P Kharel

In many ways, much of Sri Lanka’s power politics is headed for being dominated by the Rajapakse siblings and their relatives for at least the next five years. As was widely expected by the South Asian island state’s press and political analysts, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 70, a former Defence Secretary, emerged a clear winner in the race for the November 16 presidential election, obtaining slightly over 52 per cent of the votes cast. Rapakse defeated the ruling United National Party’s Sajith Premadas, son of the ex-president Ranasinghe Premmadasa who was assassinated in 1993.
In a charged atmosphere that the country experienced on election eve, the candidate from the opposition party often does not share the burden of directly involved in conducting elections and thus avoid being accused of tampering with the ballot boxes. In South Asia, whenever the ruling side gets re-elected, the opposition habitually cries hoarse about the government having rigged the polls.

Dynastic streak
The president-elect Rajapaksa is not without experience, having held the defence portfolio for a decade during his elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa’s decade-long tenure from 2005 to 2015. Five years in the background and out of power, both the brothers have made an amazing comeback in that they are in the political the centre-stage, what with the former president being appointed the prime minister after opposition party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe resigned when he realised the certainty of losing majority support in parliament. Another Rajapakse brother Chamal donning the parliament’s speaker’s headgear. In fact, a fourth brother Basil Rajapakse looks after their party Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna’s finances, presenting a powerful quartet.
In addition, a number of their relatives have also found seats in parliament. Three men of the next generation are engaged in political activity hoping to harvest a repeat of successes their elders have achieved. That’s how politics often works in developing countries, South Asia being no exception.
The Rajapakse clan’s will now brace for parliamentary polls. During its campaign, it will try cashing in on the breakthrough it delivered in 2009 by ending the 37-year civil war that had claimed the lives of 100,000 in a country whose current population stands at 21.6 million. Tamils constitute 15 per cent and most of them live in the northern region of Jaffna.
Reassuring the Tamils against discrimination is an essential task if the power-wielders in Colombo were serious in the business of drawing the minority in the national mainstream in thought and action. Shortly after being declared winner, Rajapakse said: “As we usher in a new journey for Sri Lanka, we must remember that all Sri Lankans are part of this journey. Let us rejoice peacefully, with dignity and discipline in the same manner in which we campaigned.” After being sworn in to the high office the next day, he vowed to become the leader of all Sri Lankans, irrespective of their race or religion.
That was an appropriate statement from a leader, whose past as a minister in his elder brother’s government presented him as someone prepared to bulldoze his way for attaining his objective. He proved to be a backbone for Mahinda Rajapakse’s decade-long rule that eventually crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eleam militants. Political violence has marked Sri Lanka’s politics over the seven decades of its independence from Britain. President Solomon Bandaranaike was assassinated. His widow Srimavo Bandaranaike and their daughter Chandrika Kumaratunge were also president in subsequent years.
Mahinda Rajapkse’s tactics used in ending the civil war is often described by the Western media as “brutal” though they conveniently more often than not skip mentioning the background of foreign forces having killed more than 200,000 civilians in the initial days of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The country’s new president will continue carrying the burden of an image of having aided his brother in unleashing brutal methods in containing and finally crushing the armed Tamil militants. In 2009, a number of tiny but rich north European countries wanted to monitor the last push Colombo was applying to subdue the LTTE militants. Often known for raising issues at international forums that had tacit approval of leading Western capitals, the Norwegians were particularly vociferous in clamouring for access to the war region during the last few months of the war in Sri Lanka.
Colombo sternly rejected the request, and there has been no end to the spurned Western-funded rights agencies’ regular cry for a probe into their allegations against Colombo. This has gone on for five years without any letup. Hence it is a telling event that the much-maligned Rajapakse, termed the “terminator” for the manner in which massive force was used to end the deadly and debilitating war, has passed the acid test of popular verdict. More than 83 per cent of the nearly 16 million eligible voters turned out to decide.

Acid test
That Rajapakse won a clear majority of the votes in a record race of 35 candidates reinforces on which side the people are. Had he been an incumbent president retaining power, his critics could have attributed the victory to ballot-stuffing, however flimsy the claim. The new president will have to set the pace for sustained reconciliation process through confidence-building and appropriate action. At the same time, the sluggish economy needs to be spurred to shore up the spirits of an average youth. Sri Lankan leaders in the past spoke of modelling their country on Singapore which made dramatic economic breakthroughs at breathtaking pace and speed, to the envy of its giant neighbours like Malaysia and Indonesia.
The deciding factor in attaining success is that Singapore had a Lee Kuan Yew—a man of vision, determination, intelligence and the power of persuasion that stood in good stead when Singapore was made to separate from Malaysia. Sri Lanka’s high literacy rate and manageable fertility rate since the 1970 were assets that the rest of South Asia did not have. Its civil war sapped much energy and slowed down development pace. The new president should prove his mettle in accelerating the pace of economic progress and also in healing the deep wounds the decades of civil war inflicted.

(Former chief editor of The Rising Nepal, P. Kharel has been writing for this daily since 1973)