Election for the Leadership of the Federal Party and the Future Course of Tamil Politics

As of date, the Tamil polity is in disarray with many parties and groups and leaders. There is no such thing as unity or discipline or understanding even among the leaders of the ITAK. The party looks like a camp with different tents its leaders have built for themselves with different agendas

As political parties in the South gear up for the Presidential Election expected in September, the election of a new leader for the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) known as the Federal Party in English has assumed great importance in Tamil politics.
The ITAK is holding the election today in Trincomalee, ahead of the long-delayed convention of the party next Sunday.
In its almost 75-year history, the election of the ITAK leader has always been unanimous. If its founder leader, the illustrious S.J.V. Chelvanayagam had wanted to, he could have held the post of party leader for the rest of his life. But, after having served only once as party President, he worked out an arrangement whereby party seniors from the Northern Province and the Eastern Province would alternate as President and General Secretary.
However, in 1973, when former Member of Parliament for Vaddukkoddai in the North, Appapillai Amirthalingam and the then Batticaloa MP Chelliah Rasadurai from the East were vying for the leadership, “Chelva” persuaded Rasadurai to withdraw. It is doubtful if Chelva would have been able to convince Amirthalingam to give up even if he wanted to give Rasadurai a chance.

In the 1970s, after the Tamil  United Liberation Front was formed by uniting various Tamil political parties, no one talked about ITAK in the long turbulent period that followed the 1976 Vaddukkoddai Resolution. Even with diminished influence, the TULF continued to be the moderate political face of the Tamils during the civil war 
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), formed in 2001 by reunifying Tamil parties, first contested the December 2001 General Elections under the TULF’s ‘Rising Sun’ symbol. Later, due to differences with the leader of the TULF, former MP Veerasingham Anandasangari over the ‘Rising Sun’ symbol, the TNA contested the April 2004 General Elections under the ‘House’ symbol of the ITAK. Thereafter, the TNA contested all subsequent elections under the ‘House’ symbol. 
As the ITAK was the oldest of the constituent parties of the TNA and was the largest Tamil party with considerable support in the North and East, and due to the fact that the alliance had been contesting consecutive elections under the ‘House’ symbol, the ITAK aspired to have a bigger say in Tamil politics.
The other member parties in the TNA, especially leaders of ex-militant movements, began to express displeasure over ITAK’s continued bid for dominance. Their constant call for the ITAK to register the TNA with the Election Commission under a separate symbol was ignored by ITAK leader, R Sampanthan even though he was the leader of the TNA and its Parliamentary group.
Such contradictions eventually caused a rift in the TNA. The leaders of the ITAK have an impression that other Tamil parties will not be able to win seats if they did not contest elections in alliance with the ITAK. Some ITAK stalwarts also proposed that the TNA member parties could compete separately in the Local Government Elections scheduled to be held early last year and join forces to form local councils in the North and East based on the number of seats available after the results were announced. Unable to accept this, the other parties withdrew from the alliance and filed nominations as a separate front.
The Tamil parties saw the local polls as an opportunity to gauge their influence among the Tamil people. But the elections were postponed indefinitely.
As of date, the Tamil polity is in disarray with many parties and groups and leaders. They do not know how many members are behind them. There is no such thing as unity or discipline or understanding even among the leaders of the ITAK. The party looks like a camp with different tents its leaders have built for themselves with different agendas.
It is in such a background that the excitement about the election for the new leader of the ITAK has to be viewed.
After Sampanthan, veteran politician Mavai Senathrajah, who was unanimously elected as the leader of the ITAK in 2014, has been holding the position for almost a decade. The party convention had not been held for a long time. The election for the leader is held today before the convention next week because it was not possible to choose someone in his place on the basis of consensus as per the tradition.
This is the first ever election for the leadership in the history of the ITAK. Members of the General Council and Central Working Committee (altogether numbering 325) are eligible voters.
MPs of the Jaffna district, Mathiaparanam Sumanthiran, Sivagnanam Sritharan and former Batticaloa district MP Seenithamby Yogeswaran are in the fray. Among them Sumanthiran and Sritharan had entered Parliament at the same time.
Sumanthiran, a President Counsel, entered Parliament through the National List of the TNA after the April 2010 General Elections and then successfully contested from the Jaffna district in the August 2015 and August 2020 General Elections. He has been a Member of Parliament for the past 14 years.
Sritharan, a former principal of Kilinochchi Maha Vidyalayam, contested from the Jaffna district in the 2010, 2015 and 2020 General Elections as a TNA candidate and was elected to Parliament. He also has 14 years of Parliamentary experience.
Yogeswaran successfully contested as a candidate of the TNA for the Batticaloa district in the 2010 and 2015 General Elections. At the last General Election he was defeated.
Sumanthiran and Sritharan had announced in advance that the winner of the election is committed to working with each other in the interests of the party. They assured they would not take any action that would cause divisions in the party. 

