Electorate not fooled by joint opposition campaign

Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe - Secretary, Ministry of Human Rights and Disaster Management in an interview with the Sunday Observer said that the electorate wasn’t fooled by the joint opposition campaign

by Dhaneshi YATAWARA

Q: How do you see this election victory of this Presidential Election?

Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe

A: It shows a very mature electorate. It was clear that the electorate just wasn’t fooled by a lot of extraordinary confusion generated by this so-called joint opposition campaign. Especially those who were in the rural areas away from big urban cities, the rural electorate voted for stability and obviously with past experience they were clearly very grateful to a Government that had done a number of exceptional things. First they defeated terrorism, secondly it was defeating terrorism without giving in to forces that tried to turn this into a racist episode. And thirdly even in the midst of the massive cost of fighting terror, the President did more for infrastructure development than any other leader has done.

One of the biggest problems of the Government was getting that message across. The amount of work in the East, the North and the rest of the country in terms of development was astounding. There were people, who obviously supported the Government, who were of the view that the country belongs to the majority and the chief amongst them, ironically, was the former Army Commander. He is entitled to his views but it was funny to find him one year later being the champion of a different wing. But people were not fooled. They not only welcomed the defeat of terror but we have to remember that all political polls right through the years 2006, 2007, 2008 indicated that while people wanted terror eradicated there was no opposition to policies of pluralism. And I think the President was very successful in making sure that the entire coalition supported the idea of Provincial Councils.

Q: What could have been the consequence if Mahinda Rajapaksa missed the victory?

A: In 2001, a diplomat told me that he has never seen a country going backwards in the past two years. He said as he took over his position as an Ambassador in 1999 the Government had several plans for power plants. He said that even after three years there was no move to commence these projects and basically the country was giving in to blackmail. That was then we assumed Ranil Wickremesinghe would do better but he didn’t. But President Rajapaksa went ahead. He went ahead in a manner that, people who opposed him earlier, accepted his argument.

The majority of the Sri Lankans voted for Mahinda Rajapaksa and this was more than expected. How do you see this?

A: President Mahinda Rajapaksa went ahead in a manner that people who opposed this issue earlier accepted his arguments. That was bridge building. He is someone who does what is essential for the country but does not create confrontations. People have recognized all these factors and how the Government handled all the negative factors. And in issues like Cost Of Living, though was not created by the present Government and while all other countries are also facing a global financial crisis, we maintained our cost of living at reasonable levels with proper decisions taken by the Government despite the war. People recognized this more than I thought.

Q: What if the opposing parties won the election?

A: I think we would have faced complete instability.

Q: On what basis do you say that?

A: Well, the different components of the opposition were totally incompatible. One thing I could not understand and I did ask from people I know and who were UNP voters was, how could they support somebody who was at the total butt of their criticism. I myself had to defend the Government a year ago when Fonseka made a remark about Sinhala majority. We had to emphasize that this was not the Government policy. But many parties continued to say that “but the Army Commander said such a thing”. And we had to argue that the Army Commander does not represent the Government and it can be his own point of view. They also said the Army Commander should not say such things to which I had no answer.

Then the former Army Commander said the Tamil Nadu politicians were jokers and that created another issue. Then in last May he said the Army is planning to increase the Army up to 100,000. And I myself had to reply to certain concerned parties saying that this is not that Government’s policy. He had given Interviews saying these and such statements were highly criticized by the UNP then. When the Presidential campaign was going on and I asked UNPers that it seems the JVP was in control of the campaign for a long time and they said that they do not intend to jointly work with the JVP after the Presidential polls. Surely they cannot get rid of the JVP just like that. That will not be possible. They should have thought of what happened to 1988, 1989. Then they join hands with the TNA - any person in his right sense could realize that there should be something wrong as these were the people who supported the LTTE who now support Fonseka. So this lack of consistency was a worrying factor.

