A Sri Lankan police officer stands guard as voters come out of a polling station after casting their vote in Vavuniya, Sri Lanka, AP
by Tisaranee Gunasekara
“The tragedy is the tragedy of blind and obstinate tyranny”. IF Stone (The Trial of Socrates)
(July 17, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Winning the North is pivotally important to the Rajapaksas for multiple reasons. Such a ‘victory’ can be used to buttress the crumbling-myth of ‘humanitarian operation’ aimed at ‘liberating’ civilian Tamils. As Minister Muralitharan (aka Col. Karuna) stated, “All Tamils should rally round President Mahinda Rajapaksa at this juncture since this is the real time to show our gratitude to all what he had done for the Tamils…” (Daily News – 14.7.2011). A Northern victory will be trumpeted abroad as proof of civilian Tamils’ ‘love’ and ‘gratitude’ towards the Rajapaksa Siblings. It will be used to counter the Channel 4 movie and the Darusman Report and as justification of the provincial status quo characterised by de facto military occupation and the absence of democracy, normalcy or devolution.
The Rajapaksas are determined to win the upcoming local government election in the North – by whatever means necessary.
The Northern election season commenced on an ominous note: a very public attack on a TNA meeting by a group of soldiers. That outbreak of violence and the authorities’ failure to apprehend the culprits set the tone for the Northern election campaign.
Other incidents followed, ranging from the common or garden (stone-throwing, threatening graffiti) to the atrociously brutal (the pet dog of a TNA candidate decapitated, its head impaled on the gate and carcass left on the doorstep; waste-water and garbage thrown at the house of another TNA candidate). Gangs are reportedly roaming in white vans, tearing down opposition posters. The oppositional candidates are intimidated and the voters are cowed – two essential ingredients of an anti-democratic election.
The UPFA is focussing its might on the North; the Rajapaksas are distributing largesse, while their anonymous acolytes are sowing fear. Despite the ubiquity of violence, no perpetrator has been caught. This, in itself is telling. The North is a garrisoned-province teeming with security forces personnel, armed with guns and extraordinary powers. An orgy of pre-election violence cannot happen in such a place without official orchestration/backing.
The pre-election violence in the North has a clear purpose – to ensure a UPFA-victory by intimidating oppositional candidates and Tamils voters. If the Northern election is even marginally free, the UPFA will be trounced. At the first round of local government elections, the UPFA won, resoundingly, in the South but lost, resoundingly, in the North. Out of 14 councils, the TNA won in 12; it did not contest Vavuniya South (Sinhala) PS and lost the Musali PS. The Rajapaksas are focussing their malevolent powers on the North to prevent another humiliatingly discreditable defeat.
A Jaffna Doctrine?
The existence of alternate sources of power is essential to a democracy. Ensuring that all power flows from the Family is thus a key Rajapaksa object. If the UPFA loses the North, it will give the opposition a small (albeit much needed) political breathing- space. The Rajapaksas, having succeeded in enthroning themselves as the ‘sole representatives’ of the Sinhalese, are intent on becoming the ‘sole representatives’ of Tamils and Muslims. A sweeping victory in the North, even by foul means, will be of immense assistance in realising this anti-democratic, Tiger-like ambition. If the UPFA’s planned electoral-theft is successful, the next step could be either to hold (similarly stage-managed) provincial council elections and/or set up the Jana Sabha system, as the ultimate ‘political solution’.
Given these multiple needs, the regime’s determination to win the North, by whatever means necessary, is hardly surprising. While the new Election Commissioner is vowing the public with disarming pledges to hold free and fair polls, the North is inundated by pre-election violence. The purpose of this orgy is to intimidate TNA candidates into withdrawing from polls (or backing the regime) and to frighten the voters into abstaining. If an atmosphere of terror can be imposed on the province in the pre-election period, voter turn-out will drop, rendering ballot-stuffing on the Election Day ‘incident-free’ and non-controversial.
A ‘delayed reaction’ approach to election-stealing is thus the Rajapaksa modus operandi. The regime would know that regional/global attention will turn to the Lankan election only on the Election Day – if at all. If opposition candidates and voters are terrorised into inaction and apathy during the pre-election period, the need to use violence on Election Day itself can be minimised. Moreover, the ubiquity of violence during the pre-election period will cast into sharp relief the relative absence of visible violence on the Election Day itself. This will enable the regime and its apologists to hail the election as ‘free and fair’.
The Southern polity, society and media seem curiously unconcerned about the pre-election violence unleashed on the North. This indifference is morally indefensible and politically unintelligent. If the Northern election is stolen, whatever shred of faith Tamils have in the idea of a democratic Sri Lankan future will evaporate. The consequent politico-psychological vacuum will become an ideal breeding ground for a new cycle of separatist aspirations and, eventually, new manifestations of separatist politics. This in turn will be used by the Rajapaksas to justify their anti-democratic rule and their incapacity to improve the living conditions of their Sinhala-base.
There is another reason why the regime’s crimes and misdeeds in the North should engage Southern attention. The North seems to be the Rajapaksa-laboratory, the place where radical solutions and controversial methods of governance are tested, before they are applied island-wide. The language-rules were first tried in the North (and the East) with resounding success; the war was dubbed a humanitarian operation and barbed-wire camps incarcerating Tamils were called ‘welfare villages’. Now the same tactics are deployed in the South; for instance, we have unannounced power-cuts which are called ‘power failures’, to enable the regime to conceal the total failure of its expensive and expansive energy-policy. The land-grabbing began in the North/East under cover of national-security; it is now spreading to the South, behind a developmental façade. The North (and the East) came under military rule first; currently the South too is experiencing the creeping militarisation of civil administration and society.
If the regime’s experiment in election-stealing, works in the North, it will be replicated in the South. The worsening financial situation of the country will demand it, if nothing else does. The verdict against the CPC in the hedging-case means that Sri Lanka will have to pay a staggering US$500 million to the three foreign banks; the cost of this will be borne not by those who made this criminally Faustian-bargain (nor by their political masters), but by ordinary Lankans, in the form of higher living-costs and lower living-standards. The regime’s decision to present a supplementary estimate seeking Rs.62.9 million to purchase vehicles for 7 ministries and Rs.50.5 million for ministry-renovations indicate that alleviating the economic burdens of the masses has no place in the real Rajapaksa agenda. And as Southern living conditions deteriorate, the regime will be compelled to make increasing use of foul means to ‘win’ elections. The planned election-theft in the North is a trial-run for these future national election-thefts. It is in our common interests to hinder the regime’s plan to steal the Northern election because an anti-democratic ‘Jaffna doctrine’ will transcend provincial boundaries.
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