Oppn cries foul over Gotabaya’s move to hold polls amid Corona scare

March 19, 2020

New Delhi: Sri Lanka will hold its Parliamentary elections as planned on April 25, Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapakse has said despite the health scare due to the Coronavirus threat. Rajapakse made the announcement during the video conference on the COVID-19 threat convened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for Saarc leaders on March 15.

The opposition parties, however have called for the elections to be postponed. The Tamil National Alliance called for postponement as “all democratic aspects could not be adhered to in the abnormal situation and “to prevent the spread of the virus”. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, (JVP) said that it was a major public health concern.

As the Sri Lankan government imposed restrictions, advising people to stay at home, the Election Commission urged political parties that only the nominee and one other person to be present at time of filing nomination papers and to avoid rallies and parades at the time of filing nominations. All public functions have been postponed and police permission is required to hold any public gathering.

President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had dissolved Parliament on March 2 and called for elections on April 25, six months before its term ended. President Rajapakse and his Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna party (SLPP) led alliance are keen to take advantage of the wave of support that had given him a handsome victory in the presidential polls in November 2019.

Though the elections were due in August and Gotabaya had installed elder brother, former president Mahinda Rajapakse as caretaker Prime Minister in December 2019, it was quite evident that the Rajapakses were looking to stabilize the arrangement through early Parliamentary elections.

The timing is especially favourable as the opposition parties are still to recover from the battering they received in the presidential polls. Both the traditional parties, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP) are in disarray, while the Tamil political parties are facing internal tussles. The Tamil National Alliance, the main political grouping of the Tamil minority is facing a challenge from the new formation, the Tamil People’s National Alliance headed by former chief minister of the Tamil dominated Northern Province CV Wigneswaran. During the local government polls in February the smaller Tamil parties had made an impact in some areas.

With a fractured opposition, the Rajapakses seems on a winning wicket but Gotabaya has made it clear that he is working towards getting a two-thirds majority in Parliament. The two-thirds majority is necessary to make major changes in the Constitution that he wants, particularly to the 19th Amendment which had curbed the powers of the President.

But the ruling combination can reach the two-thirds mark in Sri Lanka’s proportional representation system only through increasing its support base. The question remains: Can Gotabaya Rajapakse swing a part of the Tamil vote in his favour when Tamil voters had chosen his UNP rival, Sajith Premadasa during the presidential elections. Gotabaya Rajapakse had polled 52.5 percent of the votes in the presidential elections while Premadasa had received just under 42 percent.

Just before the dissolution of Parliament, Premadasa, heading a splinter group of the UNP, launched a new political alliance, the Samagi Janabala Wegaya or the United People’s Force with UNP’s traditional minority Muslim and Tamil allies. Premadasa set up a new political party, claiming that a majority of the UNP supporters were with him. The split was the result of a tussle for party leadership between Premadasa, the UNP’s prime ministerial candidate and long-time leader and former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Mahinda Rajapakse had lost the 2015 polls to a combine of Maithripala Sirisena, who broke off from the Rajapakses to join Wickremesinghe. But Sirisena-Wickremesinghe ruling combine got mired in political skirmishes that resulted in a chaotic and ineffective administration.

The 19th Amendment enacted by the Sirisena government added to the confusion as it had reduced the powers of the executive president but had not clarified the distribution of powers between the office of the president and the prime minister. The Easter Sunday bomb blasts in Colombo last year that resulted in 259 deaths destroyed its credibility.

The November 2019 election was run on the combination of national security and strong, decisive government. This time round the government’s handling of the situation arising out of the corona virus threat could become a significant issue during the election campaign. The elections are more than a month away, but political parties will have their work cut out to campaign in these times with a public health emergency on hand.
—India News Stream