Q: How do you explain the results shown in the North and the East?

A: The President said the right thing soon after his victory. He said “I am the President not only of those who voted for me but also of those who did not vote for me as well.” We should not look at the negative side but look at the people who voted for the President. And that is the start. We must also look at it keeping in mind the press President Rajapaksa was getting. Particularly the private media which opposed the Government, Tamil media was anti-government. So in this context it was not something to get upset about but something that we should make sure that we improve. This is not a discouraging result. Of course we need to closely analyze this issue. And I know the President would have clearly understood that we need to do more. What I see is that the massive development task carried out by the Government was not properly communicated to the Tamil majority especially in Tamil and English as well.

There could have been, understandably, a lot of stress on good communication skills to pass this message across. But the President understood this well. And he became a good communicator in Tamil. But that didn’t spread elsewhere and we all have to be ashamed in comparison with the President. Communicating with the Tamil populace in their own language we could do things much better and the President gave a good lesson we have to quickly absorb. The polling in the North was small due to lack of transport. In this context those who would vote would be those who were politically motivated. These would be the people who had a political axe to grind against the Government whereas the average peasantry, to which the Government has done so much, probably did not vote. And that is why a larger voter turnout would be better.

Q: So you think the shadow LTTE forces affected these people’s minds?

A: Oh yes. That small number of people voted represents those who were to get sophistications from the foreigners. It is the poor who could not vote. You know, this is like in 1988, when the JVP ‘bheeshanaya’ put off the SLFP voter. That is how the then leader won. So all the time when there is a lower voter turnout, it is the poorer people who don’t vote. They are the people who are afraid to go out. And the probability is high that the sophisticated voter would be an LTTE supporter.

Q: In your point of view what could be the reason behind this lack of communication?

A: It is this inapt education system of ours. I have always said that any country that tries to imprison the people in monolingulism is destined to create people without the ability to reach out to other people. I passionately believe in bilingualism and trilingualism would be ideal though it may not be possible with everybody. We adopted a system where we madly made Sinhala children to learn only in Sinhala and Tamil children to learn only in Tamil as an act of fairness. But we should have assured some sort of communication between these two groups. And we must remember, especially for the future, that we did not have enough Tamil speakers and Tamil persons among the Public Servants.

The sharing of views that was used to be in our public service is gone. I have found extraordinarily capable Public Servants who are trapped in their own language. In 2006, Secretary of Defence implemented a strategy to recruit more Tamil speaking and Tamil persons to the Cadet Corps and Sri Lanka had a dedicated Police recruitment strategy of such people.

These policies should be continued fast and effectively. Again all this previous Governments failed to implement. This Government had the clear mind to start it. The link between the Government and the people should progress more rapidly.

Q: How can we improve?

A: There are many things that can be done. One is rapid infrastructure and communication development, which would enable people to travel up and down easily and the second, is investments that are more pluralistic so people start working in different parts of the country equally. But we have to massage all these efforts - we have to make sure that people do travel. We need more education that would bring people together. We need to bring back the schools that could teach students of all communities together as it happened in the early days. The LTTE did not develop education though the Government continued to send the study material to areas like Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu. We need better education and cohesion. We have already started these but have to work more and more.

And necessarily the Government should focus more on strategies from which the benefit should directly reach the bottom line of these rebuilding societies. For example request the construction contractors to recruit people from its locality without taking people from other parts of the country. We see this is now happening in the North. We should not go for a naked profit and loss calculation. It is infinitely better for the country, even if we have to pay a little bit more, if we recruit people from the area. We need to focus on helping those people of the North with those skills they need. We must take sufficient account of the human resource development aspect. We have to start thinking out side the box.

Q: What changed the mindset of the people of the country?

A: The people wanted a moving Government. Fonseka’s campaign consisted of yesterday’s people. It was a collection of embittered people. The word ‘bitter’ won’t convey the same sense of negativity people would have felt.