Post election scenario - a glimpse

by Jalita WIJEYEKDOM

The sixth Parliament of the 1978 Constitution, was dissolved on February 10, and the General Election was held on April 8, 2010. There was a period of nearly two months for the candidates to conduct their election campaigns and all candidates were heavily involved and did their utmost to emerge victorious.

For the 196 slots in Parliament, over 7,000 candidates contested under registered parties and Independent groups. All the sitting Parliamentarians contested except a very few who were nominated to the National List. The only Parliamentarian who stepped down from politics due to ill health was Agriculture Minister Hemakumara Nanayakkara. Though it was a daunting task for the dissident UNPers to contest under the UPFA ticket most of them secured their seats, some with comfortable majority votes while a few others were not successful.

Delicate issue

Now that the election is over and a large number of people concerned was deeply engaged in the after election process as to how future planning should be done to achieve the desired goals.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa was the busiest and most concerned man of all. He was heavily involved with his close confidents in choosing his Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers. He knew fully well that a number of senior members in the party were eyeing the prestigious position of Prime Minister while other seasoned parliamentarians who scored higher numbers of preferential votes and who command public confidence and the respect of party members were also targeting it.

So it was a very delicate issue for the President to handle although it was his sole prerogative to appoint the PM. The President handled the situation very diplomatically and appointed the most senior member of the SLFP, the vociferous speaker D.M. Jayaratne as the Prime Minister without hurting the feelings of other aspirants. D.M. Jayaratne was overjoyed with the achievement and still celebrating it saying it was a long over due victory.

Cabinet pruned

According to the election manifesto the Cabinet had to be pruned to minimise the colossal amounts of funds spent during the last regime to divert it for national development.

Election results indicate that except for four Cabinet Ministers, five non Cabinet Ministers and five Deputy Ministers, all the other ministers have retained their seats in Parliament along with a group of newcomers. All the former ministers anticipated Ministerial portfolios. Some of them started making representations to influence the President through Mahanayake Theras and other religious leaders to retain their positions.

National List slot

One prominent Cabinet Minister who lost at the election was trying all possible means, even through diplomatic missions to get himself appointed through the National List and retain his all important portfolio proclaiming that he was the most suitable person to handle the job.

Most of these ministers spent huge sums of money in their election campaigns and now are in a quandary as to what their future would be and perhaps with less important ministries. May be they have not spent out of their own pockets but by some businessmen who had been immensely benefited by them. So these businessmen in return expect this ministers to look after their interests in future too.

In the run up to the election campaign we could see that some affluent ministers tried various new election techniques to garner higher number of preferential votes in their respective districts.

It is learnt that some affluent candidates have simply walked into the banks and supermarkets where their area people had come to settle their amenities bills and to purchase new year requirements, had collected all their invoices and paid out of candidate’s own pocket and handed over the paid receipts to the respective people without scrutinizing their party affiliations.

This type of generous gesture and magnanimous attitude of the particular candidate had amply paid dividends in return when the final election results were announced in the district.

Unlike in the good old days politics at present has become a very lucrative profession and that may be the reason for people to spend so much money to win elections. In addition to the powers vested on them by way of ministerial positions, the privileges enjoyed by them are even more attractive. Defeated ministers must be extremely worried when they think of the time they spent while in office.

When we analyse the election results, it is quite evident that the voters in some districts have rejected their previous representatives who did not live up to their expectations.

As usual some defeated contestants came out with lame excuses such as vote rigging and miscalculations of preferences or poor voter turnout at the elections which resulted in their poor performances. This applies equally to candidates of the opposition and the government.

New year dawns

With the conclusion of the 2010 General Election the Sinhala and Hindu New Year dawned and the whole country celebrated it on a grand scale since it was the first New Year to be celebrated throughout the island with the eradication of terrorism after 30 years. Successful candidates at the election celebrated the New Year in an unprecedented degree of enjoyment with their family members and friends, colleagues and party supporters.

UNF in chaos

In the meantime, the opposition leader is confronted with a number of new problems and challenges in addition to the humiliating defeat suffered by the party at the election. Two Tamil constituent partners of the opposition alliance have already left the alliance blaming the leadership for not adhering to the agreement in allocating National List slots.

Assistant leader of the party Rukman Senanayake who represented the Kegalle district, didn’t contest the last election and his name was in the UNP National List. But he has not been accommodated in the nine member list by the party. Therefore, he quit the party and resigned from all positions held with immediate effect. Some of the prominent district leaders have already started firing missiles at the leadership over the very poor performance at the elections.

A large number of young UNP Provincial Councillors contested the elections from their districts and only a handful of them were able to occupy seats in Parliament. They also had to spend huge amounts of money in the run up to the election and some of them who didn’t have affluent people to finance their campaigns, have gone to the extent of disposing some of their properties and also even mortgaging their ancestral houses. With all that some have marginally lost the election and they are facing utter disappointment.

Two artists and a sportswoman who contested the election under the umbrella of UPFA from Galle and Kegalle districts had not been able to secure seats in the Parliament.

All three of them openly accuse the other elected members in the district for robbing their preferential votes through computer gimmicks. They make statements to the media and make mockery of the situation without paying scan respect to the party policies and principles.

With the announcement of the new Cabinet few members are extremely happy with their new portfolios while some others are frustrated with what they have got. Some of them who had held better ministries during the last regime have got deputy minister posts this time and now in a quandary as to why they were treated poorly by the President after having done all the spade work to achieve near two third majority.

Left wing camp

It has been also observed that certain politicians who had been relegated to the political wilderness for long periods, have bounced back at the last General Election contesting under the UPFA umbrella. These left wing five party camp has already started claiming that their ideology could be once again disseminated and educate the public and go forward as the JVP has betrayed the struggle.

The JVP has suffered the greatest humiliation at the last elections and moreover some of their previous main bases had been reduced to nothing with the recent outcome. But the party theoreticians claim boldly that they have not personally lost anything but the voters have lost a lot of things by not electing the watchdogs of the nation to protect their rights in the supreme legislature.

Some minority community leaders who overestimated themselves and virtually challenged the major party leaders were also rejected by the people at the elections.

Now that the election is over the Prime Minister and the Cabinet appointed, it is the responsibility of all politicians to work in harmony for peace and prosperity to guarantee a brighter future for the country.