After LTTE rout, fate of new Lanka President in Tamil hands

(K. Venkataramanan, TNN)

When the Tamil Tigers were defeated last May, there was widespread pessimism that hopes of a just solution had vanished. As he won election after election, local and provincial, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appeared invincible, riding on the image of a man who had unified the country by recovering large swathes of territory from LTTE rule and ended the “terrorist problem” once for all.

When he advanced his reelection bid by nearly two years to capitalize on his military success and to ensure a fresh six-year mandate for himself, it seemed a cakewalk, as the campaign platform would have been simple and populist: one that would have sought to expose previous leaders as ditherers fretting over an elusive political solution as compared to a president who had eliminated a ruthless insurgent group.

But now he understands that merely harping on military victory may not be enough to beat back an unexpectedly strong challenge from his former military head Sarath Fonseka, who has an equal claim to battlefield glory. United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, the party’s presidential candidate in the last two elections, has stood down in favour of Fonseka’s common candidature on behalf of the opposition, in an apparent bid to neutralize the president’s electoral advantage as the man who led the country to victory over terrorism.

Fonseka has the backing of the principal opposition party, the main Marxist, Tamil and Muslim parties. The rallying together of the opposition has put the Rajapaksa camp partly on the defensive, prompting it to dwell upon the economic aspects of its manifesto as well and promise the people the dividends of peace. And to be on the right sight of majority sentiment, Rajapaksa has alleged that Fonseka has won the backing of the Tamil National Alliance, seen as the Tigers’ proxy since 2001, by striking a secret deal containing unacceptable concessions such as re-uniting the northern and eastern provinces that had been separated by a supreme court verdict.

The Tamils are expected to make a big difference as the Sinhala population appears almost equally divided. Significantly, the Marxist-Sinhala nationalist Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP) is in the Fonseka camp, giving it support of the working class and youth. The presence of UNP, JVP, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the TNA taken into account, Fonseka may have numbers, but the president is banking on the vast rural Sinhala vote bank, besides nationalists in both urban and rural areas who may credit him with providing the leadership to pursue the war and eliminate LTTE in face of heavy international pressure to halt it.

Now both sides have one or two political parties that draw their support from Tamils, Muslims and Indian-origin plantation Tamils, as all communities are politically divided.