Summoning Racism

For decades, racism has been the slogan of the last resort among Sinhala politicians, especially during election times. This invoking of the minority bogey (Tamil, Christian or Muslim) was often done thoughtlessly and irresponsibly, without paying any heed to the broader consequences.

During the long period of Tiger dominance of Tamil politics, anti-Tigerism enabled Sinhala supremacists to give vent to their Tamil phobia in a ‘politically correct’ way, under the guise of either anti-fascism or anti-terrorism. After the LTTE overwhelmed and subjugated Tamil nationalism, and imposed its own creed and agenda on Tamils, Sinhala extremists could oppose Tamil rights and castigate Tamil demands, without mentioning the term Tamil even once.

“President Rajapakse who is seeking a second term at the forthcoming presidential polls, accused SLMC leader Rauff Hakeem of trying to revive the separatist movement once spearheaded by the LTTE.” The Island (15.1.2009)

With the total annihilation of the Tigers, that convenient cover has vanished. Today there are just Tamils and Tamil nationalism. Little wonder that Sinhala supremacists of all hues insist on the continued existence of a Tiger threat, as an excuse for their total opposition to Tamil nationalism and their determination not to make any political concessions to the Tamil people.

The Rajapakses have been using the Tiger bogey since the end of the war, to justify the continuation of excessive and anti-democratic security measures in the North and in the South. When Sarath Fonseka entered the political fray, the regime tried to portray the Presidential election as a battle between the forces of democracy and the forces of military dictatorship, with itself cast in the role of the defender of democracy. The consequent need to burnish one’s corrugated democratic credentials compelled the Rajapakses to relax, post haste, some of the extraordinary security measures they had depicted as absolutely essential for national security just weeks ago. (The fact that these concessions were made more than 6 months after the end of the war, in the context of a closely fought election, demonstrates that they were kept in place, post-war, not because of security needs but because of the regime’s Sinhala supremacism and its dictatorial tendencies).

Had the TNA decided to back Mr. Rajapakse, the Fonseka camp in general and the JVP in particular would have descended into the racist mire, accusing the regime of ‘selling’ out to the Tigers the hard won victories of the ‘heroic armed forces led by Gen. Fonseka’. But the TNA decided to back Gen. Fonseka, because, as Mr. Sampanthan explained, it wants to deny President Rajapakse a second term. There is a general belief that the majority of the minority votes will go to Sarath Fonseka, in a free and fair election. It is not just President Rajapakse’s manner of prosecuting the war which has made the minorities regard him as the ‘greater of the two evils’; the minorities also fear his Sinhala supremacist politics which have outlasted the war. His refusal to accept the existence of the ethnic problem, the attempts by his regime to ban minority parties, his statement that there are no minorities in Sri Lanka have solidified the belief that the minorities will be reduced to the status of second-class citizens under the Rajapakses.

The Dilemma of the Sinhala Only President

Mahinda Rajapakse was the first Sinhala Only President of Sri Lanka. In 2005 he won the Presidency by winning the South – because Vellupillai Pirapaharan kept the Tamils away from the polling booths with a boycott order. Acutely aware of his dependence on Sinhala voters, President Rajapakse felt he could afford to ignore Tamil interests and Tamil concerns: “You must remember my political legacy and constraints…. I was elected primarily by a Sinhala constituency…” (Friday – 13.9.2007). This self-perception made him do what his predecessors did not want to or felt unable to do – respond to the LTTE’s total war with a more devastating total war. He consciously aimed at and worked towards defeating the Tigers without making any concessions to Tamils, either in terms of their safety or in terms of their political rights. The belief that a tough policy on the LTTE/Tamils would be popular with the Sinhala majority (and guarantee future electoral victories) was an added fillip to the Rajapakse strategy of waging a total war relentlessly, irrespective of the cost to civilian Tamils, and without conceding a political solution to the ethnic problem.

The electoral arithmetic paints a different picture. The UPFA believes or purports to believe that its landslide wins at the recent provincial council polls were caused by a mammoth electoral swing in its favour. The reality is far otherwise; the UPFA won massively because almost 2 million UNP voters abstained from voting. Even in the Sinhala majority areas of the country, there was no tectonic shift in favour of the Rajapakses; there was just an elephantine drop in the UNP vote. And, contrary to popular myth, these UNP voters did not desert the UNP and join the UPFA, in an outbreak of ‘patriotic’ fervour; they simply abstained from voting, due to a sense of hopelessness.

At the Presidential election of 2005, Mahinda Rajapakse obtained 4,661,143 votes in the seven Sinhala majority provinces (outside the North and the East). At the 2008/9 Provincial Council Elections, the ruling UPFA obtained 4,828,284 votes in these seven provinces. Therefore the UPFA vote in the Sinhala majority provinces increased by a paltry 167,141 between 2005 and 2008/9; this meagre performance was despite winning the war and abusing state resources on an unprecedented scale. Consequently, the UPFA’s massive victories at the PC polls were caused not by an electoral tidal wave in its favour but because 1,903,482 UNP voters abstained from voting. If those UNP voters did vote, the UPFA would have won moderately in five out of seven provinces and lost moderately in the other two (Central and Sabaragamuwa).

