Two portentous results emerged from the parliamentary election in Sri Lanka, results of which were announced on 21 April. First, the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), led by President Mahinda Rajapakse, won a resounding victory, just six seats short of the two-thirds majority needed for a constitutional change. And second, almost 40 percent of the electorate did not vote. The UPFA victory is unprecedented, and it took place despite a precipitous decline in the regime's vote base between January and April 2010. (The UPFA's total vote in the parliamentary election was nearly 1.2 million less than Rajapakse's total vote in the presidential election, three months earlier.) In some districts, such as the Rajapakse bastion of Hambantota, the UPFA polled fewer votes in April than it did in the presidential election of 2005, and even the parliamentary election of 2004.
The proportional-representation system was introduced by President J R Jayewardene in 1989, partly to prevent any party from obtaining more than a simple majority. In a robust multiparty democracy, this system does indeed prevent victors from gaining huge majorities, as evidenced by the results of all Lankan elections from 1989. But huge majorities can happen when a multiparty democracy is eroded from within, when the main opposition party is debilitated by repeated defeats and is incapable of mounting an effective politico-electoral challenge to the government. Under the leadership of Ranil Wickremesinghe, the opposition United National Party (UNP) has suffered serial defeats; and with each, its politico-electoral strength has haemorrhaged. It was the UNP's debilitated state that enabled the UPFA to score a record victory in the recent polls, despite a sharp decline in its own support base.
With the latest debacle, Wickremesinghe has demonstrated, yet again, his inability to lead his party to electoral victory. The time is thus ripe for the UNP to try a new experiment: a leadership change. A few days after the election, Wickremesinghe announced that he would remain as the leader of the UNP. Though some attempts are being made to remove him from the leadership, their success is far from certain. In the past, all such attempts failed because Wickremesinghe's determination to remain at the helm of the party was far stronger than his detractors' determination to remove him. Whether the current efforts will end differently remains to be seen – though their progress will be closely watched by the Rajapakse regime, which has benefited immensely from Wickremesinghe's lackadaisical leadership of the main opposition party.
In a significant development, the UNP's manifesto for the parliamentary election made no mention of either the ethnic problem or the need for a political solution. This concession to Sinhalese supremacism notwithstanding, the UNP performed abysmally in Sinhalese-majority areas, indicating that, on the nationalist-patriotic axis, it cannot overtake the UPFA; instead, it should focus on areas where the regime is weak, such as the growing economic pains of the middle and lower classes. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which contested in alliance with the former head of the Sri Lanka Army and presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka, also suffered a disastrous defeat. The JVP, with just seven seats (the winners include Fonseka), is back to what it was during the period of 2000 and 2001. It too needs to shift its focus from the non-issue of its stance against devolution (the UPFA is strongly disinclined to devolve power away from the Centre) to other areas, and to work in conjunction with the UNP to impede the regime's triumphant march towards a new constitution.