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| A polling centre for local polls in Batticaloa. Pix: Northeastern Monitor |
By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
The results of the local government elections, seen as a nationwide vote on the National People’s Power (NPP) government’s performance over the last six months, clearly show that President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s administration is beginning to lose popular support in a very short period of time.
The NPP, which has won three consecutive elections in a span of seven months, has emerged as the single largest political party in 265 seats out of 339 local councils across the country despite failing to win capital Colombo’s Municipal Council. But its vote share has declined sharply.
The leader of the NPP Anura Kumara Dissanayake won 41.31 percent of the vote in the presidential election held in September last year and in the parliamentary elections held two months later, the NPP won a record 61.56 percent of the vote capturing more than a two-thirds majority — 159 seats in the House. But in the spell of six months, its vote in last week’s local elections has dropped by 18 percent.
For a government of a left-wing party, which for the first time came to power with huge expectations and massive support from the people who had rejected all traditional ruling class political parties, this fall in popularity is really a major setback.
The government politicians and their propagandists have been vigorously peddling an argument since the conclusion of the elections that the people have endorsed the way NPP is governing the country and reaffirmed their faith in it by enabling it to win a majority of local councils. But, they must answer an important question as to why people stopped short of giving the NPP absolute majorities in many of those councils. No matter what interpretation government leaders give about the results of the local polls, they have to come to terms with the fact that NPP’s vote share has declined considerably across the country.They cannot afford failing to grasp the ground reality.
As expected, people’s interest in voting has also decreased significantly. Voter turnout ranged from 79.46 per cent in the presidential election and 68.93 per cent in the parliamentary election to between 55 per cent and 60 per cent in the last week elections. Although the ruling party received more than double the votes of the main opposition party, Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) there was a noticeable increase in the votes of opposition parties.
The SJB which received 17.67 percent votes in the last Parliamentary elections has been able to increase its vote share to 21.69 per cent this time winning 14 local authorities. Rajapaksas’
Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), which won just 3.14 per cent of the vote in the parliamentary elections won 9.17 per cent of the total vote last week. Even the United National Party (UNP), led by former President Ranil Wickremesinghe, has expressed some satisfaction at the marginal increase in its votes.
The NPP won 265 local councils, but did not have a majority in 117councils. In 120 councils they have the absolute majority to form the administration without any hassle, while in 30 councils the number of members elected on the NPP ticket tallies with the total number elected on the ticket of the opposition parties. The ruling party was able to win only 48 seats in the coveted 117-member Colombo Municipal Council.
The NPP did everything within its power to win a mammoth victory in the local elections. President Dissanayake, Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya and ministers campaigned vigorously across the country, including in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. The president even issued a veiled warning about allocating funds to local councils that could fall under the control of the opposition.
The opposition parties campaign was lacklustre. Apart from accusing the government of not fulfilling its previous election-time promises, they have not been able to present a tangible agenda before the people.The opposition has managed to recover lost ground to some extent, but it has a long way to go before it can make a decisive comeback.
At the same time, the NPP has to accept the reality that its popularity is waning. The president and the leaders of the government must now understand that the people are beginning to realize that the performance of the government is not up to their expectations. The government needs to show progress in alleviating the economic hardships rather than just voicing the jargon of new political culture and systemic change.
The general secretary of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the flagship party of the NPP, has announced that although they are facing problems in setting up administrations on their own in most local government bodies, they will not work with parties that have been rejected by the people. It is to be hoped that the NPP Government will not fall into the temptation of enticing the members elected from other parties by giving money and positions as was the case during the previous governments. But Silva has said his party is willing to consider forming administrations with the support of independent groups and individuals who want to work with them.
His contention is that the party that won the majority of seats should be allowed to form local governments and that the combined votes of the parties rejected by the people cannot be construed as the people’s mandate. But, it can be expected that the opposition parties will not let go of this opportunity to irritate the ruling party. Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa has announced that he is ready to work together to form the administration in local bodies where the opposition parties have a majority. The UNP has also announced that it is willing to cooperate in setting up local administrations with the other parties.
The extent to which the opposition parties, especially Premadasa’s SJB and Wickremesinghe’s UNP will be willing to cooperate will soon be determined by the approach they adopt in dealing with the setting up an administration in Colombo Municipal Council by jettisoning their ego clash. The weeks leading up to June 2, the date fixed the Election Commission for electing the chairpersons of the new local bodies, will see some interesting political developments.
Local elections in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, especially in the Tamil areas, took on a different dimension this time. This is because of the fact that in the last parliamentary elections, the NPP won more seats in both provinces with the support of the Tamil people than ever before in the electoral history of Sri Lanka. In particular, the NPP won three of the six parliamentary seats in Jaffna electoral district, considered the stronghold of Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist politics.
Questions had been raised about the future of Tamil nationalist political parties. Tamil politicians confessed that the Tamil people wanted to teach them a lesson in the parliamentary elections. Therefore, in the local polls all the Tamil parties considered the NPP as their ‘common political enemy’ and launched vigorous campaigns against it. They told the Tamil people that the JVP led NPP is a Sinhala Buddhist communal force in no way inferior to the previous ruling parties such as the UNP, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP ) and the SLPP.
The Tamil parties urged the Tamil people to vote for them only in the local elections to ensure the existence of Tamil nationalism and to demonstrate that the Tamils had not lost the spirit of nationalism. People voted for these parties in large numbers.
The Tamil people, who voted considerably for the NPP in the parliamentary elections due to their disgust at the attitude and actions of the Tamil parties for the 16 years since the end of the civil war, have again turned to the Tamil parties because of the indifferent attitude of the government towards their several pressing problems, including the political solution to the national ethnic question.
But it cannot be said that the Tamil people in the North and East have completely sidelined the NPP which has also captured a significant number of local council seats in the Tamil regions. The ruling party won 376 seats in the eight districts in the two provinces, while the main Tamil parties – the Ilankai Thamizharasu Katchi (ITAK), the Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA ) and the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) – won a total of 568 seats.
In particular, the NPP came second to the ITAK in the Jaffna district capturing 81 seats, while ACTC and the DTNA won 71 seats and 46 seats respectively.
The Tamil parties that had suffered a setback in the last parliamentary elections, have been able to recover their lost popularity to a greater extent in the last week elections. But it cannot be said that the Tamil people of the North have fully embraced the Tamil parties as their leaders exhorted. The NPP has been able to sustain a vote base despite the fierce campaign by the Tamil parties.
If the Tamil nationalist parties see their victory in the local elections as a recognition from the Tamil people of the old political path of merely remembering the struggles of the past and raising utopian nationalist slogans far from the ground reality, they are once again mistaken. (The writer is a senior journalist based in Colombo ) Courtesy South Asian Affairs
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