Lanka gets a hung House, hung talks

For Sri Lanka, however, the political uncertainty will last longer as the elections reflect a mandate in the south against pursuing peace in a manner that will please the LTTE, while there is a corresponding mandate in the north-east in favour of a strong Tamil nationalist line tending towards total political autonomy for the region.

‘‘Nothing now, except that we will form the government,’’ said Harim Peiris, a spokesman for the President, when asked with whose support the UPFA hoped to form a government.

Outgoing prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Front (UNF) will have to sit in the opposition as it won only 82 seats and cannot muster enough support to reach the magic figure of 113.

The LTTE-backed Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won an impressive 22 seats, setting the stage for a significant role in the country’s affairs, even though nobody expects them to support the UPFA regime for now.

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (National Heritage Party), a new force comprising Buddhist clergymen, won nine seats, but made it clear today that it would maintain its independence in parliament and not jump onto the bandwagon of any party. However, they might support the UPFA from outside.

Chandrika’s party polled nearly 45 per cent of the popular vote, while the UNF had to settle for 37 per cent, indicating a big swing against Wickremesinghe’s front. It was as much a defeat for his platform of peace and economic prosperity as an endorsement of the UPFA line that two years of truce had not brought any concrete economic benefits to the common man.

There was no immediate reaction from the LTTE itself to the emergence of a regime likely to be controlled by President Kumaratunga, who has been blamed by the guerrilla group for upsetting the peace applecart by first taking over key portfolios from the UNF government and then dissolving Parliament.

The emergence of a left-of-centre coalition as the ruling party may also spell difficult times for the country’s economy, recovering slowly from years of conflict-induced stagnation. The right-wing UNF was the favoured force of the island’s business tycoons and western governments and funding agencies.

The Tamilnet website said the Prime Minister was in touch with R Sampanthan, the TNA’s secretary general who is expected to be the group’s leader in Parliament, but there is little possibility of any UNF-TNA combine emerging, as the ultimate numbers do not take the UNF past the majority mark.

Sampanthan had told the Prime Minister’s Secretary, Bradman Weerakoon, that the TNA was solidly committed to the creation of an interim self-governing authority for the north-east, the main demand of the LTTE at this stage of the peace process. While there was no indication that the TNA is willing to support any government, this could be a clue as to what could be its minimum demand in the event of their support being sought by any party.

The emergence of a party of Buddhist monks as a significant force is a new factor that reflects popular disenchantment with the two main parties. ‘‘We are going to maintain our independence, and will support important measures in the national interest,’’ said Ellawala Medhananda Thero, a leading Buddhist monk belonging to the JHU.

The party says it is committed to Buddhist Dharma and wants to reverse what it believes is the current religious and cultural degeneration in the country and the plummeting of values in the political system.