Understanding the message given by Northerners - EDITORIAL

During their first media conference following the Presidential election, the Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) which has proven again that they are the largest Tamil political party in the North and the East had announced that they were considering to field their candidates in the districts of their “traditional homeland” to contest the November 14th Parliamentary election.

If they conclusively decide so, it might be an important milestone in their political journey since that would compel them to formulate policies and slogans to attract those Tamils living outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces. That would also serve as a catalyst for the integration of the Tamils of those two provinces into the national politics. 

This statement by the ITAK spokesman and former Parliamentarian M.A.Sumanthiran comes in the backdrop of the Tamils of those two districts, which are called the “traditional Tamil homeland” by the mainstream Tamil political parties having voted overwhelmingly for Sajith Premadasa, the candidate of the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) at the Presidential election held on September 21st. 

Tamils in the Northern and the Eastern Provinces had been given three main options at the Presidential election – to vote for the common Tamil candidate, P. Ariyanethiran, to boycott the election and to vote for a south-based Sinhalese candidate. The number of those who boycotted the election seems to be insignificant regardless of the absence of a way to find it out. However, the case put forward by the common Tamil candidate seemed to be very sensitive and was thought to be a challenge to the SJB candidate who was supported by the ITAK.  

Ariyanethiran, despite being a member of the ITAK was fielded mainly by the former constituent parties of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in which the ITAK was the leading force. They contended that the Tamils must show the world by voting for the common Tamil candidate their frustration over the successive governments’ failure and lack of political will to resolve the decades-long ethnic problem. 

Yet, they seem to have been totally routed out from both the provinces. In the Eastern Province - a province Tamil leaders have long been demanding to amalgamate administratively with the Northern Province – the common Tamil candidate had been pushed to the fourth place after the SJB candidate Sajith Premadasa, Independent candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe and the National People’s Power candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake, in all three districts of the province, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Digamadulla.

In the Jaffna District in the Northern Province, despite the common Tamil candidate having topped in several electoral divisions, Premadasa had obtained double the number of votes bagged by him. The total votes obtained by the three main Sinhalese candidates in that district were 232,821 while the common Tamil candidate had managed to get only 116,688 votes. Also in the Vanni district, the heartland of the one-time LTTE administration, he had been pushed to the third place behind Premadasa and Wickremesinghe and the total votes cast there for all three Sinhalese candidates were almost fivefold of what was received by Ariyanethiran.  

This clearly points to the fact that the ethnic concerns have been pushed to the back seat in the Tamil dominated areas, despite the Tamil politicians having been playing the ethnic card during elections. Tamils had a strong case to vote for the common Tamil candidate on the basis of ethnic concerns, but they seem to have listened primarily to the ITAK without any valid reason on the basis of the same concerns. During the visit by Premadasa to the North some Tamil leaders stated that Premadasa did not have a clear idea about devolution of power while Sumanthiran himself, according to the Tamil media, had requested Premadasa to present a clear idea about the 13th Amendment to the Constitution that could be acceptable to the people both in the North as well as South. 

The election results in the North clearly indicate that the Tamil people are prepared to politically integrate with the other communities and build the Sri Lankan nation if their leaders, especially the ITAK leaders are prepared.  It is high time for those leaders to formulate policies and slogans accordingly, without unnecessarily playing the ethnic card any longer while addressing the basic concerns of the people.