Among the many historic ‘firsts’ that the November 2024 parliamentary elections witnessed, two achievements by the National People’s Power (NPP) have evinced the most attention.
The NPP’s landslide victory marks the first time since the introduction of the proportional representation electoral system in Sri Lanka that a single party or alliance has won a two-thirds majority in parliament.
The NPP has won all but one of the 22 districts in the country. What is particularly noteworthy about this victory is that the NPP has won more seats in all the five electoral districts in the Northern and Eastern provinces, except Batticaloa. The same is true in districts where Malaiyaha ( Hill country ) Tamils live in large numbers.
For the first time, a majority-Sinhalese political party has won most of the seats in the districts of the Northern and Eastern provinces, including Jaffna district, which was considered a ‘fortress’ of Tamil nationalist politics.
For the first time in Sri Lanka’s electoral history, the NPP has received overwhelming support from voters across ethnic and religious lines, from north to south and from east to west. No politician or observer has yet been able to provide a proper objective interpretation of this historic victory.
Some observers have said that the overwhelming support received by the NPP across the country is a significant step towards national unity, breaking with tradition, and that even regions historically disillusioned with central governance have placed their trust in the leadership of President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
They also said that the president and his NPP have succeeded in fostering a national perspective that transcends traditional divisions even though some of the most pressing problems of the people of the north and east was not a part of their election campaign. This I seen as a reflection of the fact that those people have begun to show interest in joining the national political mainstream.
Meanwhile, leaders of the flagship party of the NPP, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), especially its General Secretary Tilvin Silva, say that the minority communities have rejected communal politics.
Unusually, this time there was no room for nationalist campaigns in the South at the presidential and parliamentary elections. The main reasons for this were that the forces that spearheaded Sinhala Buddhist nationalist politics under the leadership of the Rajapaksas had been severely weakened and that the main political parties had reached out to the minority communities to win votes.
The Tamil nationalist political parties that had represented the Tamil people in the North and East suffered a severe setback in the parliamentary elections. The Ilankai Thamizharasu Katchi (ITAK) has nothing to be proud of in winning two more seats this time than it did in the previous parliament. The party should look at its current standing among the Tamil people against the backdrop of the fact that the NPP won more seats in five districts.
Amidst this unprecedented setback for the Tamil parties, many politicians who were identified as Sinhala Buddhist hard line nationalists in the South did not get elected to parliament this time. Based on these trends, some political analysts claim that Sinhala Buddhist nationalism in the South and Tamil nationalism in the North have been defeated.
One has to bear in mind the fact that just as the electoral defeat of certain Sinhala hard line nationalists cannot be interpreted as a defeat of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism, the setbacks suffered by Tamil nationalist parties in the North and East cannot also be interpreted as a rejection of Tamil nationalism by the Tamil people.
It cannot be said that the Tamil people accepted the position of the NPP on the national ethnic problem and supported it in the election without showing any interest in their legitimate political aspirations and grievances based on long- standing ideas.
The Tamil people of the North and East have expressed their resentment against Tamil parties and their leaders who had represented them for the past fifteen years since the end of the civil war. The Tamil people believe that their leaders merely harked back to past struggles and used emotional Tamil nationalist slogans to get votes. They had failed to adopt effective approaches to secure the Tamils’ long standing demands.
Moreover, the Tamil people are outraged that the Tamil polity is fragmented at a time when Tamil political forces need to unite and act as one like never before.
The Tamil people had no other choice but to turn to the NPP because there was no political force among them that could lead them on a practical and sensible political path as an alternative to Tamil parties. A situation arose in which large numbers of those people who had not supported Anura Kumara Dissanayake in the presidential election nearly two months ago were inclined to vote for the NPP after he assumed the presidency.
In many areas, the Tamil people directly told Tamil leaders who met them that they would vote for the President’s party this time. Those leaders, who failed to properly assess the feelings of their people, remained lukewarm, hoping that the Tamil people would vote only for the Tamil parties as usual.
The NPP was considered the best alternative by the people of the South to reject the traditional mainstream political parties that were responsible for misrule and the prevailing corrupt political culture. Taking advantage of the changed political situation in the period following the “Aragalaya” People’s Uprising, the NPP developed itself into a grand political movement.
The Tamil people in the North and East, who were waiting for an opportunity to reject Tamil political parties, had no other option but to turn to the NPP. It is doubtful whether the Tamil parties, which have not learned any lessons from past experiences and devised prudent strategies, will be able to meet the demands of the situation.
This being the case, President Dissanayake, who delivered his government’s policy statement at the first sitting of the new Parliament last Thursday, said that he would never allow politics of racism and religious extremism to resurface. But ensuring that racism and religious extremism do not reappear depends entirely on the policies and actions of his government.
If the President believes that the overwhelming support that the people have given to his government, across ethnic and religious lines, will help create a situation where racism will not resurface, then it is essential for him to find meaningful solutions to the problems that racism had created in the country. without delay.
The first requirement for the President to achieve his goal is to change the political culture of Southern Sri Lanka, which does not respect the legitimate political aspirations and genuine grievances of minority communities.
The NPP, especially the JVP, has so far shown no clear signs of breaking free from its intolerant past, when it opposed all attempts to find a political solution to the national ethnic problem. The position expressed by the NPP during the recent controversies over the 13th Amendment to the Constitution was the latest evidence.
The people have given Dissanayake a resounding mandate that has never been given to any previous president. There is no obstacle for him and his government to find solutions to the ethnic problem, whether by amending the law or introducing a new constitution. All that is needed is political will.
The President has a duty to send a clear message to the Tamil people, who have rejected most Tamil parties and supported the NPP. At the same time, the he also has a responsibility to tell the Sinhalese people what approach they are obligated to adopt in dealing with the problems of the people of the North and East, who have sent several members of a national party to Parliament for the first time in history rejecting their own leaders.
The President should dedicate himself to creating a conducive climate in the South to find a political solution to the ethnic problem by winning the confidence of the majority who have deep-seated negative attitudes towards devolution of power and the legitimate political aspirations of the minority communities.
He is now in a very strong position to prevail upon the Sinhala polity and the Sinhalese people on the necessity to find a political solution and bridge the divisions in the country.
If he succumbs to the compulsions of Sinhalese hard-line nationalist forces and factions of the Maha Sangha, like previous Sinhalese leaders, President Dissanayaka will surely join the list of leaders who have missed the rare opportunities presented by history.
An acid test of his political mettle will be how he handles the 13th Amendment ahead of the provincial council elections which he intends to have any time next year.
Finally, a comment made last week by JVP general secretary Tilvin Silva in an interview with Meera Srinivasan, a Colombo correspondent of the influential Chennai English daily ‘The Hindu’, is noteworthy: He said: ” There was a wrong perception because of the history written by those who defeated us. Our path was not willingly chosen, it was forced on us. We were facing allegations of violence. It was not our action, but a reaction from our end. If the state’s repression was armed ,so was our response.”
” The political moment has opened up space to rewrite the story of not just the party, but also the country without characterising some as terrorists who took up arms for no reason.”
It is time the JVP leaders realized that even for the Tamils, there is a long story to tell about the misconceptions that exist regarding the root causes of their armed struggle and the need to rewrite distorted history and to adopt a healthy new approach to the ethnic problem in the interest of the future of the nation.
( The writer is a senior journalist based in Colombo)