Terrorism failed. Unity and ethnic partnership message of President
Mahinda Rajapaksa was heard very well in the East. UPFA secured a
majority and according Asian Tribune analysts Sinhalese, Tamils and
Muslims rallied to form a viable administration. Pillaiyan would most
likely be the Chief Minister once the preference votes are counted.
Talk of David and Goliath! The new kid on the block gave a deadly blow
to the Ranil-Rauff coalition. Pillaiyan - Chief Minister of the East?
The =93blossoming coalition=94 as dubbed by a Sunday paper in April when
Ranil and Rauf met, could not thwart the growing support to
government=92s effort to bring about democracy to the East. Ranil tried
several stunts: But the voodoo curse remained. He has lost elections
like nine pins in a bowling alley. The East escaped his grasp too.
(See election results in full elsewhere on Asian Tribune),
Ranil chanted his favorite mantras. =93Thoppigala is a jungle, let there
be thousands of Sunday Pola meetings, I can paste wall posters better
than Somawansa, let us smash pots and pans with a vengeance, Banks
don=92t lend money to Sri Lanka and UPFA had a secret pact with the
Tigers, Rajapaksa is a dictator." Those and many more flops failed.
Ranil has adjourned to the quietness of the political barracks and
lying dormant for now. Pillaiyan announced during the campaign =93lands
confiscated by the Tiger will be given back to the Muslims=94. That was
a master stroke.
The analysis here took into account the dynamic of the East arising
like Phoenix from the ashes of a terrorist war. Ranil-Rauff coalition
completely misjudged it. This is Pillaiyan=92s very first foray into
national politics, the baptism of fire that promised him the stature
he needed. He out-foxed Ranil and Rauff brilliantly. There is no
stopping him in his march to fame. The western diplomat who protested
that elections should not be held in the East must be eating crow
now.
The Easterners have decisively smashed attempts to let LTTE creep back
into the Eastern Province. They were adamant that the terrorists
should never ever be allowed to raise their ugly head again confirming
Presidents call that the LTTE would never gain a foothold in the East
again. What they had suffered was immense pain. They witnessed hosts
of many armies invade in their homes, raped their women and abducted
their men and children. There had seen armed groups belonging to the
LTTE, EPDP, EROS, EPRLF, PLOTE, the Indian Peace Keeping Forces
(IPKF), and the Karuna Faction. This is over for good now.
It is fascinating to read how the Ranil-Rauf coalition came about.
Here is what the political column of that Sunday paper which had the
scoop on the UNP-SLMC coalition described it on April 6th under the
heading-- UNP-SLMC alliance holds edge in east.
There were several meetings between Opposition leader, Ranil
Wickremesinghe, SLMC leader, Rauff Hakeem and India's High
Commissioner Alok Prasad. It was only thereafter that Wickremesinghe
had flown to New Delhi to attend a wedding reception of a family
friend after which he conferred with Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv
Shanker Menon. Thus goes the theory that the new alliance had the
'blessings' of India.
Meanwhile, on the government side, one of the prime movers behind the
exercise, Basil Rajapaksa, senior Advisor to the President and the man
who is personally spearheading development programs in the East, won
over Hisbullah, a one-time Mangala Samaraweera prot=E9g=E9. UNP-SLMC was
caught napping. They huddled for talks. The issue was who was going to
be the chief minister. The UNP believed that it should be Naushad
Majeed of the UNP and no one else. Others had other ideas. Again they
were surprised to hear that Hisbullah had gone across to the
Government side.
The next day the SLMC emerged with a strong response: Hakeem, Basheer
Cegu Dawood and Hassan Ali - all Members of Parliament - would resign
their seats in parliament and contest the Provincial Council
elections. They wanted the trio be permitted to lead the respective
Districts, Hakeem (Trincomalee), Cegu Dawood (Batticaloa) and Ali
(Ampara) in the Alliance. The UNP Tamils protested at the demand to
make the Muslim Congress trio the District leaders, but Wickremesinghe
was able to explain to them the wider interest in allowing this. He
said that after-all; the SLMC leaders had sacrificed their
parliamentary seats for this. Now is looks like a major blunder on
hind sight, of course.
The UNP-SLMC Alliance then agreed that the two parties will campaign
separately, the SLMC in the Muslim villages and the UNP in the Tamil
villages. The UNP has also put forward some former MPs Sinnamaru,
Sinna Thowfeek, Sunil Shantha Ranaweera etc, to Trincomalee, Galappati
and Daya Gamage for Ampara, Arasaratnam Sashidharan to Batticaloa.
Once again, this strategy was not successful on hind sight.
Underneath all this was the belief that the Tamil National Alliance
(TNA) would 'unofficially' back them. Officially, the TNA has declared
that they were shunning the elections on their theory that it was
wrong to be a participant in an electoral process, the objective of
which is diametrically opposed to such fundamental principles and a
reversal of what the Tamil people has stood for, during more than the
past half a century." Blunder number three-either you participate or
get into the fray, saying one thing and then secretly participating
was damning. .
In a three-page statement the TNA said "No other Government since
independence has inflicted such immense harm on the Tamil people as
this Government has done in the past two years. The Tamil-speaking
people should not fall into the dangerous trap that is being laid to
bring about their downfall in their areas of historical habitation.
This is an election at which through the visible or invisible fire and
muscle power of the TMVP and Government armed forces, President
Rajapaksa hopes to implement his insidious political agenda." Once
again, the people felt otherwise.
The nominations came and saw in Batticaloa, 14 registered political
parties handed over nominations. Four of them rejected were Muslim
Liberation Front (MLF), Eelam People's United Front (EPUF), United
National Alliance (UNA) and the Tamil United National Front
(comprising TULF, PLOTE, EPRLF - Sitharthan Group, the LSSP and the
Communist Party. Nineteen independent groups were also contesting.
In the Batticaloa Distrcit 14 political parties handed in nominations.
One of them was a purported political wing of the LTTE calling itself
Viduthalai Pulikal Makkal Munnani (Liberation Tigers People's Front or
LTPF). The LTTE, however, denied it had entered the fray. But some
analysts believed that LTPF has the backing of an influential section
of the Government in order to show that LTTE too had embraced the
political process and was entering the democratic process through the
EP polls. Sixteen independent groups were also contesting. In the
Ampara district too, 14 political parties submitted nominations.
However, three were rejected. Also contesting were 26 different
independent groups.
So the Sunday newspaper commented =93Down in Kataragama, Opposition
Leader Wickremesinghe was breaking coconuts, while in Colombo and
elsewhere, his party organizers and followers were breaking pots and
pans. The Opposition seems to feel that the Eastern Province elections
will be the turning point to the Government's popularity in the
country. Something like the Provincial Councils victory of the
Southern Province in March 1994 was the turning point for the then
almost invincible UNP Government.=94 Sometimes good intentions of men
and mice end up empty. Basil Rajapaksa and Pillaiyan were better
soothsayers and definitely superior political campaigners than most
inside Ranil-Rauf coalition were willing to concede. Thoppigala is
definitely not a jungle but a tailor-made launching pad for
Pillaiyan. .
I repeat here the prophetic words of Pillaiyan given to a Asian
Tribune a month ago. =93When I suggested that they need to work hand in
hand with the other political parties representing Tamil, Muslim and
Sinhala communities, it meant we would always work with them as long
as they work for the people of the East; the East requires democracy
and not dominance by outsiders.=94
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