Can a hung Parliament that is widely predicted in the run-up to Sri Lanka's 10 October general elections, be the troubled country's great opportunity to abandon the traditional confrontational politics, and work towards a consensual government and the resolution of the ethnic problem that has led to a 17-year-long civil war? Some analysts and intellectuals looking for positive aspects of an otherwise grim scenario concede the possibility.
Most observers agree that neither President Chandrika Kumaratunga's ruling People's Alliance (PA) or the opposition United National Party (UNP) led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, are likely to win a comfortable working majority in the 225-member Parliament, particularly in the context of the country's proportional representation system of elections that makes large majorities improbable, if not impossible. Although the picture can change in the four weeks before the poll, as Liberal Party leader Professor Rajiva Wijesinha says, "Unless there is a lot of cheating, no party will get an absolute majority." S.L. Gunasekera who leads the new Sinhala Urumaya Party emphatically agrees: "A hung Parliament is a certainty if there is a free and fair election."
But there are widely held fears that the election will neither be free nor fair, and that the government will maximise the advantages of incumbency to boost its own chances. Already the anticipated violence has erupted with seven persons including a candidate, being killed in election-related incidents. While Kumaratunga maintains the public stance that the election must be won "by fair and legitimate means", and says that "we have no intention of winning by violence, thuggery or stuffing ballot boxes", there has yet been no credible explanation offered on why an independent election commission that has long been demanded was not appointed in time for the elections.
Kumaratunga was first elected prime minister in August 1994, and was elected to the nearly all-powerful presidency three months later- after her main opponent was assassinated by the Tamil Tigers. She pledged to abolish this office by July 1995 but failed to deliver, and won a second six-year term in December last year when she herself narrowly escaped a Tiger assassination bid at her final campaign rally. She remains a prime target of the LTTE, and has been forced by security considerations to limit her campaign appearances. Kumaratunga still says that she will abolish the presidency through a new constitution if her party is returned in October, but she wants a six-year transitional provision that will keep her in office with all powers intact for the forthcoming term.