. The negative fallout of this boycott decision carried over to the pre-independence negotiations with the British, which again worked adversely against ethnic minority interests.



Third option

It was with this historical background in mind that finally the TNA exercised the third option. This was to take the decision to endorse one of the two leading presidential candidates, either incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa or his main challenger former Army Commander General Sarath Fonseka. In making this choice the alliance has not only committed itself to taking one side of the political divide and running the risk of being at the receiving end of petty revenge if its choice fails at the election. It has also turned back the clock by over 35 years to give up on separatist politics and make the mainstream Tamil parties once again a part and parcel of national politics.

The extreme suffering that Tamil people especially in the north and east of the country underwent during the decades of war have made it difficult for Tamil political leaders to join the government and preserve their legitimacy with the Tamil electorate. The issue of Tamil separatism would have been a psychologically hard one for the alliance to address. The failure of successive Sri Lankan governments to give the political representatives of the Tamil people a real decision making within the Sri Lankan system has given justification to this separatist sentiment. Due to the continuous breakdown in agreements reached with successive governments, Tamil parties such as the TNA took the position that the Tamil people could not expect justice from Sinhalese-dominated governments in Sri Lanka.

Today, it is in the large and powerful Tamil diaspora that the will to resist is greatest. However, with the exception of the Tamil diaspora, the will of the Tamil people to resist and to fight separately is sapped. Even the Tamil diaspora cannot be indifferent to the observable desire of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka to rebuild their shattered lives now that the LTTE is no longer there to fight on militarily. Although sections of the Tamil diaspora are espousing the ideals of a transnational Tamil government, and have been conducting elections of their own in the countries where they are currently domiciled, there are other sections of the Tamil diaspora that are willing to give the political process in Sri Lanka another try.

The TNA’s decision to neither boycott the presidential election or to support a Tamil presidential candidate was not the only one it had to take. They had also to decide on which of the two main presidential candidates they would support. On the one hand, at the outset of the election campaign, President Rajapaksa came across as the stronger candidate who would most probably win the elections. Given the increasingly brutal and ruthless nature of politics in the country over the past several decades, there would have been a reasonable apprehension that the price of retribution could be high to the Tamil people if the TNA failed to endorse the winning candidate.



Track record

Prior to deciding whom to endorse, the TNA leadership met with the two front runner, President Rajapaksa and joint opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka. According to media reports the TNA’s meeting with the President had been a disappointment to them. The President had declined to make concrete commitments to the TNA and instead requested them to wait until the end of the election and the commencement of his second term. This would have required the TNA to put their trust in the President’s word when their experience of the past, and the experience of others who believed they had reached agreement with the President, suggested otherwise.

The second disappointment that the TNA reportedly had was that the President reportedly took their concerns lightly and not with the seriousness that they expected. The problems that the Tamil people have been experiencing in the past few years have been very weighty ones, ranging from thousands of missing persons to tens of thousands of hopelessly displaced persons. During his recent visit to Jaffna, President Rajapaksa was shown to be a skilled politician who rubbed shoulders with others and plucked little children from the arms of their amazed parents. The President’s inability to take the concerns of the TNA seriously may stem from an abiding suspicion that they continue to be separatist and agents of the LTTE.

By way of contrast, opposition candidate General Fonseka was much more responsive to the concerns of the TNA. Shortly after meeting with them he made a declaration of what he would do to address the problems of the Tamil people. These included dismantling the high security zones which had resulted in Tamil people being evicted from thousands of acres of land and in expediting the release of LTTE suspects through a legal process. The TNA and many Tamil people appear to see General Fonseka in the light of a professional soldier who executed his mission with success. But now they see him as a politician who will do what is necessary to reap the benefits of peace. In addition, the TNA’s decision to support the candidacy of General Fonseka reflects the trust and confidence that members of the ethnic minorities have in the UNP leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Much before the TNA took its decision to endorse General Fonseka, members of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and abroad had expressed the view at different forums that they had greater confidence in Ranil Wickremesinghe than in any other Sinhalese leader. As Prime Minister in the period 2002-4 he showed himself to be aware and of the view that a peaceful end to the ethnic conflict was necessary for the country to reach its full economic potential. He took steps to deliver on his promise but was thwarted by a combination of LTTE recalcitrance and oppositional politics. But the commitment he demonstrated at that time gave him and his party credibility that is helping General Sarath Fonseka’s election campaign as the common opposition presidential candidate amongst the ethnic minorities today.



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