04-01-2004, 11:34 AM
[b]<span style='color:red'>Sri Lanka ceasefire on the line in election
President, PM at odds over guerrillas
No party likely to win a clear majority
MARTIN REGG COHN
ASIA BUREAU
COLOMBO...After two years of unprecedented peace and prosperity, Sri Lankans are at each other's throats.
As voters go to the polls for snap elections tomorrow, they will be passing judgment on a ceasefire that has silenced the guns and stopped the bombs for the first time in two decades. But there are growing fears that any miscalculation by the electorate or the politicians they put in power could unravel the fledgling peace process.
The vote is being closely watched in foreign capitals, with donor countries withholding more than $6 billion in promised reconstruction aid $5 million of it pledged by Canada until the peace talks move forward.
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga plunged the country into a constitutional crisis last November by wresting control of the key defence, interior and information ministries from her bitter rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickramesinghe, while he was out of the country. Her political blitzkrieg included declaring a state of emergency, suspending Parliament where her Freedom Alliance movement had previously been reduced to opposition status and finally calling snap elections to recover power.
Kumaratunga claimed she had to stop the government from conceding too much in negotiations with Tamil Tiger guerrillas, who have been waging a civil war for minority rights and a separate homeland since 1983. Appeasement, she argued, would reap a political whirlwind.
"There has been no fighting for two years, but the temporary absence of war is not permanent peace," the charismatic Kumaratunga, 58, told cheering throngs at her party's final rally this week. She acted to "save this country from destruction," Kumaratunga told a TV audience earlier in the week.
It is a rallying cry for hardline Sinhalese nationalists who believe the ceasefire is merely the calm before the storm, a time for the Tigers to rearm under the noses of Sri Lankan soldiers and international peace observers.
The embattled Wickramesinghe counters there is no alternative to his strategy of negotiating with the Tigers on a power-sharing solution that will give Sri Lanka's Tamils autonomy. At his closing rally in the capital, Colombo, he warned voters that Kumaratunga could not be trusted with peace.
"The president always lied; she never kept her promises."
Wickramesinghe, 55, faces an uphill battle, with many predicting a hung Parliament. Recent public opinion polls suggest voters are preoccupied with price rises in the wake of economic reforms and are inclined to cast protest votes against his UNP.
In fact, the present government rescued the economy from the doldrums after taking power two years ago and restoring investor confidence by bringing an end to the civil war. But with much of the public impatient for a bigger peace dividend, the prime minister may have to pay the ultimate price.
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`There has been no fighting for two years, but the temporary absence of war is not permanent peace.'
Chandrika Kumaratunga, president
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"Sri Lankans are people who forget very soon, they remember things for only two weeks," tourism worker Jerome Wijeratne said at Wickramesinghe's rally this week. "So now they forget about the (road) barriers and the bombs."
Angelo Jansen, a 30-year-old tea taster, said the public's willingness to flirt with hardliners is courting disaster. If the president wins a majority in Parliament, in alliance with Marxist nationalists who oppose concessions to the Tigers, the ceasefire will unravel, he warned.
"If you want peace, you can't expect everything in two years," Jansen said at the rally.
But the prime minister's message has failed to catch fire. He's seen as stiff and aloof, surrounded by technocrats, with none of Kumaratunga's rhetorical flair.
"The president has tapped into a wellspring of frustration and anger and insecurity of the Sinhalese community that Sri Lanka is being sold out to the Tamil Tigers and the international community," said political analyst Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, of the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
With no single party expected to win a clear majority of the 225 seats in the parliamentary contest, politicians will need coalition partners to form a government. Perhaps the most improbable alliance, forged on the eve of the election, brings Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance together with her erstwhile enemies, the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
The president claims her alliance will still keep the lines of communication open with the Tamils. Yet the JVP's willingness to sit at the same table as the Tigers belies the fact that they have ruled out power sharing with the guerrillas.
"There is a tremendous problem of coherence," said Saravanamuttu. "All of the constitutional reform with respect to the ethnic conflict would be on the backburner."
That would leave little room for Canadian advisers like former Ontario premier Bob Rae, whose Ottawa-based group, the Forum of Federations, has shared its expertise with Sri Lanka and the Tigers during the negotiating process.
But even if Wickramesinghe gains enough seats to form a governing coalition, there are no guarantees that he can restart negotiations. Kumaratunga has let it be known that she fully intends to hang on to the defence ministry regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's vote. Such a move could cripple the peace process because the prime minister needs to be able to show his Tiger negotiators that he can deliver on his promises.
Wickramesinghe is expected to rely on support from the Tamil National Alliance, whose candidates are considered to be proxies for the Tigers in the northern and eastern areas.
