By S. Piyasena
A critical election is taking place in Sri Lanka on May 17. While the vote is for seven of eight provincial councils, whose five-year terms end in June-July, the election is being viewed as a referendum on the country's executive presidency.
No election will be held in the largest province, the North-Eastern, where an ethnic civil war has been raging for a decade.
From independence in 1948 to 1977, Sri Lanka changed government by ballots six times. Though voting was not compulsory, the proportion voting rose to 88% in 1977.
At the 1977 elections, the extreme right-wing United National Party, exploiting the "commissions and omissions" of the previous left-centrist government of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), came to government. It won 140 of the 168 seats in the legislature even though its share of the total poll was only 50.9%.
Within six months, the UNP government adopted a constitution making the president the chief executive and downgrading the parliament. Supreme under the previous constitution, the parliament became a mere rubber stamp.
In 1982, a referendum was held to extend the life of the parliament for another six years (1983 to 1989). How the UNP rigged this referendum was disclosed in the official report of the commissioner of elections — three years after the event. Stuffing the ballot boxes has been part of the electoral machinery ever since.
The North-Eastern Province massively rejected the referendum. In the Tamil district of Jaffna, 265,534 voted against while only 25,315 voted "yes".
However, the government passed an amendment to the constitution which made it impossible for the 16 members of the Tamil Party (the main opposition group) to continue in parliament. This reduced the opposition to only 10 members.
The result of this "electoral victory" was the civil war which so far has taken more than 50,000 lives and driven 3 million people from their homes.
In December 1988 a presidential election was boycotted by the Tamils of the north and east and the radical Singhalese youth in the south. Only 5.1 million of 9.3 million registered voters cast ballots. The ruling party candidate was narrowly elected; the commissioner's report (issued in 1992) contained evidence of massive rigging.
The parliamentary elections which followed were also marked by a r, despite the presidential powers, the ruling party managed to win only 125 seats in a 225-member parliament. During the campaign, 13 opposition candidates were murdered.
After the election, the rule of the gun became the order of the day. In the "year of the vulture" (1989), more than 25,000 youth and political opponents were killed by government-sponsored and financed armed goons.
In August 1991, intellectual members of the UNP revolted. Ten MPs were expelled from the party and removed from parliament under the provisions of the 1978 constitution.
They formed the Democratic United National Front (DUNF). The leader of this party, Lalith Athulathmudali, had formerly been a senior minister. He said, "We left the government after murder became a part of politics".
For the May 17 elections, the SLFP, the Communist Party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party and three smaller groups have formed a People's Alliance and are contesting under one symbol. The DUNF is standing separately.
However, the two opposition groups agree that every vote for either of them will be 1) a vote against the "one man" presidential constitution; 2) a vote against the politics of murder.
They have agreed to form joint provincial governments after defeating the ruling party, to continue their campaign for a democratic constitution.