General gets lost in electoral labyrinth

 

 

Sympathy and an army general do not cut a very feasible combination. However, you can not actually help but sympathise with General Gardihewa Sarath Chandralal Fonseka. Imagine his plight. Less than six months ago, he was riding on the euphoric wave that erupted following the annihilation of LTTE. He was venerated along with President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The then Indian NSA, in one of those moments where Indians are known to let their tongue and not the mind do the talking, proclaimed he was the best army general operating in the Milky Way. Then Fonseka did what many, who don’t know how to handle veneration, do; he decided to take on the President and his political family in hubris.

Six months later, filing my story from the media centre at the Department of Information Building in Colombo, I can’t help but extend my sympathy. He has lost the election, the veneration and much of his face all in one go. On the sites displaying minute by minute results, comments are pouring in. One T P Ranadheera writes from Pennsylvania, “You lost everything General: serves you right. Come to Pennsylvania with your Green Card; I might help you land a job at some filling station.” Ouch. That should hurt.

The final results are out and the incumbent Rajapaksa has scored a landslide victory, garnering 57.88 per cent of the votes polled. The General has tallied 40.15 per cent. As expected, the incumbent has done marvellously in South and Central South areas where most of his constituent — Sinhalese rural and semi-urban class — resides. Similarly, as expected, Tamils, Muslims and Christians; as well as the urban middle and upper middle class among Sinhalese have solidly been behind Fonseka. The General has won the Northern districts of Jaffna and Vanni as well as Tamil and Muslim-dominated Trincomalee & Batticaloa in the east. He has also managed to win in Mannar, again Muslim-dominated, and Nuwara-Eliya, which has a sizable population of Plantation Tamils (different from Jaffna Tamils). On the day of polls, large lines were seen outside booths in Southern districts where as polling in Colombo, UNP’s bastion, was moderate. “He has won the war for us. It will be a betrayal if we don’t vote him,” said M. Udayange, 30, after casting his vote for Rajapaksa in the Wellawetta area of Colombo. JVP’s dedicated cadres tried to make inroads for Fonseka in the interiors but failed miserably. In fact, several of the old-time cadres of both JVP and UNP were seen voting for Rajapaksa. “I was with UNP but I’ll vote for Rajapaksa. Fonseka is trying to divide the nation,” said 60-year-old H. G. Chaturanga outside a polling booth in Ratnapura district. There is definitely a question mark on the future of both the parties as they are losing their cadre and mass base to Rajapaksa. Ranil Wickramasinghe runs the risk of becoming irrelevant.

Political critic Jehan Perera says, “The results have been surprising and unexpected. However, this asymmetrical result has much to do with the asymmetrical campaign that was launched by both the candidates. The incumbent had the entire government machinery at his disposal and he used it to maximum effect as far as spread of propaganda is concerned.”

There is a need to understand the verdict in terms of the dynamics of Lankan politics. The most stunning imagery of the approach in which Northern Tamils analyse polls was given to me by a voter who was born, brought up and worked in the peninsula. He contrasted the jubilation and revelry in the south, following the announcement, with the sense of trepidation and insecurity in the north. While down south, there was a sense of “our government” being voted in, in Jaffna, it was more of a sense of a “Sinhalese government” over which the Tamil people would have limited or no sway at all.

In fact, it was the limited participation of Tamils in their provinces of dominance that sunk Fonseka. Tamil National Alliance (TNA), unarguably the sole representatives of Jaffna Tamils, joined ranks with Fonseka, prior to the elections. The decision did not convince majority of the Tamils who had suffered from the war. Also, limited availability of transportation and sporadic grenade blasts stopped many voters to venture out. “It was more a rational decision than an emotional response. Since Fonseka represented a rainbow coalition, he was more of a national candidate than the president. UNP had the largest block base where JVP has the most politicised and committed cadres,” defends political analyst K Sarveswaran.

But why were Tamils confused? Well, one of its leaders, Douglas Devananda, defected to Rajapaksa. Douglas will gain the most from the spoils. He once drew parallel between Tamil nationalism and cholesterol, saying just as there is good and bad cholesterol, there is good and bad Tamil nationalism and that you need good Tamil nationalism just like the body needs good cholesterol.

“Devananda remains close to the grassroots. He is the right mix of moderate-reformist Tamil nationalism with productive developmental attitude and populist progressivism,” says Dayan Jayatilleka, a pro-Rajapaksa political analyst.

But what changes can his fresh election bring for the Tamil people are pretty unclear. Rajapaksa won’t do much on political front as far as ethnic issues are concerned. In fact he has said that Tamils are not looking for any political package. Also, he is not likely to jeopardise the Sinhalese support he has got. There is apprehension among Muslims as well. The way they have joined ranks with Tamils to oppose Rajapaksa can be explained by the fact that Fonseka won all Muslim-dominated districts in the polls.

In fact, experts believe that all these years, Muslims were wooed in order to isolate LTTE. Now that LTTE is gone, many believe, the heavily politicised Buddhist clergy will like the government to tighten screw on the Muslims as well.

