North spruced up for elections as Tamil parties long for facelift

by Shanika SRIYANANDA

At last, the North is all spruced up to hold long eluded elections. Trying to rise from the ashes of three decades long war, people of the North will cast their first vote at the forthcoming elections of Jaffna Municipal Council (JMC) and Vavuniya Urban Councils (VUC) on August 8.

Minister Douglas Devananda	TULF Leader V. Anandasangaree	Minister of National Integration Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan

A month after the military battle filled with sweat, blood and tears, liberated over 300,000 people, democracy is set to return to the North with the Government’s decision to hold polls as a first step towards that end.

Putting their blood stained past into the forgotten some political parties are to contest with the UPFA in a more democratic way, hoping a landslide victory would do justice for their people who suffered under the iron fist of the LTTE.

From the day that the Government announced the elections of the JMC and VUC, these political parties giving pledges to the people, who were ruled by the ruthless war lords, have commenced their campaign to seek more votes while hanging to the UPFA. Majority of Tamil political leaders in the `game’ believe that the Government can uplift the lives of the Northern people and bring development to their doorstep.

However, several accusations - abductions, free movement of armed groups, threats, intimidation - are mounted against some parties as election day nears. But some brushing aside all these claims, said that the politicians who do not have the people’s support to come into power, have levelled these accusations just to get more `sympathy’ and to arouse unnecessary `fear phycosis’ in the minds of people to prevent a free and fair election.

As people are waiting for brighter days to come, these political parties have a responsibility beyond a mere victory as the devastation in the war ravaged areas needs fresh breath to shed those ugly scars.

Speaking to the Sunday Observer Tamil politicians in the election campaign expressed their views on the happenings and their desire to be elected to the MC and VUC.

The EPDP, which is in the forefront of the campaign, has high hopes that it will achieve a remarkable victory in the JMC. Minister Douglas Devananda, who is fully engaged in the election campaign and spends more time in Jaffna, said that no other political party could bring normalacy to the North and they decided to contest on the UPFA ticket because the Government accepted the EPDP stand to develop the North.

“The decision to lift the sanctions on fishing has greatly helped the people. They have faced severe hardships during the past three years with these sanctions which limited fishing. This affected their economy badly. The EPDP would certainly win the JMC”, he said.

According to Minister Devananda, Northern people are badly in need of more practical solutions and they are aspiring to see that Jaffna returns to its glorious past.

Out of 29 candidates nominated for the JMC by the UPFA, 20 are from the EPDP.

With the announcement of the elections in the Northern part of the country, the Minister of National Integration Vinayagamurthi Muralitharan, who is now busy organizing propaganda committees for the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in his Batticaloa district said that the UPFA would have a landslide victory in the forthcoming local government elections in the North.

Minister Muralitharan who formed the TMVP, and later delivered a bombshell by taking membership of the SLFP, said that Northern people who were freed from the LTTE after 30-years, would definitely vote for the UPFA.

“Everyone wants to strengthen the hands of President Mahinda Rajapaksa who liberated them after decades”, he said.

Taking part in a SLFP organizing committee meeting held in Batticaloa recently he said that he was planning to form SLFP propaganda committees in each district, and two such committees had already been formed in Vavuniya and Jaffna.

According to the Minister, two candidates from Vavuniya and two from Jaffna have already been selected for the forthcoming elections. He said that the TELO would join the SLFP after the election and that he was confident that the people of the North would give their fullest support for the SLFP.

TULF Leader V. Ananda Sangaree, who formed a unity - Democratic Tamil National Alliance with the PLOTE and EPRLF - strongly believes that `this is not the correct time to hold elections’.

He said that though the LTTE is dead and gone, there was no peaceful environment to carry out election campaigns as normalacy was not prevailing in those areas. “I do not know much about Vavuniya, but the situation is bad in Jaffna. Several armed groups are roaming around and people are getting threats and they are attacking the press”, he said.

Ananda Sangaree, who has not commenced his election campaign, said that his candidates could not move about as there are armed groups roaming around.

“If the Government does not take steps to withdraw weapons in possion of these para military groups, people can not have hopes for a free and fair poll”, he said.

“I think the Government should postpone the elections until the situation improves”, he said, adding that he had problems with selecting candidates as the selected candidates withdraw their names next day due to fear.

Leader of the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance R. Sampanthan said that they were facing the forthcoming elections, but refused to comment about the situation in the areas and allegations about armed groups saying that he came from a foreign trip and needed time to study the situation.

General Secretary of the TELO (Sri Group) Pararajasigam Uthayarasa describe the Government’s decision to hold elections as a wise step, and pledged to support the Government in their efforts to rebuild a new North.

“We have joined the UPFA because only the Government can develop the North and uplift the lives of the people”, he said.

Uthayarasa said that they have hopes that the outspoken politicians of the UPFA were not anti Tamil or anti minorities and they would accommodate the wishes of the Tamils to give them a better life.

He said that they who strongly opposed the LTTE’s `sole representative idea’ remained in their original view because the TELO represents all the people of this country.

“What we need urgently is the national unity and reconciliation.

This can only be achieved by forgetting the past and having hopes for future”, he said.

Uthayarasa said that the two cities - Jaffna and Vavuniya which demonstrate the devastation of the three-decade long war, needs a good facelift with development to make the people to stand on their own feet.

Rajanathan Prabhakaran, Secretary General of EROS, saying that there would be three candidates for the MC and two for the VUC from the EROS, pledged to support the UPFA.

He said that it was the right time to hold the elections, and people need to select their own candidates from their respective areas to develop their areas. “Politicians from Colombo cannot solve those people’s problems and people believe more in politicians from their own villages.

We are confident with the country’s leadership and strongly believe that the Government would take concrete steps to solve the issues like IDPs, resettlement and rehabilitation to make the North vibrant.

Refuting allegations that para-military groups are active in these two areas, he said that these claims are just to gain sympathy, and those who levelled those allegations could refrain from giving nominations.

“But they nominated their contestants and are now trying to gain sympathy. The people of the North are more practical and they do not want to commit the same mistakes again”, Prabhakaran said.

He said that people want EROS, which had 13 Parliamentarians in 1988, to raise its head in politics.

Prabhakaran said that Tamils appreciated the speech by the President who said that there were no minorities in the country, and that he was ready to solve the problems of the Tamils by giving more than the 13th Amendment.