At the same time, Sumanthiran, while addressing a meeting of ITAK members in the East recently said that he will turn 60 next month and will retire from politics when he reaches 65.
As this is the case, Sritharan met and talked to Sampanthan who came to Parliament last week after a long time. The veteran leader insisted that the party’s long-held tradition be preserved in selecting the new leader. But currently, he doesn’t have the political strength to create a situation where the leader of the party can be elected by consensus in the General Council. The party’s Central Working Committee which met at his residence last week failed to get the three candidates to agree to elect a President unanimously.
Eventually, the contestants were given a day’s time to meet and come to a conclusion as per Sumanthiran’s request. They met at Sritharan’s residence in Madiwela near the Parliament complex, but could not reach an agreement. So the election is certain.
It was understood that Yogeswaran, who had already announced his support to Sritharan, said that he would request his supporters to vote for latter in the General Council.
Irrespective of the candidature, the crucial question is how the winner will contribute to the collective responsibility of guiding Tamil politics in the current domestic and international situation.
Although it cannot be said that the ITAK is in a position in determining the course of Tamil politics entirely, it has a great role than other Tamil parties. It is therefore important to look at how effectively the party has handled that role since the end of the civil war. 
Since there was no cohesive Tamil polity among the North and East Tamils, the role of leading them, automatically came to the TNA. As the main member party of that Alliance, an additional responsibility rested on the ITAK and its then leader Sampanthan. It secured the historically important role of moving the decades-long struggle for political rights of the Tamil people to the next stage in the new situation that had emerged after the war.
But the ITAK leaders were unable to handle the role in a pragmatic way. Sri Lankan Tamils are in a predicament like never before in their political history.
The pressure or goodwill of the international community including India could not sway Sri Lankan governments. Many Tamil politicians and observers were hopeful that the geopolitical situation would turn out to be an opportunity for the Tamils, but that was not to be. Even India, which facilitated the introduction of the provincial councils through the July 1987 Peace Accord, has so far failed to ensure that Sri Lankan governments would implement the 13 amendment to the Constitution, passed 36 years ago. It must be admitted that Tamil politicians and militants had also contributed greatly to that failure by their irresponsible actions.
Although many resolutions have been passed in the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva regarding the alleged rights violations that occurred at the end of the civil war, there is no possibility of getting justice for the Tamils in the foreseeable future. But Tamil politicians continue to rely on the international community.
For the Sri Lankan Sinhalese polity, the Tamil problem does not seem to require a political solution that fulfils even the minimal legitimate political aspirations of the Tamils.
Tamil political parties are not in a position to exert any pressure on the government or the political forces in the South. The Tamil people are not ready to believe Tamil parties anymore and join in any protest organised by them. These parties are unable to organise a small human chain campaign successfully.
Some Tamil politicians are keen on making the people live in the past. Although they are not going to take up arms, they keep talking about the past armed conflict, propagating extremist views without any idea about how to go forward.
Many a Tamil politician is under the influence of the agenda of groups with extremist views in the Tamil Diaspora. It is no secret that many of them can be manipulated by foreign forces.
Tamil politicians do not have the acumen to chart a viable path based on lessons that could be learned from the past bitter experiences. They are spending most of their time in inter and intra party rivalries.

These are important issues that a new leader of the ITAK should address. The politics of the old ITAK do not need a new leader. What the Tamil people urgently need today is a new vision for the future, not activities that keep them emotionally tied to the past.
Finally, it is noteworthy that the leaders of the other Tamil parties are very concerned about who should not win the ITAK election, for reasons that can be easily seen by any keen observer of Sri Lankan Tamil politics.