It appears that issues like corruption, abolishment of the post of executive presidency and increased cost of living have failed to dent Rajapaksa’s vote base. There have been some serious allegations regarding threatening and bumping off critics and journalists. One of his brothers, Basil, is called anything between Mr 15 Per Cent to Mr 20 Per Cent. The figures represent the alleged cut he takes from every project that is passed. “Rajapaksa has ruled using jamboree techniques. He has not only exclusively presided over the armed forces but has also presided over the clandestine Tamil paramilitaries, the gangland Mafioso, death squadrons, corrupt ministers and the powerful commission lobby with the aid of his brother Basil,” says noted journalist Nilantha Ilangamuwa. “Now we have to face it for another 6 years.”

The Lankan economy is in dire straits. A colossal $11.7 million per year is spent on presidential advisors and over $8.6 million on luxury vehicles. Around $100,000 per day is spent on other central offices. Several millions a month go on looking after the President and security in Colombo. The nation that, in the past, had the second highest living standard in South Asia after Pakistan, which had generous subsidies for food and fuel and that once boasted close to complete literacy, has today one quarter of its population living below $1 a day. But all these have not mattered at all in the elections. Dayan Jayatilleka has an explanation. “The election was to decide the head of state, not merely the head of government and I consider Mahinda Rajapakse makes a superior head of state. As for our grumbles with the government, the management, these are best tackled at the forthcoming parliamentary election,” he says. Constitutional mumbo-jumbo as it may sound, it did find resonance with the voters.

Economy is a front where some out of box thinking is required. Defence expenditure reached $925 million in 2009. It is probably the only country on the earth where the defence budget has been increased following the end of a conflict. Sri Lanka’s main economic problem has been a high fiscal deficit averaging 8 per cent of GDP since 1991. Successive governments have borrowed heavily due to the 28-year-old war and the cost of maintaining a bloated public sector. Thus increase in post-conflict military budget is absurd.

However, Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri, senior political and historical analyst based in Colombo, finds it easy to explain. “In Sinhalese imagination, the North and the East are the ultimate extensions of Sinhalese civilisations and therefore they perceive the land to be theirs. The political elite in the Sinhalese Buddhist political South can not take any decision by ignoring the attitude of the locals. Therefore, even the political decision to go for an all-out offensive against LTTE was taken keeping in mind the dynamics of the politics of the Sinhalese political South. Therefore, the rise in military budget has a reason. The government can not suddenly deescalate the budget of the military apparatus already present. You do not have an enemy left. However, you need to play with the fear and insecurities of the people so that you can claim that you are doing this for national security. Still, the Sinhalese political South’s imagination is full of paranoia, and that suits the political class perfectly,” he says. Economists suggest that the fiscal policy requires precise macroeconomic policy measures and cannot be realised without increasing revenue collection, going slow on the public sector and stimulating productivity. Rajapaksa, to his credit, has been able to uphold positive economic growth. However, it largely came from soaring government spending on the war and the public sector. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) wants Colombo to drastically bring down its budget deficit. IMF has warned Lanka that it may suspend its programme leading to withdrawal of overseas money in government securities and an expected demotion in sovereign credit rating.

However, in the agriculture sector, Rajapaksa has done some wonders. He has encouraged production of food items that were earlier imported from India and Pakistan. It is not for nothing that the rural electorate has backed him solidly. Similar measures in urban areas can bring much needed change.

Constitutional change will be put on the backburner. The executive presidency that makes one Sri Lankan virtually a constitutional monarch is something that disturbs every constitutional expert. There are also very dim chances of 17th Amendment getting implemented that would have appointed the four independent commissions for the police, public service, judiciary and elections.

“Rajapaksa has rather been very open about the executive presidency system. He will modify it a bit but the post remains,” says S.I. Keethaponcalan, a senior political scientist at the Colombo University. “The system does not want you to work independently. The President needs to work with the Parliament in tandem. All these years, they been working alone and that is something that is outside the constitution,” he said.

A key area of interest for India will be the foreign policy where it has been left high and dry following strengthening of bonds between the island nation and China. Hambantota is where China is building a $1 billion port that it plans to use as a refueling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Gulf oil. “The concern of India is unfounded. Also, they have only themselves to blame, for the initial offer was made to New Delhi where India’s bureaucracy kept it languishing, similar to some of the other projects which Colombo had proposed to them,” justifies Kalyananda Godage, a politico-economic expert.

China not only agreed to build the port but has given Lanka all the aid, weapons and diplomatic support the latter wanted to defeat the Tigers. It became its biggest arms supplier and many of the arms have been bought through Lanka Logistics and Technologies, co-headed by Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the defence secretary and Rajapaksa’s brother. In April, 2007, Sri Lanka signed a confidential $37.6 million deal to buy Chinese ordnance. China gave Sri Lanka six F7 jet fighters for free. China’s aid to Sri Lanka also jumped to almost $1 billion last year, Beijing replaced Tokyo as the biggest foreign donor. Therefore, with Rajapaksa, the relation is there to stay. The complete absence of India from the election campaign (not even brickbats as in the past) threatens to push New Delhi to irrelevance in this country. Bajaj bikes and Maruti cars, and the Indian Oil Corporation’s petrol, that runs them, can only delay the process by a few years.

Sri Lanka is a country with immense potential and an educated mass. This reflects in their conduct. As a country with superb infrastructure and a strong diaspora, Sri Lanka has all that is needed to assert itself as a nation.

As the magazine goes to print, Sarath Fonseka has alleged that the election stands null and void. There is a huge military presence outside the hotel where he and his allies are staying. He alleges that he has been under house arrest where as the government denies the charge. Officials suggest that the government fears Fonseka might attempt a coup and thus has gone for foolproof security.