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| Cartoon by Awantha Artygala |
In a presidential election called two years ahead of schedule by Mahinda Rajapkse who couldn’t foresee any challenge to his dynastic rule, the people of Sri Lanka prevailed. The Rajapakses are out of power now, and in comes a man not known outside the island, Maithripala Sirisena.
Over-confident presidential astrologers and political pundits have been proven woefully wrong. This election needs to be understood in the context of some crucial parameters of recent Sri Lankan politics. To begin with, it was made possible by changing the constitutional provisions restricting an individual to a maximum of two terms as President by using the two-thirds majority his party had in parliament. It is also with his ability to control these numbers that he managed to oust the chief justice in the recent past. These two incidents show both the planned long-term entrenchment of Rajapaksa rule as well as the anti-democratic tendencies which his regime came to typify.
He commanded enormous popular appeal in the Sinhala south as the man who ended the destructive civil war in 2009 which Sri Lanka had painfully endured for 30 years. In this specific context, many of the activities his regime institutionalized disrupting democratic practices in the long run, were tolerated by the Sinhala polity. These included widespread nepotism in public appointments, politicization of the civil service, armed forces, the police and the university system and the de-professionalization of the Foreign Service by appointing party favorites and close personal allies to Sri Lanka’s embassies overseas. The latter also ushered in a period of erratic foreign policy decisions and over-dependence on China in addressing thorny issues of diplomacy and domestic development projects. This period also paved the way for unmitigated prevalence of open corruption which Sri Lanka had not hitherto experienced.
If the people in the South looked the other way from these unenviable developments in the name of postwar stability and development, the Tamils in the former warzone had to accept what can only be called ‘development without justice.’ As an integral part of the regime’s postwar domestic policy, Rajapaksa’s government facilitated the establishment of the virulently fascistic Buddhist political grouping, Bodu Bala Sena (Buddhist Power Force) which unleashed a reign of terror on the country’s Muslims and created a general atmosphere of fear and anxiety among monitories in general and the Muslims in particular.
Many of these issues dominated the election campaign of the opposition. The government’s campaign focused on war victory, development and an all too familiar boogie in the guise of ‘foreign conspiracy.’ The country’s Muslims and Tamils have overwhelmingly rejected Rajapaksa and voted for Sirisena. Interestingly, this too happened with no preconditions being placed upon the opposition or Sirisena by minority political groups in exchange for their support. The only expectation that brought all these disparate groups together was their single-minded opposition in defeating Rajapaksa. His defeat was a much needed democratic space that the country urgently needed. But still, more than 47% of Sri Lankans voted for Rajapaksa enamored by a hyped sense of development typified by new highways ribboning across the county, a new international airport which does not attract global air traffic and a harbor that does not bring in much maritime traffic. The last two were intriguingly set up in Rajapakasa’s own home region.
It remains to be seen if these disparate political groups and committed ordinary people which came together to defeat Rajapaksa can forge a cohesive and collective action plan to deliver Sri Lanka out of the wilderness where it currently still remains.
