Polarisation and ‘infrastructure invasion’

24 September 2013 07:59 pm Views - 2369

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) swept all five districts in the Northern Provincial Council in the polls held on Saturday.  The Tamil nationalist party scored a landslide victory in the disputed “autonomous” council elections in the North even though the elections were held under military rule. Though all democratic forces criticised the election procedures, the TNA bagged 30 out of a total of 38 seats in the election held under the system of proportional representation. Though the official results claimed that the TNA secured 78%   of the popular vote, in the most populous district of Jaffna, they obtained more than 80%.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s United People’s Freedom Alliance that was backed by military power reached a distant second with just seven seats and 18% of the total number of votes, while the Muslim Congress won the other seat.

This shows that a motivated determined community backed by national and international democratic forces could overcome   military power to win in a bourgeoisie election!

Hence the TNA, which has vowed to press the demand for autonomy for Lankan Tamil nationality has made a clean sweep in the war-affected region despite allegations that the army   discouraged the TNA voters. The Elections Commissioner said 68 percent of the 719,000 registered voters in the Northern Province cast their vote on Saturday. This is in spite of the charge the TNA made that the military was intimidating their supporters and forcing them to stay away from voting. Obviously the masses have overcome the alleged obstacles made by the military network. Election monitoring officials said they had “plenty of complaints”, but there were no major incidents during the nine-hour voting period.



During the election campaign Mahinda accused the TNA of raising expectations of a separate state in their election manifesto. In fact, this became the main campaign point of the UPFA in the South.  They appealed to the Sinhala masses to rise against the separatist conspiracy launched by the TNA backed by the Tamil Diaspora and western powers.  They went to court to suppress powers of the PC system and then tried every trick to postpone elections. They told the Sinhala masses in the South that if they remained in power, the Tamils of the North and East would not be given a civilian police force with whom they could talk without translations.

"This election exposes the domination of national question in the minds of the people. The Tamil national question has polarised the countRy"

There were attacks on Opposition candidates as well. In Puttalam, Government goons attacked Mohamed Fairoos, the leading candidate for the Nationalities Unity Organisation, an opposition alliance including the NSSP.  Fairoos is a brother of the Puttalam Mayor and was targeted for attack while he was campaigning with the NSSP leader Vickramabahu Karunarathne. The police were helpful after the attack, but were not powerful enough to prevent the attack or apprehend the attackers.

Violence and election law violations are now facts of Lanka’s political life. They have spawned a monitoring industry but there is no prospect of a behavioural change. The political leaders in authority, starting with the President himself, take no responsibility to stop the violence and the violations of the election rules.
 This election exposes the domination of national question in the minds of the people. The Tamil national question has polarised the country. The economic disasters developing under the name of development have been swept under the carpet.

Mahinda has covered from the people the government’s complete subservience to the strategies of global capitalism. However, not only in the North but even in Hambantota there are specific political problems as well as humanitarian problems. The government cannot hide these problems under new roads and bridges, and without addressing those problems the government cannot get the sustained support of the people.

"How does one benefit from the new road in front of one’s house when ONE is denied access to ONE'S own premises on the pretext of state
security?"

How does one benefit from the new road in front of one’s house when one is denied access to the location on the pretext of state security? How does that premises benefit from a road reconstruction if the road is built above it, and the rain water that fall on the road gushes on to the premises? What benefits are there for the local people and entrepreneurs when they are excluded from the immediate benefits from infrastructure investments and constructions in the form of jobs and contracts?
The not so obvious factors are the government’s motivations in undertaking these investment programmes and the manner in which the programmes are implemented.

The selection of contractors and suppliers and the network of kickbacks have bred cynicism among the people rather than admiration for the ‘infrastructure invasion’. These factors invariably make the political sales job all the more difficult for government apologists and campaigners.
It seems that the TNA is not keen on the pro-IMF economic strategy of the government. Therefore, they will have to harness their knowledge and ideas and formulate a new programme that goes beyond their election manifesto.