Two portentous results emerged from the parliamentary election in Sri Lanka. The ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by President Mahinda Rajapakse won a resounding victory, just short of the two-thirds majority needed for a constitutional change. And almost 40% of the electorate did not vote.
The UPFA victory is unprecedented. And it happened despite a precipitous decline in the regime's support base, between January and April 2010. The total number of votes polled by the UPFA at the parliamentary election is significantly lower than the total number of voted polled by Rajapakse at the Presidential election, less than three months ago. In some districts, such as the Rajapakse bastion of Hambantota, the UPFA polled fewer votes last week than it did at the Presidential election of 2005 and even the parliamentary election of 2004.
The proportional representation system was introduced by President JR Jayewardene partly to prevent any party from obtaining more than a simple majority. In a robust multiparty democracy, the PR system does indeed prevent victors from gaining huge majorities – as is 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 United National Party (UNP) has suffered serial defeats; with each defeat, its political and electoral strength has haemorrhaged. It was this debilitated state of the UNP rather than an increase in its own support base which enabled the UPFA to score a record victory last week.
With the latest debacle, Wickremesinghe has demonstrated, yet again, his inability to lead his party to electoral victories. The time is thus ripe for the UNP to try a new experiment – a leadership change. 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 Sinhala supremacism notwithstanding the UNP performed abysmally in Sinhala majority areas, indicating that on the 'nationalist/patriotic' axis the UNP 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.