School of thought behind voting...

By Jayashika Padmasiri

The presidential election concluded last week with victorious results for President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Although he was able to secure 57.88% of the votes, President Rajapaksa failed to win the majority votes of the Galle electorate, Kandy electorate, and all electorates of the Colombo city. He was able to gain the majority votes in the districts of the south. This has been a common phenomenon for years during an election because whenever the results of these electorates were announced, the public became aware that the majority votes have been secured by the United National Party (UNP). LAKBIMAnEWS spoke to a few political analysts to find out about the reasons behind this turnout.
Lecturer Prathiba Mahanama, Colombo University Law faculty said that the cities like Galle, Colombo and Kandy were won by the opposition because in those areas you will find capitalists and liberal ideology prevailing. “The school of thought in those cities is not leftist oriented as in villages. Most of the urban dwellers deal with the stock market and other such activities and events. And for such people the UNP policies are more suitable,” he added.
He said, “For example, those city dwellers are more concerned about the corruption that is prevailing, which I believe was one of the main reasons for them to vote against the President Rajapaksa. They consider the executive presidency as the root for corruption and other such mishaps taking place in the country. The rural people believe that it was because of the Executive Presidency that President Rajapaksa was able to win the war by defeating terrorism. So there is a difference in their ideologies. The rural dwellers are more concerned about nationalistic ideology built around the concept of the ‘country’, while the urban dwellers think about an international concept built upon ‘globalization’. Mahanama asserted that there is a minority peoples’ issue -- the majority of people living in the North and East -- and they preferred the UNP instead UPFA government.

Three main reasons

Political Science Senior lecturer Terrence Purasinghe of Sri Jayawardenapura University, Colombo, speaking to LAKBIMAnEWS said there were main three reasons when considering the votes.
“Usually in a democratic nation it is a very basic thing for governments to change. And to be in the system of the executive presidency for 12 years and to be in power for two terms as the president of a country paves the way for corruption. So, to change the government and to secure democracy, government should keep changing. That is the theory.
The people should have the knowledge about this. The presidency is a totalitarian rule, so it should be changed regularly and that change is a must. The urban people who are living in the above mentioned areas are modernized and they have this knowledge. So they are asking for a social change by voting this way against the government,” he said.
Purasinghe noted that in the urban areas the public have more problems than in the rural areas. “This might also make those urban city dwellers vote against the government. Mostly people living in the middle class in urban areas have more issues than people living in villages. And another issue is that, minorities are mainly living in the rural parts as of the country, and they are against President Rajapaksa’s administration. It is mostly the Sinhala Buddhist force which voted for President Rajapaksa,” Purasinghe said.

The Muslims

Mahesh Senanayake,Political Science Senior Lecture, Colombo University said:
“There are a good number of Muslim merchants living in the urban areas. And those voters are more familiar with the UNP than with the government because of the UNP’s economic policies. They have a strong relationship with the UNP because of this; it is in the UNP rule that they would get better results and more profits for their businesses. And the government has also imposed taxes on a lot of merchandise items. This is also a negative point for the government, as the profits of the urban dwellers have also gone low,” he said. When LAKBIMAnEWS questioned how similar this was to what took place in the Northern and Eastern provinces with regard to the election results, Senanayake said parliamentarians Rauf Hakeem and Mano Ganeshan conducted a nationalistic campaign against President Rajapaksa which caused the North and East to vote against him.
“It was not the economic policies or the political policies of General Sarath Fonseka which made the citizens of North and East vote for him, but the nationalism and the racism which was provoked in those areas,” Senanayake concluded.
However, though many found the minority votes in those areas as a main reason behind these electorates to be always won by the opposition side, there are also others who shared different sentiments about this. Presidential Advisor Dr. Harinda Vidanage speaking to LAKBIMAnEWS said, “I do not think that this is relevant to the issue of minorities. And I think that it would be a bit harsh to say so, because Kalutara is also a district which is inhabited by a Muslim population and merchants just like Galle District. But from the election results we saw that it was not won by the UNP.”
Speaking further Vidanage added, “People in the cities always had problems with the President based on the policies of the government. Even during the election campaigns, the slogans were more important to the city people. The corruption, taxes and so on were also considered to vote against. But the rural people living in the villages had other issues. The cities are always a negative factor. Mainly the opposition campaigns were created to be directed at the cities. Their target audiences were the cities. The notion of how capitalist the UNP is, and how non- capitalist the UPFA is a crucial matter in this scenario.”
Vidanage added another factor. “Another prominent thing in the cities is that they have an affiliation with the left as well. For example, take the three universities in the cities of Ruhunu, Colombo and Peradeniya. They have always been the hub of student movements. These cities have been traditionally UNP affiliated with mercantile capitalism. Even their political proprieties and needs are different to the people living in rural areas. For example the notion of corruption is not an issue for the villages, but it is a main issue for the urban people.”