There are only three short weeks left for the presidential election. The winning side will remain in a mood of triumph for some lengthy period of time and the losing side will inevitably have to savor the bitter fruits of defeat for a similar period. Under the old system, there was a change of government every five years. However, under the system introduced by JR Jayewardene, there can be a change of government after the lapse of two presidential terms of office, that is to say, after 12 years.
If Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe loses this contest, that will certainly spell the end of his political life. His party will be fragmented and one of the fragments will join the winner.
If Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa loses, a similar fate will befall him. His political life will come to an end. The Alliance will break up into fragments and one of the fragments will join the winner.
If Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe wins, its first consequence will be the dissolution of parliament. A parliamentary election held after a triumph at the presidential election will give all the advantages to Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe. Such a parliamentary election can have a disastrous effect on the JVP and the Hela Urumaya. The JVP’s parliamentary strength will drop sharply and the Hela Urumaya too might suffer a similar fate.
If Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa wins, dissolution of parliament will not be essential. He will be able to add the Hela Urumaya to his Sandhanaya (Alliance) and continue with the present parliament. However, if he feels that he needs a parliament where the JVP and the Hela Urumaya are weak and which gives weightage to the SLFP, he will go for a parliamentary election.
It is difficult to predict what Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa will do if he wins. There is the possibility of his proceeding with a program that will accord with the JVP and the Hela Urumaya and of trying to please everybody, or of proceeding with an agenda of his own. Although the JVP and the Hela Urumaya will not be able to oust Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa from power, if he proceeds disregarding them, there will be objections on the part of those two parties.
Unlike in the case of Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa, it will not be difficult to forecast what will happen if Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe wins. He will go for an early parliamentary election, not only for the purpose of strengthening his position in the parliament, but also to weaken the position of the JVP and the Hela Urumaya in the parliament. Even after a parliamentary election that strengthens his position and weakens that of the extremist parties and gives him a substantial number of seats to enable him to form a government of his own, he might opt to form a coalition government with the SLFP. He will thereby guarantee a situation where there will be no strong objections to his program of peace talks.
The party that will be left mostly in the lurch by a UNP triumph is the JVP, which will have to contest alone in a parliamentary election held following a UNP triumph. Such an election can greatly reduce the JVP’s number of parliamentary seats. For its survival, the JVP will have to change its leaders and reconsider its policies.
At the last parliamentary election, the Alliance was the victor. The alliance forged between the SLFP and the JVP led to a great euphoria and was able to win after pushing the UNP to the defensive. However, the Alliance was able to get only 45.60% (4,223,970) of the votes cast and if the number remains unchanged, that number of votes will not be adequate to win a presidential election. In fact a minimum of 4.4% more, which approximates to 500,000 votes, will be required for the purpose.
Some of the features observed in the conduct of the voters at the last election are as follows. At the parliamentary election of 2001, the JVP obtained 815,353 votes while the SLFP got 3,330,815 votes. After the formation of the Alliance the two parties in combination got 4,223,970, which was nearly equal to the sum of votes both parties had obtained at the election of 2001 at which they had contested separately. Therefore at the 2004 election the two parties appear to have been able to maintain the vote that they had obtained earlier, but not to increase it.
If the Alliance Government has been able to maintain an administration attractive to the people, there might be an increase in the Alliance vote. If, on the contrary, that administration has not been attractive to the people who put the Alliance in power, then its vote base can reduce.
The UNP was able to poll 4,086,026 votes at the 2001 election, but was able to poll only 3,504,200 votes at the election of 2004. The UNP’s loss equaled the Jathika Hela Urumaya’s increase in its vote. The Jathika Hela Urumaya polled 50,665 votes in 2001, but was able to obtain 552,724 votes in 2004. It is possible that the pro- UNP vote, disenchanted with the UNP, had voted for the Jathika Hela Urumaya. But how those voters will vote this time will be decisive to both the parties.
At the last parliamentary election, the votes that the Tamil National Alliance received amounted to 633,654. Its figure at the previous election was 348,164 votes. It is the LTTE that can determine the extent of the vote. It is still not clear which of the two candidates the LTTE will support this time. It might even follow a policy of not supporting anyone. If that happens there can be a decrease in the number of votes cast by Tamil people of the north and east.
Editor’s note: Written three weeks before the November 2005 presidential election. The LTTE enforced a boycott in the north and east, sharply reducing Tamil turnout as anticipated in the final paragraph. Mahinda Rajapaksa won by approximately 190,000 votes.