Polls and tanks

Wednesday 6th October, 2021

The Provincial Councils (PCs) are likely to be under Governors’ rule indefinitely. Minister of Public Administration, Provincial Councils and Local Government Janaka Bandara Tennakoon, in answer to a question, told Parliament, yesterday, that he did not believe that the PC polls could be conducted at the present juncture, and all stakeholders would meet soon to take a final decision on the issue. His statement, which can be thought to reflect the government’s stand on the matter, came close on the heels of some media reports that India had stressed the need to hold the much-delayed PC elections. It has also been reported that the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to Identify Appropriate Reforms of the Election Laws and the Electoral System is keen to have the PC polls conducted, and has given instructions to the Attorney General in that regard.

It is ironical that Chairman of the aforesaid PSC, Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, who represents the nationalistic forces that are not well disposed towards the PCs, is trying to have elections thereto held without further delay, and the TNA, which is an ardent proponent of devolution, has been instrumental in having the PC polls put off indefinitely. The TNA and the JVP, it bears recall, joined forces with the yahapalana government to amend the Provincial Council Elections Act, in 2017, in the most obnoxious manner and thereby postponed the PC elections. Several controversial sections were smuggled into the Bill at the committee stage, without judicial sanction, to delay the polls because the yahapalana government was scared of facing electoral contests. If only India had urged the TNA to desist from doing so. The TNA and its allies are now demanding that the PC polls be held!

One cannot but agree with Minister Tennakoon; the last thing the country needs amidst the current pandemic is an electoral contest. Covid-19 has been brought under control to some extent with the help of a 41-day lockdown, which entailed huge socio-economic costs, but the virus is expected to strike back sooner than expected because the people have already lowered their guard and are performing hongi with it. An election will surely worsen the health emergency and cause it to get out of hand.

Meanwhile, one should not be so naïve as to think that India is acting out of a genuine concern for anyone’s rights when it calls for the PC polls, reconciliation, etc., here. That it is driven by self-interest and nothing else when it offers solutions to Sri Lanka’s problems has become clear from Energy Minister Udaya Gammanpila’s recent statement that the Trincomalee oil tank farm had been handed over to India under the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord, which was touted as a pact aimed at solving Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem. (Oil tanks have nothing to do with ethnic reconciliation, do they?) The same goes for other powerful countries that are falling over themselves to help solve Sri Lanka’s problems, ethnic or otherwise; they too are eyeing strategic assets here.

The question is whether India has any moral right to pressure Sri Lanka to abide by the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord; it failed to disarm the LTTE in keeping with the controversial pact, having forced Sri Lanka to abandon the Vadamarachchi Operation (1987), saved Prabhakaran and taken him to New Delhi. If India had fulfilled what it had undertaken, the LTTE would have had to accept a political solution, and tens of thousands of lives could have been saved. Prabhakaran is pushing up the daisies and the Sri Lankan leaders, both political and military, who defeated the LTTE are facing war crimes allegations. Some countries are refusing to accept Sri Lanka’s former military officers as diplomats on the basis of unsubstantiated war crimes allegations. Only India has stood to gain. Going by Minister Gammanpila’s statement at issue, one may say that when the Indians came here in 1987, they had the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord, and Sri Lankans the oil tanks. Today, Sri Lankans have the Indo-Lanka Peace Accord and the Indians the oil tanks!