Dialogue drags on with little progress, which allows SINHALA GOVT to get the credit for talking while not making much progress towards reconciliation!

Honour the needs of all peoples Thursday, 24 March 2011 BY HARIM PEIRIS

The results of the recently concluded round of local government elections demonstrated one indisputable fact. The percentage of the popular vote for the UPFA declined in a brief period of eleven months from 60% at the general elections of April 2010 to 55% in March 2011.

The real situation for the government is worse. The 60% in April 2010 was achieved in a genuine all island election. The 55% was achieved without polling in the Colombo, Jaffna and Killinochchi districts, areas which given even a reasonable fair and free election will vote quite strongly for non UPFA parties, Colombo city and its suburbs for the UNP and Jaffna and Killinochci for the TNA. Should the government have the democratic inclination and the Courts the independence to conduct the local government elections in Colombo, Jaffna and Killinochchi and the nearly one third of the local government bodies to which elections were not held, the UPFA’s real country wide popular support would be demonstrated and be quite a bit less than 55%. The Government used the barely credible excuse of the world cup matches to postpone the elections to the local bodies among population segments unfavourable to it. In cricketing terms, this is like a team that is weak against pace bowling conducting a match in which only spin bowlers are allowed and then claiming a resounding victory.

A five percent drop in popularity in one year is quite a precipitious drop by any standard. The political equation between the UPFA and the UNP which stood at 60:30 in April 2010 has suddenly become 55:35 by March 2011 and more likely to be 52:38 once Colombo, Jaffna, Killinochci votes.

The other looser of this election was of course the JVP. Garnering barely 2% of the popular vote, it failed to retain the Tissamaharama local council, it had held since 2002. The silver lining in the decline of the JVP has been a resurgence of the traditional left parties, the CP, the LSSP and the NSSP, all within the UPFA coalition but moderate, tolerant and pluralist voices within the Alliance.

TNA dominates in the North

The political party with much to cheer from the local government elections was the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) which dominated and nearly monopolized the Tamil vote in the North, convincingly winning in Mannar, Vavuniya and Mullativu districts. This despite all the harassment the government through the security apparatus was able to throw at the TNA campaign, which was as usual low budget and low key but highly effective. The Tamil voter has though battered by the war, clearly within the space of 12 months at the general elections and now the local government elections given a mandate to the Tamil National Alliance to represent them. The TNA has considerably moderated its stance, unilaterally dumping the separatist call and also those directly associated with the LTTE from within its ranks. Interestingly it is the UPFA that has the highest ranking former LTTE functionaries still left standing, within its fold in Karuna (SLFP Vice President), Pilliyan (UPFA Chief Minister, Eastern Province) and KP (State supported NGO functionary). Furthermore the Government fielded the fresh political face of UNP cross over MP Sri Ranga and the considerable financial clout and political patronage of Minister Rishard Baduirdeen to little or no avail. The days when an SLFP candidate, like Alfred Durraiapa did, will win in the Tamil majority areas are a long way off from returning.

The “Structured

Dialogue” drags on with little progress
The day after the local government elections, on Friday the 18th of March, the Government and the TNA had the third round of their “structured dialogue” towards addressing the urgent needs of the war affected people of the North and a political solution to the ethnic problem. However the dialogue drags on with little progress, which allows the government to get the credit for talking while not making much progress towards reconciliation. Almost two years after the end of the war, the Northern provincial council elections have not been held, the emergency has not been repealed, a list of suspects in custody has not been released and the interim recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) has not been implemented. The government must honour the democratic mandate of the Tamil people. The newly elected but TNA controlled local bodies must be allowed to function freely and serve the war affected people of the North that have elected them.

(The writer served as

Presidential Spokesman

from 2001-2005)
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