By R.K. Radhakrishnan

Campaigning for the 10th parliamentary elections in Sri Lanka closed at midnight on Monday (11), with major political formations making fervent last-minute pitches to garner support from the 17 million voters. There are nearly 9,000 candidates vying to get elected to parliament in the November 14 election. With many veterans, including former Presidents Ranil Wickremesinghe, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and Mahinda Rajapaksa, shying away from contesting, Sri Lanka is set to welcome scores of new faces to the parliament.

For the recently elected President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, it is critical to secure a majority so that most of the policies and programs of his Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the coalition it heads, the National People’s Power (NPP), can secure parliamentary approval. In the last parliament, his party had only three MPs (out of a total of 225). The President had dissolved parliament a day after he assumed office on September 23, 2024, because he wanted a majority in a new parliament to endorse and approve his agenda. Also, the Sri Lankan Constitution empowers him to dissolve the parliament.

“The President realizes that not even one-half of those who voted were with him because he secured less than 50% of the votes cast. His first challenge will be to get on board those who did not buy his agenda during the presidential election and impress on them to vote for his party candidates,” says Chrismal Warnasuriya, advocate and political activist. (Dissanayake secured 42.3% of the votes in the first round in September 2024. A candidate needs 50% plus one vote to win).

“It is true that the NPP and JVP managed the mathematically impossible feat of going from a mere 450,000 votes in the last election to over six million in the 2024 presidential election. But in this election, the whole country is not a single electorate and the President is not in the race. It depends on how well the President is able to convince the people to vote for his candidates, most of whom are not known to the voters,” he added.

Dissanayake is acutely aware of these facts. In his final public meeting in the Gampaha district, near the capital Colombo, Dissanayake again harped on corruption, good governance, and transparency in administration and decision-making. “Parliament needs more NPP members to establish a strong government which will eliminate bribery and corruption,” he said, and added that there needs to be a change in the “system” to “clean the House” and ensure that “the law is equally applicable to all, including politicians”.

Focus on minority regions

During his campaign for the presidential election in September, Dissanayake concentrated more on the Sinhala-dominated south and central regions of the country to shore up his vote base. This time around, sensing that there could be a breakthrough in the North and the East of the island nation, inhabited largely by Tamils and Muslims respectively, he has pushed a concerted campaign with the theme of unity and development.

In the northern town of Jaffna, Dissanayake highlighted the issue of Indians “deliberately” fishing in Sri Lankan waters and assured the northern fishermen that he would stop these acts of cross-border fishing. He also made it a point to venture into a touchy subject—the lands of the Tamils occupied by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces—and has promised to return these lands to the rightful owners. Throughout his speeches, he has refused to talk about the political rights and aspirations of the Tamils.

The NPP, which has several civil society organizations, trade unions, women’s groups, and youth outfits in its fold, has been campaigning in the North and the East. Party cadres believe that development is the primary need and that other issues can be discussed at a later stage. In short, in the North and East, where minorities are dominant, the JVP/NPP is adopting the same strategy as former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa did in the last election on the question of a workable political solution to the Tamil question.

For the opposition, including the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), and what is left of the United National Party (UNP), it is a struggle to stay relevant in a country whose voters want to move on from the legacy of a troublesome and massively corrupt past. SJB leader Sajith Premadasa, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the outgoing parliament, kept pushing his message of economic recovery and has said repeatedly in his rallies that his party had a viable plan for strong economic growth over the next decade.

In his final public rally at Ratnapura, a mining town just over 100 km east of Colombo, Premadasa insisted that the IMF agreement that Sri Lanka signed was bad for the country and that his government would renegotiate the deal. The other strand of his speeches made it clear that if his party secured a majority in parliament, it would implement the promises made during the presidential election campaign.