Given this not so favourable electoral balance, why did Mahinda Rajapakse call for a premature presidential election? Was it the stars, an important factor in Lankan politics? Did he believe in his own propaganda of a patriotic landslide in his favour? Or did he bank on almost 2 million UNP voters abstaining, as happened at the provincial polls? That calculation may have worked, had the much defeated Ranil Wickremesinghe entered the fray, as the UNP’s Presidential candidate. In that event, the JVP would have fielded its own candidate and a wave of apathy (born of a collective premonition of defeat) would have swept over the opposition ranks, causing political despair and organisational paralysis. Such a situation would have enabled Mr. Rajapakse to score another impressive victory, without making economic concessions to the majority community or political concessions to the minority communities.

The regime’s sanguine expectations of a devastating victory at the end of a one horse race were shattered by the Fonseka candidacy. In the resultant new conjuncture, the President is being compelled to fight for every vote. Since the minorities seem to be backing his opponent, President Rajapakse is moving back into his familiar Sinhala supremacist territory. At a recent meeting with media personnel, he re-evoked the Separatist bogey, and declared that the 13th Amendment has become ‘reduced to a mere political slogan’ (The Island – 15.1.2010).

He further stated that he rejected the TNA’s demands to merge and North and the East and to remove the Armed Forces: “Had we given into their demands they would have asked for the removal of the police too of making unacceptable demands” (ibid). This is a classic example of the specious reasoning politicians resort to when they want to incite rather than inform. The Army is deployed to maintain law and order only in situations characterised by high degrees of violence; in other words in democracies the army takes over only if the police is incapable of maintaining peace. Since the war is over and peace has dawned, there is no just reason to deploy the army in the North and the East. Therefore there is no logical reason to believe that once the Army is removed, the TNA will demand the removal of the police force as well.

The President made an irrational and an artificial connection between the two, in order to make the Sinhala public believe that the TNA wants to establish Eelam by stealth and with the connivance of the opposition candidate.

Given the absence of a massive pro-Rajapakse wave in the Sinhala majority districts, the decisive role in this election may well fall upon the minorities in general and the Tamils in particular. If most Tamils abstain from voting, for a variety of understandable reasons, Mr. Rajapakse may be able to win the election, freely and fairly. But if a majority of Tamils decide to exercise their rights, and if they do so on the basis of denying the incumbent a second term, an outright victory may require violence and malpractices, on a discernible scale. The politico-psychological justification for such deeds is being created with the transformation of the presidential election from a necessary democratic exercise to a political war for the salvation of the nation.

Family Enterprise

Mahinda Rajapakse’s elevation to the most powerful job in Sri Lanka enabled his brothers and his sons, his nephews and his cousins to make great leaps, from obscurity to fame and fortune.

The Rajapakse Family’s continued occupation of the commanding heights of the state depends on the outcome of the Presidential election. If the President wins, the Family fortunes are safe; if he loses, the Family will lose all. Consequently, for Rajapakses, young and old, big and small, losing is not an option. With so much at stake, the election has become a family affair.

The best case in point is a mega advertising campaign featuring artistes and sports personalities, conducted by Tharunyata Hetak (A Tomorrow for Youth), an organisation created and headed by the eldest of the three presidential offspring, Namal Rajapakse. Even if the stars appeared free of charge for these ads, even if the state TV channels are accommodating them gratis, their incessant airing on private TV channels should cost a fortune. How an organisation, which came into being just four years ago and is headed by an as yet unemployed law student, can have access to finances adequate to handle a saturation media campaign is worthy of a parliamentary investigation. That apart, the fact that the President’s son is playing such a key role in his re-election campaign (the younger Rajapakse addresses political meetings in the company of senior ministers) is unprecedented in the history of Sri Lanka, at least since 1977. It is also indicative of the degree to which the Rajapakse family members have become stakeholders of the Rajapakse presidency.

Nil Balakaya (Blue Battalion) is another invention of the Rajapakse offspring. Billed as an affiliate of Tharunyata Hetak, it too carries out costly propaganda campaigns for the President in addition to organising meetings at district level, with the participation of ministers. According to media reports, the second Rajapakse son, a low level officer in the Lankan Navy, has also addressed political meetings in support of his father. These developments indicate a process of takeover of the SLFP by the Rajapakses; they are also symbolic and symptomatic of a gradual merging of the Ruling Family and the state, a superimposition of the interests of the Rajapakses on the Lankan state. Consequently, the Fonseka candidacy is seen not only as a challenge to the SLFP and the Rajapakses but also a as threat to the Lankan state itself, a threat which must be defeated in the national interest, using all the power and the resources of the state.

When democratic opponents are demonised and electoral challenges are stigmatised, the politico-psychological conditions necessary for a free and fair election diminishes.

- Asian Tribune -