The TNA could win up to 20 seats, giving them a kingmaker role and giving Wickramesinghe the margin he needs to seal a deal with the guerrillas.</span>
President, PM at odds over guerrillas
No party likely to win a clear majority
MARTIN REGG COHN
ASIA BUREAU
COLOMBO...After two years of unprecedented peace and prosperity, Sri Lankans are at each other's throats.
As voters go to the polls for snap elections tomorrow, they will be passing judgment on a ceasefire that has silenced the guns and stopped the bombs for the first time in two decades. But there are growing fears that any miscalculation by the electorate or the politicians they put in power could unravel the fledgling peace process.
The vote is being closely watched in foreign capitals, with donor countries withholding more than $6 billion in promised reconstruction aid $5 million of it pledged by Canada until the peace talks move forward.
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga plunged the country into a constitutional crisis last November by wresting control of the key defence, interior and information ministries from her bitter rival, Prime Minister Ranil Wickramesinghe, while he was out of the country. Her political blitzkrieg included declaring a state of emergency, suspending Parliament where her Freedom Alliance movement had previously been reduced to opposition status and finally calling snap elections to recover power.
Kumaratunga claimed she had to stop the government from conceding too much in negotiations with Tamil Tiger guerrillas, who have been waging a civil war for minority rights and a separate homeland since 1983. Appeasement, she argued, would reap a political whirlwind.
"There has been no fighting for two years, but the temporary absence of war is not permanent peace," the charismatic Kumaratunga, 58, told cheering throngs at her party's final rally this week. She acted to "save this country from destruction," Kumaratunga told a TV audience earlier in the week.
It is a rallying cry for hardline Sinhalese nationalists who believe the ceasefire is merely the calm before the storm, a time for the Tigers to rearm under the noses of Sri Lankan soldiers and international peace observers.
The embattled Wickramesinghe counters there is no alternative to his strategy of negotiating with the Tigers on a power-sharing solution that will give Sri Lanka's Tamils autonomy. At his closing rally in the capital, Colombo, he warned voters that Kumaratunga could not be trusted with peace.
"The president always lied; she never kept her promises."
Wickramesinghe, 55, faces an uphill battle, with many predicting a hung Parliament. Recent public opinion polls suggest voters are preoccupied with price rises in the wake of economic reforms and are inclined to cast protest votes against his UNP.
In fact, the present government rescued the economy from the doldrums after taking power two years ago and restoring investor confidence by bringing an end to the civil war. But with much of the public impatient for a bigger peace dividend, the prime minister may have to pay the ultimate price.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`There has been no fighting for two years, but the temporary absence of war is not permanent peace.'
Chandrika Kumaratunga, president
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Sri Lankans are people who forget very soon, they remember things for only two weeks," tourism worker Jerome Wijeratne said at Wickramesinghe's rally this week. "So now they forget about the (road) barriers and the bombs."
Angelo Jansen, a 30-year-old tea taster, said the public's willingness to flirt with hardliners is courting disaster. If the president wins a majority in Parliament, in alliance with Marxist nationalists who oppose concessions to the Tigers, the ceasefire will unravel, he warned.
"If you want peace, you can't expect everything in two years," Jansen said at the rally.
But the prime minister's message has failed to catch fire. He's seen as stiff and aloof, surrounded by technocrats, with none of Kumaratunga's rhetorical flair.
"The president has tapped into a wellspring of frustration and anger and insecurity of the Sinhalese community that Sri Lanka is being sold out to the Tamil Tigers and the international community," said political analyst Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, of the Centre for Policy Alternatives.
With no single party expected to win a clear majority of the 225 seats in the parliamentary contest, politicians will need coalition partners to form a government. Perhaps the most improbable alliance, forged on the eve of the election, brings Kumaratunga's Freedom Alliance together with her erstwhile enemies, the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
The president claims her alliance will still keep the lines of communication open with the Tamils. Yet the JVP's willingness to sit at the same table as the Tigers belies the fact that they have ruled out power sharing with the guerrillas.
"There is a tremendous problem of coherence," said Saravanamuttu. "All of the constitutional reform with respect to the ethnic conflict would be on the backburner."
That would leave little room for Canadian advisers like former Ontario premier Bob Rae, whose Ottawa-based group, the Forum of Federations, has shared its expertise with Sri Lanka and the Tigers during the negotiating process.
But even if Wickramesinghe gains enough seats to form a governing coalition, there are no guarantees that he can restart negotiations. Kumaratunga has let it be known that she fully intends to hang on to the defence ministry regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's vote. Such a move could cripple the peace process because the prime minister needs to be able to show his Tiger negotiators that he can deliver on his promises.
Wickramesinghe is expected to rely on support from the Tamil National Alliance, whose candidates are considered to be proxies for the Tigers in the northern and eastern areas.
The TNA could win up to 20 seats, giving them a kingmaker role and giving Wickramesinghe the margin he needs to seal a deal with the guerrillas.</span>
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