Though former President Ranil Wickremesinghe heads the UNP, he is supporting candidates from a breakaway faction of the UNP, named New Democratic Front (NDF). Wickremesinghe contested the presidential election as part of this Front. Though he is not contesting the parliamentary election, Wickremesinghe has campaigned around the country for NDF candidates. He claimed that he had rescued the country from the brink of economic collapse and faulted the NPP for not clearly articulating the path of Sri Lanka’s economic recovery. “We have managed it well with the IMF,” he told a crowd of supporters in Colombo. “From 2028, we should start paying off our debt,” he said and added that the President was yet to speak up on the issue.

Uphill battle

It is a tall order for the NPP to secure even a simple majority, though Dissanayake has been asking voters for a two-thirds majority in parliament so that he has the power to push through constitutional amendments as well. The NPP’s campaign in the North and the East took off late, and with so many known Tamil faces in the fray, it will be difficult for the NPP to make a dent in both these provinces.

Dinesh De Alwis, a social media consultant, is confident that the NPP will secure a majority in parliament. “I am sure they will get at least 120 seats or more,” he said and added that he based this on the people he was speaking to, the performance in the short tenure of the new administration, and what he was seeing on social media.

Shyam Nuwan Ganewatta, a senior editor with the Sinhala newspaper Divaina, is not so sure. “I think the NPP can come close to a majority. Remember they could only get three seats in the last parliament,” he said, adding that he was certain that the agenda of the new government could be carried out with the help of allies from outside the NPP alliance.

This election is important for many other reasons too. For the first time, the political parties that existed when Sri Lanka became independent have either become irrelevant or altogether vanished from the political space. This will also be the first time that no Rajapaksa is contesting an election in more than three decades.

Parties that have not been in touch with reality have been left by the wayside in Sri Lanka. Both the UNP and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, two parties that have existed since Sri Lanka’s independence, are now almost history. This will be the first election in Sri Lanka where both these political parties are completely marginalized and irrelevant.

All eyes on November 14

The biggest Tamil political party, the Tamil United Liberation Front, founded in 1972, too was left by the wayside with the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) taking its place. In this election, the TNA has disintegrated, and many political parties and civil society organisations have taken its place.

In Sri Lanka’s proportional representation system, 196 MPs will be directly elected by the people while the remaining 29, in a House of 225, will be nominated by political parties based on the percentage of votes each party polls. The 196 seats are spread across 22 electoral districts in Sri Lanka, and the allocation of seats is proportional to the voting population.

This is termed the “national list” in Sri Lanka. The last president, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who lost the direct elections, nominated himself via the national list route to parliament from his party, the UNP. This lone member from the party went on to become the Prime Minister in May 2022, and later, the President.

The last election was held in August 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. With the memory of the April 2019 Easter bombings fresh in memory, people voted overwhelmingly for a party belonging to then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the SLPP.

His brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, was earlier President of Sri Lanka. Mahinda’s son, Namal Rajapaksa, had contested the 2024 presidential election and could hardly garner 3% of the votes. Two other brothers of Gotabaya, Chamal and Basil, held important positions in government when the Rajapaksas were in power. This time around, there are no Rajapaksas in the fray.

Counting begins soon after the close of polling on November 14. The results will be announced in two phases: first, the votes polled by each political party, and second, the votes received by each candidate. By November 15, that is poya day (full moon day, a Buddhist holiday), the final numbers are likely to be known. Political party representatives are anxious about the turnout in the election. Since November 15 is a holiday, there is a possibility of an extended weekend for those who want to turn these days into a holiday.

“Even in the last election, more than 1.5 million voters who exercised their right to vote in the presidential election did not turn up to vote in the parliamentary election. Remember, that election followed the Easter bomb blasts. I wonder how many will stay away this time, given the fact that this time the President himself did not get 50% of the votes in the first round,” said a local journalist, who did not want to be named.

The inaugural session of the parliament begins on November 21. The President is expected to present a detailed policy statement of the government on that day after the process of electing a Speaker and other parliamentary officials is completed.

– frontline.thehindu.com