Tamils reject confrontational politics -M. M. Zuhair

The result of the Presidential Election have disclosed that President Mahinda Rajapaksa who obtained 226,000 votes from the entire North and East in the Presidential Election of 2005 has enhanced his vote-base to 346,000 an increase of 53%, while the Opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka has enhanced Opposition votes received in 2005 by only 28% said, M. M. Zuhair, former Member of Parliament and Ambassador to Iran.

He said the North and the East have 1,984,000 registered voters, based on the 1983 register. In the 2005 Presidential Election only 671,000 or 34% voted. But this time 917,000 or 46% have voted. A relevant factor in this connection is that a high percentage of Tamils estimated at around 500,000 are no longer resident in the Northern Province.

Taking this into consideration, nearly 60% of the entire resident population in the North and the East have exercised their franchise. This is a healthy development heralding the ushering of democracy in the war afflicted regions of the country. That the people of the North and the East voted more in favour of the Opposition candidate than the incumbent President would also demonstrate that the election has been free and fair.

However, a significant development in the Northern polls is that the main regional party in the North, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) led by R. Sampanthan has been clearly ignored by the Tamils of the Northern Province. Despite TNA's alliance with opposition candidate Sarath Fonseka, only 16% in the Jaffna district and in the Vanni district only 26% voted with Fonseka.

If we take the entire Northern Province, on an average only 21% had voted for Fonseka. Giving credit to the non-resident Tamils, not more than 30% of the entire North had supported the TNA's call to elect Sarath Fonseka to the Presidency of the country, a dismal performance, since 70% had rejected the TNA and the opposition alliance. The news is not in the rejection of national parties but the rejection of TNA, the predominant regional party, which held sway in the Northern Province, during the last seven decades, to the substantial exclusion of national parties.

Another important factor is that the Northern voters by voting for two Southern candidates who spearheaded the destruction of the LTTE were conveying a message, namely that they were no longer willing to accommodate the Eelam project.

They had done so with the largest number in 30 years turning up at the polls even as nearly 70% ignored the TNA's campaign to have Fonseka elected President. It would be incorrect to say that those who did not vote for President Rajapaksa were supporters of the Eelam project.