Barely a month is remaining for President Ranil Wickremesinghe to solve the decades-long ethnic problem, as he promised last month and in the month prior to it. He first called on all political parties in Parliament during the budget debate in November to get together to resolve the problem by the 75th anniversary of the Independence of Sri Lanka which falls on February 4. He said that he would talk to all political parties after the budget debate is over.   

He kept his promise by convening an “all party conference” on December 13 at the Presidential Secretariat for the purpose during which he again reiterated that he wants to see the Tamil issue resolved before February 4. If his “plan” is to realize a hectic programme must have been put in place by now involving the government and all other stakeholders, since they had less than two months then to act.   

When the President convened that meeting the Tamil parties hurriedly met, forgetting or keeping aside their rivalries and differences. They, including the Tamil National Alliance (TNA led by R.Sampanthan and Tamil Makkal Koottani led by C.V.Wigneswaran which do not see eye to eye in most cases decided to put forward three demands for the President to meet before January 31. The demands apparently included two immediate issues to be implemented and one to be agreed upon.   

The immediate two issues were to release all lands in the Northern and Eastern Provinces that have been occupied by the security forces and various other state departments and to fully implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution including holding elections to the provincial councils forthwith. To find a solution to the ethnic problem under a federal framework was the issue that has apparently to be agreed upon before January 31, as only an insane person can expect its implementation before their deadline.   

The demands were put forward at the meeting by Wigneswaran and Parliamentarian and media spokesman of the TNA M.A.Sumanthiran during their speeches. Interestingly, none of the participants - the President or leader of any political party or at least the leader of the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), Parliamentarian Champika Ranawaka - reportedly opposed the demands.   

In fact the President agreed at the meeting to start the reconciliation process with these demands and expressed his readiness to take up the implementation of 13th Amendment on the same day. “Certainly, in January, as I said we can even see day after day and go through it. It is useless putting it off. One way or the other, we either come to an agreement or say we can’t come to an agreement – one of the two – so I can report back to Parliament when we meet” the President’s Media quoted the President as saying.   

However, Tamil parties seem to settle many differences among them concerning the resolution of the ethnic problem and facing future elections. With the local government elections were to be announced this month, two constituent parties of the TNA on January 2 had written to the leaders of the latter and its dominant constituent member, the Illankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), expressing displeasure over the manner in which the Tamil politics is moving ahead.   

The Leader of the Peoples Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), D. Siddarthan and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation (TELO) leader Selvam Adaikkalanathan in their letter to TNA leader Sampanthan and ITAK leader Mavai Senathirajah had stressed the need for a united stand among all Tamil parties on the ethnic issue. The need to register TNA as a political party has also been highlighted in the letter, as a legal safeguard for the rights of the smaller parties in the alliance.   

They have presented these points in three specific demands. They were; all those who politically active in the Tamil national spectrum must be included in the TNA, the alliance should be built under a strong administrative and institutional set up and the TNA should be officially registered with a common symbol. In fact, the second and third demands were not new. Especially the demand for the registration of the Alliance as a separate political party has been made by the parties smaller than the ITAK since 2000 when the coalition was formed, apparently at the instance of the LTTE.   

It is ironic that two original constituent members of the TNA still making requests to the alliance leaders to register it, 22 years after it was formed. The rationale behind the demand is the conception or misconception among the smaller parties that the ITAK always has the dominant say in decision making process within the alliance. They have vaguely cited two incidents – certain decisions taken at the ITAK Working Committee meeting held recently in Vavuniya and a notice displayed in Kilinochchi about selection of candidates - as suspected actions by the ITAK that might sabotage the unity within the TNA.   

In fact, it was the row between the ITAK and the smaller parties over the registration of the TNA that mainly led to the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Front (EPRLF) – another original constituent member of the TNA - to break ranks with the coalition in November 2017.   

Meanwhile an article by Wigneswaran who is the former Chief Minister Northern Provincial Council has criticized the stand taken by the TNA leaders on the resolution of the ethnic problem during the previous yahapalana government. That government with the concurrence of the TNA presented a set of proposals to resolve the national question that was said to be a part of a new Constitution. He states that those proposals suggested “not a federal constitution, but a unitary constitution with a seemingly powerless.” In Fact, he was correct, as those proposals described Sri Lanka as Ekiya Rajya in Sinhala which means Unitary State.   

However, another point he had assert in that article raises the question whether he espouses secessionism. He criticises the proposal to refer all statutes enacted by the provincial council to the Governor for his assent, on the grounds that the “Governor means nominee of the President or the Central Government.” He seems to have forgotten that even after the Independence, Sri Lankan Constitution until 1972 necessitated the assent of the Governor General who was the representative of the Queen of the United Kingdom for all Acts passed by the Parliament.   

This matter points to the vastness of the ideological gap among various Tamil leaders who demand a lasting solution to the ethnic problem from the government. They, like their Sinhala and Muslim counterparts have failed to come to an agreement as to what sort of a country they expect. Even if President Wickremesinghe’s efforts were genuine in finding a lasting solution for the ethnic problem, the differences among Tamil leaders and those between Tamil and Muslim leaders would stand in the way.   

However, now that the Election Commission has decided to accept nominations for the local government elections from 18 to 21 of this month, the coming weeks would be a hectic period for political parties including the Tamil parties, mounting the possibility of the ethnic issue being pushed to the backburner. With there being clear signs that the government is attempting to put off the local elections, the possibility of politics becoming heated and thereby the ethnic issue being totally eclipsed is very high. Hence, the possibility of the deadlines set by the President and the Tamil parties in respect of the resolution of the Tamil problem turning out to be mere headlines is also high.