8 August 2020 01:00 am Views - 610
Most independent political analysts had forecast a clear victory for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). They believed it would get more than 120 seats with Sajith Premadasa’s breakaway party the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) getting between 40 and 60 seats. But what happened at Wednesday’s general election was unprecedented if not sensational. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa led the SLPP to win 145 seats. With the support of the EPDP and other minority parties the government is likely to have a two-thirds majority.
The analysts differ in their opinions on how the SLPP won this historic victory while many are of the view that one of the main reasons was the recent split in the United National Party (UNP) which has ruled this country for 35 of the 72 years since independence. At the November 2019 presidential election the SLPP-backed Gotabaya Rajapaksa won more than 6.9 million votes, the highest since the executive presidential system was imposed by JR Jayewardene who then had a five-sixth majority in parliament because the 1977 general election was held on an electoral basis. When Mr. Jayewardene implemented the proportional representation system he apparently believed the UNP could remain in power for decades because it had the support of about 40 per cent of the people in all 22 districts. But in November last year, Gotabaya Rajapaksa proved that an election could be won with the support of the people of the Sinhala majority districts without the support of the minorities. We hope that in the coming years we will not see signs of Sinhala racism as seen in the United States where president Donald Trump won by wooing the supporters of white racist supremacy.
Politically and economically Sri Lanka is caught up in a geopolitical power struggle involving the US, China, India and to some extent Russia. Instead of the cold war we now have the subtle cyber war with allegations that Russia through cyber warfare interfered in the 2015 US presidential election in support of dangerously unpredictable Donald Trump.
There are also widespread allegations that now China also is indulging in cyber warfare and getting involved in this year’s US presidential election, though not in support of Mr. Trump. Sri Lanka -- facing a huge economic and debt crisis -- is also caught up in the geopolitical battle involving the US, China, India and other countries. Therefore the Rajapaksa government will have to work out its foreign policy, economic and political strategies with lots of brain power because there are wheels within wheels and deals within deals involved in world geopolitical strategies in this era of cyber warfare and nano-technology.
At the general election the SLPP alliance won almost 6.9 million. This was similar to the number of votes won by Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the presidential election in November last year. Most analysts believe that one reason for the wide support for the SLPP was the skillful manner in which president Rajapaksa handled or controlled the COVID-19 pandemic with a relatively small number of afflicted patients and the death toll being just 11 while in the US the death toll is nearing 150,000 with some half a million people being afflicted.
Wednesday’s election was held under strict health regulations with voters being required to wear face masks, wash their hands with soap. This may be one of the reasons why the total turnout dropped to about 71 per cent from 83 per cent in last November’s presidential election.
After Sri Lanka swallowed wholesale the globalised market economic system and after the proportional representation system of elections was introduced with the preferential vote as an option, politics in Sri Lanka has to a large extent become a business and in recent years a big business with some politicians becoming billionaires. The politicians say they come to serve the people and give them servant leadership but eventually most of them plunder the money of the people to an extent that millions of poverty-stricken families have remained poor.
We hope the new government will not tolerate large scale bribery or corruption, heroin smuggling or related crimes. We also hope that the President and the Prime Minister will give the other MPs an example in living in a moral, sincere, selfless, sacrificial, simple and humble way.