Sri Lanka's election gamble

Sri Lanka's election gamble

The campaigning is now officially over in Sri Lanka. Election regulations stipulate a so-called quiet time before Tuesday's election in which voters can ponder their choice free of political distraction.

But in this supposed period of silence, the debate continues to be intense. The election has caught the imagination of the country’s people like few have before.

There is a discernible excitement; and an apparent national awareness that the race is too close to call.

It wouldn’t have appeared to be that way when the election was called on the 23rd November last year. At the time, President Mahinda Rajapaksa was effectively running in a one-horse race. The war that had lasted nearly three decades was over and he was riding a surge of popular support as a result.

Enter retired Army General Sarath Fonseka, the military man who so effectively carried out the instructions of his Commander in Chief in the field. His decision to contest the election introduced a candidate who could also claim wide popular support in the wake of the war’s end.

President Rajapaka’s supporters are adamant that the early election was called to encourage the process of reconciliation. The Tamil community that compose some twelve percent of the electorate had boycotted the election in which Mahinda Rajapaksa had come to power, and his followers maintain that he was determined to demonstrate that in this time of peace he could be the president of all the country’s people.

Many in the opposition, though, discern a longer-term strategy in the decision to call an early presidential election.

In terms of the constitution, parliamentary elections must be held before the end of April this year.

There are those who believe the president was intent on using his personal popularity to create a momentum which would carry through to the general elections and cement within parliament his power as president and that of the parties that support him. A particular aim, to achieve a two-thirds majority in the parliamentary elections that would give the government of the day the right to amend the constitution.

On the face of it, what may have been a politically astute strategy has become a serious political gamble. And heightening the excitement, and the tension around this election, is awareness of what ramifications there could be in the wider political system.

There is no doubt the parties that support the winning presidential candidate will have a massive advantage in the parliamentary elections to come.

Whatever the reasons for calling an early presidential election, one thing is clear: the true victor at this stage is a democratic process in which all the country’s people have a genuinely viable choice.