The installation of a new government in Sri Lanka after a bruising general election last month offers a measure of hope to a war weary nation. The election pitted the centre-left People's Alliance (PA) government and its Marxist ally, the People's Liberation Front (JVP), against the centre-right United National Front (UNF).
Outwardly, the general election in Sri Lanka on 5 December was about the role of the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LITE) in a future peace process that would end the 18 year ethnic war. During the period of the election campaign, the powerful government-controlled media focussed almost exclusively on a secret deal between the main opposition party and the LTTE.
But underlying the rhetoric was the grim reality of an economy that had registered close to zero percent growth in the last year. The latest estimates put growth in 2001 at minus 0.6 percent. The economy is still reeling from the impact of an LTTE suicide mission in July that left half of Sri Lankan airlines fleet destroyed at the country's only international airport. Meanwhile, the PA's alliance with the Marxist-oriented JVP did nothing to encourage investors.
The clear mandate of the people at this election was for economic progress and peace with the LTTE, which were the two foremost promises of the UNF in its election campaign. The electorate's rejection of the nationalist propaganda of the PA, and the fear psychosis it tried to create, is a major encouragement for peace forces in the country. Ironically, the PA's nationalist propaganda was defeated in part by its own success. Over the past seven years, President Chandrika Kumaratunga was in the vanguard of those propounding that there is an ethnic conflict in the country that requires a political solution. But her government was unable to deliver on its pledges.