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by Ranga Jayasuriya and Jayantha Sri Nissanka

Had not the Southern Province voted overwhelmingly for Mahinda Rajapakse, his presidential dream would have been a daydream.

Rajapakse himself was mindful of the significance of the Southern Province, if he was to have an edge in the Presidential race. It was after all his home turf.

And he won it in a landslide, the sole exception being the Galle Electoral Division. Rajapakse's over 310,000 vote convincing lead in the Southern Province against his main contender Ranil Wickremesinghe easily mitigated the latter's electoral losses in ethnic minority areas.

It is obvious that regional vanities have mattered a lot when people of the South voted for the fifth Executive President.

An analysis of Rajapakse's vote bank also reveals a high concentration of middle class and lower middle class votes. More than the urban and rural divide, a class division is indicative in the election results, with the middle and lower middle class having overwhelmingly voted for Rajapakse.

Two thirds of the Sri Lankan electorate is represented by the middle and lower middle class, who, as it is evident in the election results, have found Rajapakse a better choice than Wickremesinghe.

The major problems affecting the middle class are, understandably, soaring cost of living, transport, health, education, etc.

When Wickremesinghe was in power for two years since 2001, some of his economic policies were unfavourable to the middle and lower middle class. Wickremesinghe's financial restrictions curtailed the financial allocations for Government institutions, which badly affected the middle and lower middle class who are dependent on the public sector services.

When Ranil Wickremesinghe, a neo-liberal pitted against Rajapakse who pledged to strengthen the welfare state, the middle class, understandably, did not need much time to puzzle over whom to vote. Furthermore, Wickremesinghe's standing on the peace process did not impress the majority Sinhala voter who viewed the UNP Leader as too soft on the Tigers.

The spree of ceasefire violations and violation of human rights and absence of pluralism and democracy also presented Wickremesinghe, who secured the CFA in a negative light.

Analysing Rajapakse's vote base, one could also see its concentration in the Sinhala majority districts and his failure in ethnic minority dominated areas, for instance Nuwara Eliya, Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Badulla districts.

Wickremesinghe won Nuwara Eliya district with a convincing lead of over 150,000 votes and Batticaloa by 90,000 votes. As far as the two districts are concerned, Wickremesinghe's lead would have been greater, had more voters turned up at the polling stations.

This is indicative of the fact that ethnic minorities in the country sans North-East have voted overwhelmingly for Wickremesinghe. That is mainly because of the UNP leadership's electoral alliance with the Ceylon Workers Congress and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress.

But, Rajapakse's electoral alliance with the JVP and the JHU could have also resulted in the ethnic minorities keeping away from Rajapakse.

But, Rajapakse has done his arithmetic, what was lost in the form of ethnic minority votes was substituted by JVP-JHU votes in the South.

Furthermore, had either JVP or the JHU gone it alone, in case of Rajapakse having refused to accommodate them, the election result would have been totally different.

It is not difficult to imagine the outcome of an election , in case of the JHU or the JVP contesting alone and eating into Rajapakse's vote bank, specially when the latter is having only a slim majority of 186,000 votes.

Rajapakse's electoral alliance with the JVP and JHU is a work of good arithmetic, though there are, understandably, practical reasons which forced him to do so, for instance the making use of well oiled organisational machinery of the JVP, which indeed later played a greater role in the election campaign of the UPFA Presidential aspirant.

In addition to the Southern Province, Rajapakse has secured the rural hinterland, Moneragala, Polonnaruwa, Anuradapura and also Kurunegala, Gampaha, Kegalle, Ratnapura and Kalutara districts. An analysis of Rajapakse's vote bank makes it obvious that his portrayal of himself as a commoner and a native son, in short "I am one of you" message has rewarded him handsomely.

That is the fundamental strength behind Rajapakse's victory. The vast rural electorate voted en masse to elect the man whom they believe was closer to them.

It would, however, be pertinent to ask whether the rural populace was taken up by Rajapakse's manifesto, the Mahinda Chinthana. Perhaps some must have read it, but the vast majority voted him in because of their belief that he represented the rural masses. High flown political manifestos do not go well with the rural electorate, which amounts to 75 per cent of popular votes.

Rajapakse had other advantages also.

His attachment to the trade union movement and his role as a human rights activists were proved rewarding.

Rajapakse had secured the support in the South and, of course, of a number of different, if not conflicting political opinions, ranging from the JVP, JHU, CP, LSSP, Liberal Party, trade unionists and minority parties like the EPDP and National Unity Alliance.

By doing so he secured perhaps the broadest electoral alliance in the recent political history, which was instrumental in his election victory.

But, there are drawbacks also.

The inclusion of the JVP and JHU in Rajapake's electoral alliance resulted in minorities distancing themselves from Rajapakse.The Western coastal belt where Catholics are concentrated is generally considered a UNP stronghold.

But, understandably, fear of religious marginalisation, influenced by JHU orchestrated policies further exposed the Rajapakse campaign in a negative light in the Negombo, Wattala, Puttalam, Chilaw electoral divisions, where Catholics amount to a reasonable proportion of the local population. The election has also opened up new questions about the ethnic divide in the Sri Lankan State which need to be addressed sooner than later.Rajapakse needs to concentrate on why ethnic minorities did not vote for him and should formulate a strategy to win their confidence.

Perhaps, the most disturbing was the LTTE enforced boycott in the North East.

It is naive to suggest that the boycott was voluntary or as the LTTE and LTTE proxy Tamil National Alliance put it was " the collective thinking of Tamils".

The LTTE mobilised its front organisations calling for a boycott of the election and on election day, the Tigers cut off transport and ferry services, preventing people from going to cluster polling stations. The boycott is brutally forced on a populace who happened to live in the monolithical society created by the Tigers.

The Tigers effectively disenfranchised nearly 900,000 voters in the Northern Province and disrupted the election in the East, by preventing people from travelling to the government controlled areas.

And in the immediate aftermath of the election, the LTTE lobbed a hand grenade at worshippers in a mosque in Akkaraipattu, killing four on the spot.

Needless to say that had the hundreds of thousands disenfranchised Tamils been allowed to vote on that day, the result of the election would have been different.

Ranil Wickremesinghe enjoys a soft corner in the Tamil heart for bringing a ruinous war to a halt through the ceasefire agreement.

That would have been translated to votes had the Tamils been allowed to vote.

Understandably, the LTTE does not want to lose its control over the public, nor does it wish to share the loyalty of the Jaffna populace with any other Southern political actor -- Remember, Prabhakaran has wiped out a whole set of the moderate Tamil leadership to establish himself as "the sole representative of Tamils".

Wickremesinghe would have been naive if he expected a sort of courtesy from the Tiger chief for his commitment to the peace process.

Now it is clear that Prabhakaran has politically assassinated Wickremesinghe.

The dust is settling as the election carnival winds up. And, people have decided on their Fifth Executive President.

Irrespective of who polled for him and who did not, Rajapakse is the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka encompassing nine provinces.

Rajapakse polled only 28,000 votes more than the 50 percent of the popular votes. But now he is the President of every citizen.

His real challenge would be to accommodate the diversity of the Sri Lankan State and make it a strength rather than a cause for conflict.

He needs to reach out to all communities and ensure that no one would be marginalised on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, language or any other characteristic.

He is required to adopt a pragmatic approach on the National Question and to sustain the support of all those who put their weight behind him for his election, to seek a negotiated solution to the National Question. As he emerges victorious from a close fought election, a real battle on the peace front lies ahead.

That would be the real test as all his predecessors failed in this endeavour.

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