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A WIN FOR SEPARATION OF EAST FROM NORTH

The UPFA has won the first ever elections to the Eastern Province Provincial Council
Elections amidst allegations by the UNP-SLMC of intimidation corruption and other
familiar “facts”. The election held previously was for the Northern and Eastern Provincial
council and not for the Eastern Province Provincial council. However, it is not the first
time that the UNP has come up with these charges and neither will it be the last occasion.
With or without Ranil Wickremesinghe the UNP is to lose a few more elections and it
would not be a bad idea to set up its own so called independent election monitoring
committee at Sri Kotha with University non academics, without depending on the other
NGOs and University academics with political rights to cry foul on their behalf. It may
be the fifteenth election that Ranil Wickremesinghe has lost but in defence of the leader
of the UNP, one must say that a different leader would not have obtained a better result.
It is not Ranil Wickremesinghe who has lost the elections but the UNP-SLMC alliance.
In any event UNP knows more than the others on election malpractices having practised
them since 1931, of course, by the forerunners of the UNP democrats. Distributing
money, transporting the voters, intimidating the powerless by the village headmen, and
even deleting the names of the eligible voters by the dreaded “ralahamy” (nobody has so
far talked of disenfranchising of these people - how about writing a few theses on this
type of disenfranchising) were not uncommon those days.

Undoubtedly there would have been some truth in the charges brought out by the UNP-
SLMC alliance against the UPFA. In Sri Lanka election is no election without allegations
by the losing side against the winners but it is nor only the winners who resort to
malpractices at elections. The losers are not bodhisattvas and even this time there are
allegations of misconduct, to say the least, against some leaders of the UNP-SLMC
alliance. However, the winners drop the charges in no time as they have achieved what
they want and it is left to the losers to cry foul until the next elections. The losers should
have learnt a lesson from the Democratic Party in the USA when they did not want to
make a big issue out of those ballot boxes at the Presidential elections that elected Bush
Jr. as the President. Perhaps the Americans and the other westerners know that this is part
and parcel of the so called democratic process but we who have learnt western democracy
(not the mahasammathavadaya) through the text books written by the westerners still
crave for ideal elections and make charges and counter charges while engaging in all the
malpractices.

Let the UNP-SLMC cry foul until the next elections when they can begin a new round of
their pastime. It has to be mentioned that this time the UNP was so sure of losing, being
in a losing spree, began crying foul the day the nominations were given. If one goes by
the last Presidential elections the UPFA had no chance of winning the Provincial Council
elections. Ranil Wickremesinghe polled very heavily in the Batticaloa district at the
Presidential elections but this time the UPFA was able to turn tables. In Ampara district
the LTTE was involved in blasting bombs and killing people to intimidate especially the
Sinhala voters, on behalf of the UNP-SLMC alliance. Surely the bombs were not to help
the UPFA and Muslims would not have taken much notice of them as there was some

© Prof. Nalin De Silva

 www.kalaya.org

kind of pact between Prabhakaran and Hakeem. Unlike the UNP, the SLMC was very
confident of winning the elections, and Hakeem resigned from the Parliament to become
the first chief minister of the Eastern Province Provincial Council. One could say that the
resignation was only to encourage the Muslim voters but Hakeem would not have
resigned from the Parliament as an election gimmick, losing his security also in the
process.

The Tamils in Batticaloa who voted for Ranil Wickremesinghe (and Ptabhakaran) at the
last Presidential elections have voted for Pilliyan at the Provincial Council elections
while the Muslim vote has not changed much. The Sinhala voters as demonstrated by
results of the Seruwila electoral district have shifted towards the UPFA. The division is
very clear. The eastern Province has decided the fate of the country. In Eastern Province
there are four communities living, they being the Sinhalas, the Muslims, the Northern
Tamils and the Eastern Tamils. The latter communities have different historical origins
and different cultures. The Northern Tamils are of a Vellalla Brahmin mixed culture
while the Eastern Tamils are of a non Brahmin Hindu culture. They lived as two different
communities until SJV Chelvanayakam united them against the Sinhalas to establish a
separate state for the Tamils. He extended this union to the Muslims as well in the guise
of Tamil speaking people. In 1976 at the Vadukkodai conference all these three
communities passed the infamous resolution for a separate state on the basis of a united
Northern Province and an Eastern Province. Ashraff had been present at this conference.

What Ashraff did was to make the Muslims a minority among the so called Tamil
speaking people and ask for a non contiguous Muslim zone in a separate state. Of course
he did not say in so many words but he insisted on a Muslim zone in a federal state. After
thirty two years the Eastern Tamils have decided to separate from the Northern Tamils
and also from the domination by the Northern Tamils. Of course, it did not happen
overnight and Karuna Amman took the first step away from the union of the two
communities. It has now completed the circle and the Eastern Tamils under the leadership
of Pilliyan have taken a firm decision to separate from the separatists, and we salute the
Eastern Tamils for their historic decision.

The Muslims on the hand in spite of Hisbullahs, Athaullahs, Ferials and even the Iranian
President and Sri Lankan President who has been a friend of Palestinians throughout his
political career, have decided to be with Hakeem who is with the separatists and the
westerners. It is not clear whether the Muslims in the East want to be with the separatists
or their traditional loyalties to the UNP, which had been the Party of the Muslims before
Ashraaf, rejuvenated with the alliance between the UNP and the SLMC.

The SLFP has to think hard on this question and evolve a strategy to get the support of
the Muslims. It is true that they had Marikkars and now they have Moulanas. However,
they were not Muslims who were able to win the Muslims but rather Muslims who were
mainly elected by the Sinhala votes. In fact Marikkar was referred to as Sinhala
Marikkar and many Muslim SLFPers had the support of the Sinhala people more than
that of the Muslims. The Muslim factor has to be thought of very carefully especially in
the context of westerners attacking the Muslim culture. In the background of world

© Prof. Nalin De Silva

 www.kalaya.org

politics the Muslims should be with a party that is not an agent of the west. However, in
Sri Lanka traditionally the vast majority of Muslims have been supporting the UNP and
parties that align with the west, and not the SLFP. Some thought should be given to
understand this anomaly.

In any event the verdict of the Eastern province cannot be good news to the western
diplomats and their masters in their respective countries as they would have expected a
victory for the UNP-SLMC by hook or crook, with the support of their darling terrorist
Prabhakaran whom they claim to be different from bin Laden and others. The division
was clear in the East as the national forces against separatism, LTTE and their sponsors
in the west united against the UNP-SLMC alliance that is supported by the LTTE and the
west. Had the UNP-SLMC won the elections the clock would have been put back and the
country would have been drawn back thirty years nullifying the heroic work of the armed
forces. The victory in the east has justified politically the victory of the armed forces
militarily.

© Prof. Nalin De Silva