Preference Vote and the Enemy Within

The campaign to elect Sri Lanka’s seventh Parliament is now in full swing, and this week saw candidates being allocated numbers for the purpose of marking preference votes. And, as electioneering progresses, it is becoming increasingly evident that the ruling party and the opposition are fighting very different battles.

For the ruling United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA), there are two primary concerns. From a party standpoint, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has asked for a two-thirds majority in Parliament, so he could enact Constitutional changes. From the parliamentarians’ perspective, each candidate obviously wants to be elected to the Legislature against the backdrop of a tough battle for the preference vote.

A two-thirds majority for the UPFA would be a challenge under the Proportional Representation (PR) system. What is more likely is that the ruling party would obtain a few seats short of the 150 needed, and then engage in some political horse trading to make for the shortfall.

As for the tough battle for the preference vote, this is best indicated in the ruling party’s list for the Colombo district, where 19 seats are on offer. Assuming that the UPFA wins the district, it would probably gain 11 seats at most- and no less than nine Cabinet ministers, non-Cabinet Minister Mervyn Silva, Wimal Weerawansa, Duminda Silva and Thilanga Sumathipala are all in the fray.

If one assumes that the high profiles maintained by the latter four personalities will ensure their election to Parliament, this would mean that at least two senior ministers are bound to lose their seats in the upcoming election- a frightening thought indeed for these ministers.

Different politicians have adopted different methods in their campaigns. Perhaps following the trends set by the likes of Thilanga Sumathipala and Duminda Silva, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has embarked on a poster and cut-out blitz.

Bogollagama hails from the Kurunegala district, and has no electoral base as such in Colombo, being recently appointed as the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) organiser for Kotte. Hence the publicity blitz, where he hopes his name recognition as Foreign Minister will win him votes.
In absolute contrast, Justice & Law Reforms Minister Milinda Moragoda is content to canvass quietly, publicly stating that he would not resort to environmentally hostile propaganda methods such as posters and cut-outs. It is a novel method and deserves commendation.  
Like Bogollagama, Moragoda too, is a former United National Party (UNP) stalwart, but unlike the former, he has been in the news for all the right reasons. Moragoda is confident that his track record as minister, as well as his strategy of distancing himself from aggressive, in-your-face campaigning, will win him votes, in what is largely an educated and intelligent electoral district.

But these battles must pale into insignificance against what the UNP has to contend with. On the one hand, it has put up a reasonable performance, in order to maintain its credibility as the major opposition party in the country. Also, it has to deal with cracks emerging from within, which can cause serious embarrassment to the party, eventually leading to an erosion in its vote base at the electoral level.
A case in point is the fiasco in the Moneragala district. It is alleged that the name of a candidate nominated by the party has been substituted with another name, and the Nomination lists handed over thereafter. The UNP’s district leader, Ranjith Madduma Bandara now stands accused of masterminding this, in order to eliminate a candidate nominated by the SLFP (Mahajana) faction.

While charges and counter-charges have been traded already, needless to say, the party’s campaign in the Moneragala district is in disarray, and it will be the ruling UPFA which will gain from the fallout. It will be recalled that a similar incident led to the UNP losing control of the Colombo Municipal Council in 2006. Apparently, the party hierarchy has not done enough to prevent a recurrence of such unsavoury incidents.
Then, in the Gampaha district, we saw the spectacle of another SLFP (M) candidate nominated on the United National Alliance (UNA) list, Dilrukshi Sooriyarachchi, wife of the late renegade SLFP (M) MP Sripathi Sooriyarachchi, meeting President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday, and pledging her allegiance to the UPFA.
The UNP has had to swallow the bitter pill of parliamentarians elected on its votes later offering their support to the President and the UPFA, usually in return for the perks and privileges of a Cabinet portfolio, and is quite familiar with this scenario. Even so, Mrs. Sooriyarachchi’s volte face, even before campaigning has swung into top gear, must be a novel phenomenon.

It remains to be seen whether Mrs. Sooriyarachchi’s tactics will ensure that UNA voters in the Gampaha district will now also switch allegiance and vote for her, despite her undertaking to support the government, but again, this can only undermine the UNP in the key Gampaha district, a region which returns a larger number of representatives to Parliament.

As for the other major opposition party, the JVP, they have to divide their time between campaigning and supporting General Sarath Fonseka, who they have anointed as their leader for this particular election campaign. It is bound to have positive as well as negative repercussions for the JVP.

Certainly, the General will muster some ‘sympathy’ votes in the Colombo district, where he is contesting, and the majority of those votes will be votes which would have otherwise accumulated to the UNP. While the JVP stands to gain on this score, its performance in other districts will be the acid test of its countrywide popularity.
As it must learn from the presidential poll, active members and vociferous crowds do not readily translate into votes at an election, and it will almost certainly find its parliamentary strength reduced from the 39 seats it enjoyed in the sixth Parliament. We must hope that, in such a scenario, the JVP will not resort to its previous tactic of going underground and resorting to undemocratic methods to attain positions of power.
This election is therefore, shaping into an absorbing contest, not so much because its outcome is in doubt, but because of the various implications it has for the major parties participating in it. Interesting weeks are ahead, indeed.