Sri Lanka146;s shadow play

Sri Lanka has had a long record of election campaign violence with about 70 people being killed in the last elections in 2001. Compared to these levels of violence, the current one leading to the parliamentary elections on April 2 has been comparatively peaceful. But this does not necessarily mean that violence will not impact on that process. There is a fundamental contradiction between political assassination and terrorism, on one hand, and democratic principles and practices, on the other, with the former threatening the people8217;s freedom to choose leaders. And this would inevitably influence the outcome of elections and the post-election scenarios.

In Sri Lanka, wracked by ethno-sectarian violence and separatist terrorism for two decades, political killing in the current phase indicates a far more complex phenomenon. Election surveys project a hung parliament with neither the United National Party led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe nor President Chandrika Kumaratunga8217;s United People8217;s Freedom Alliance party getting a clear majority. With 31 out of 225 parliamentary seats in the Tamil-dominated northeast, the moderate Tamil National Alliance TNA, strongly backed by the LTTE, is expected to improve upon its 15 seats in the 2001 elections. But sharp divisions in the LTTE point to new uncertainties.

The killings earlier in the month targeted candidates and supporters of political leaders not allied to the TNA. The killing of P. Sathyamoorthy, a candidate for TNA in Batticaloa, is an obvious departure, indicating that the recent split in the LTTE extends well into the political differences based on regional grievances of the people from the east where the ethnic composition is far more plural than in the north. Sathyamoorthy was known to be close to LTTE8217;s senior military leader, V. Muralitharan, aka, Col. Karuna, who broke away from the LTTE earlier in the month. The new contradictions in the LTTE are certain to impact on the elections. Under the circumstances, TNA and other groups may well play a larger than life role beyond their numbers in the functioning of a hung parliament, a divided government, and the peace process currently on hold.