An intra party election
With a month to go for the Western Provincial Council election, both parties are facing their
inner demons with rivalry expected to increase in the coming weeks…
By Dharisha Bastians
On April 25, exactly one month from today, voters in three districts of the country’s most affluent Province go to the polls to elect their provincial level representatives. The Western provincial Council seats members drawn from Gampaha, Kalutara and the prestigious Colombo District. With Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake having declared a two month campaign period from the date of nominations, possibly to allow for the traditional April Avurudu break of a week or so, this has been one of the longest drawn-out provincial election campaigns so far. From the looks of public walls around the Western Province, it has also been one of the costliest. From muscle men cuddling babies to new faces promising to wipe away the tears of Colombo dwellers, the general public have been treated to the full gamut of political creativity on any free surface along the main roads. With a month left to go, polls watchers are saying they expect the violence to increase in the coming weeks, for what is one of the most keenly fought election battles, not necessarily inter-party, but most certainly intra-party.
It is largely a foregone conclusion that the government would sweep the provincial poll on April 25. With the exception of Colombo, which might still swing a marginal victory for the UNP, Gampaha and Kalutara remain stoically behind the ruling UPFA, largely as an extension of the peoples’ support for the war effort. Colombo, which has borne the brunt of security checkpoints, road closures and all manner of other inconveniences, might have reservations but if the mood of the country is anything to go by, the UPFA is likely to gain a substantial number of votes in the capital as well. This is not to say though that the government faction does not have its share of unique problems. While it might not be as well publicised as the ongoing UNP leadership tussle, the ruling party’s provincial election campaign has been hampered by a hotly contested preferential vote race.
In the absence of a chief ministerial candidate being nominated by the UPFA leadership, all manner of candidates are staking their claim for the position and given that a majority of them have financial clout, the battle is turning out to be a bitter one. There is on the one hand, the former Chief Minister of the Western Province, Reginald Cooray, himself an institution, both in the council and within the SLFP. The fact that the leadership did not nominate him, as incumbent, to the position, in the way it was done in the Central Province for instance, has irked Cooray and caused him to come out rather harshly about his fellow candidates. On the other hand, if the candidate for the top job in the province is to be chosen based on the number of preferential votes garnered at the poll, this puts the big spenders like Thilanga Sumathipala and even Duminda Silva well in the running, largely because of top of mind recall, a highly successful marketing strategy being employed by both candidates to maximum effect. Trends in previously held provincial elections in the recent past indicate that voters supporting the ruling UPFA do not necessarily back the candidates standing for election, but the larger party led by President Mahinda Rajapaksa. In the preferential vote count, the ruling party has come off badly, with UNP candidates getting record numbers of preferential votes as witnessed in the case of the late Maj. Gen. Janaka Perera and S.B. Dissanayake in the North Central and Central Provinces respectively. This necessarily means that a voter who goes to the polling booth to vote for the UPFA, bears a degree of apathy towards the candidates he has to choose from, giving the likes of Sumathipala and Silva a distinct advantage because of their advertising and poster blitz. The voter who has no interest in making an informed choice about their candidates is likely to tick the number he has most often encountered, even subconsciously, upping these candidates’ preferential vote tallies. It is likely that this has been the strategy of the Duminda Silva campaign from the moment the election was announced. The unfair advantage however has irked other candidates who do not have the wherewithal to plaster themselves on innumerable walls around the districts. If the UPFA leadership is to pick a chief minister based on the preferential race, the smaller, perhaps more worthy candidates stand little or no chance. And this situation is exactly what is causing the intra-party feuds that have been given significant media play in the run up to the poll.
The government, being virtually assured of victory, only has to grapple with this kind of ‘manapa’ feud and in all likelihood these issues will be ironed out post-election. For the main opposition UNP however, the stakes are much higher.
With UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe having lived to fight another day as the party leader, the pressure is on for him and the new ‘political leader’ to deliver. They have one month, now that the better part of the campaign has been spent tackling the party’s leadership issues, to get the election machinery rolling. If for nothing else but to save face in their traditional electoral bastion, Colombo, the UNP has to fight back stronger and harder than ever before. The fact that most of the party members feel that the April 25 poll is a foregone conclusion is not helping party morale and more importantly, this attitude takes the wind out of the sails of the UNP’s WPC candidates. The main opposition is also feeling the pinch economically, with financing being harder to come by when a party has been so many years in opposition with little or no hope of victory in the near future. There is a marked distinction between the campaign décor, motorcades and poster campaigns of UPFA and UNP candidates, with the latter being unable to counter the UPFA propaganda machinery to any real effect.
A key factor affecting both campaigns is the fact that neither party has named its chief minister pick for the Western Province. Within the UPFA, the decision to defer the choice till after the poll is pitting one government candidate against the other. Meanwhile, the opposition, bereft of leadership from the likes of Wickremesinghe who is embroiled in his personal struggle for survival, finds its campaign lacking guidance or direction without a strong candidate to steer the operation. Even more telling is the fact that both main parties have been unable to name a candidate to lead the largest province in terms of population density and the province that has traditionally been the heart of industry and economic growth. It is also the seat of the central government and the home of the nation’s capital. This failure points to a disturbing bankruptcy in political leadership that does not bode well for the nation at large. It is from the pradeshiya sabhas and provincial councils that the country’s next generation of national leaders are born. Furthermore, there is a pressing need to address the problems of the Western Province, because it is only by ensuring the Western Province has astute leadership and direction that the rest of the country will be steered towards development and growth.
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