The general elections in Sri Lanka in the first week of April 2004 have revealed Sri Lanka to be a fragmented polity, both politically and ethnically. The main political casualty has been Ranil Wickramasinghe´s United National Party (UNP), which sought to lead the country to ethnic peace through compromise. The election results generally indicate that the UNP failed to keep its traditional urban Sinhala Buddhist middle-class base. The main electoral beneficiaries have been the parties that espoused ethnic nationalism without compromise. Foremost among these would be the Jana Vimukthi Perumana (JVP), which overshadowed its larger partner the Peoples Alliance, with JVP candidates getting on top of the list of candidates elected with the highest preferences in the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA). The JVP took an uncompromising stance against the peace process and the concessions made to the LTTE. In the north-east the LTTE´s proxy party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), swept the polls among the Tamil voters decimating its opponents, by virtue of LTTE assassinations and intimidation, by vote rigging and also quite possibly by choice.
The exit
The fact that the UNP fell into third place behind both the UPFA and the JHU in the suburbs of Colombo suggests that the Buddhist monks broke into the UNP´s vote bank, rather into the UPFA´s, as had been anticipated. The leeching away of the UNP´s middle-class base cannot be attributed solely to economic factors. Much seems attributable to the unhappiness with the concessions made to Tamil nationalism in the course of the peace process by the UNP.
The most important lacuna in the UNP government was the aloofness of its top leadership from the concerns of the Sinhalese masses, whether in respect of the peace process or economic hardships. The perception of rigidity with which the UNP government sought to implement structural adjustment requirements, such as cutting back on welfare and agriculture subsidies, served to alienate the people from the government. For instance, the government preferred to repay the Treasury´s overdraft of SLR 38 billion that it inherited from the previous government in 2001, and bring it down to SLR 5 billion at the time of the present elections, rather than use the money for the people´s direct welfare. This decision and others similar to it were justified on the basis of good governance, and were supported by the technocrats of the international donor community. But what was technically and economically a sound strategy was politically a disastrous one. The people wanted the economic benefits of peace immediately as they were poor and hungry, rather than wait for a future that might never come.
Where the peace process was concerned, the UNP failed to explain itself adequately to the populace. This was repeatedly told to the members of the erstwhile government by activists from civil society, who had many years of experience in working directly with the people. But the government seemed to think that the people would experience the fruits of peace for themselves, and find them very good. When the economic peace dividends did not materialise in the way the people anticipated, the UNP government should have gone to the people and explained the complexity of the situation. Instead, the UNP government seemed to want to leave this to civil society organisations, which were unequal to the task.
The LTTE also did much to erode the credibility of the UNP government by smuggling in weapons, recruiting children, assassinating its political opponents and the government´s intelligence agents, and by boycotting the peace talks. Finally by coming up with an interim administration proposal for the north-east that had no role in it for the central government, the LTTE opened the door to President Chandrika Kumaratunga to take control of the defence ministry and dissolve Parliament in February 2004, a full four years before completion of its term. Now in negotiating with the UPFA, the LTTE will find that their hardline stance will have to be replied to with its own hardline stance. All this, to the likely detriment of the peace process.