Gajalakshmi Paramasivam - Jaffna
Sri Lankan Democracy
My most recent experience in relation to Democracy in Politics has been through the Sri Lankan 2015
Presidential Elections and its driving forces.
I believe that Sri Lanka confirmed its transition from autocracy to democracy through
the 2015 Presidential elections. Most of us do not personally know either
candidate - Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa or Mr.
Maithripala Sirisena. We hear about them through their speeches and other
reports. The level at which we connect to them confirms the value of our own
vote – physical and / or mental. A group in which the identification with the
leader, by majority members, is through our own independent thoughts, as per
our own experiences, is a democratic group. A group where a leader is chosen
more by the leader’s own presentation and the presentation of those close to
the leader, is better suited for autocracy – which Sri Lankan Politics has been during my life time. Some groups
would never need to move towards democracy. Until now, Sri Lankans of most
ethnicities, seemed comfortable with autocracy. To my mind, under autocracy the leader works the followers
and under democracy the common members of the group work the leader as a
facility through whom they govern themselves.
The responsibility is now greater for the Sri Lankan voter to work
her/his leader towards the voter living as
/ becoming a self-governing person at
her/his level where s/he is the leader – even if it were of her/himself only.
Based on principles, I myself was thinking more in favour of
Mr. Rajapaksa as opposed to the winning candidate, Mr. Sirisena who was Mr.
Rajapaksa’s junior in the government structure until the announcement of the
elections. Mr. Sirisena became President
by crossing over to the opposition to form a collective force. In some ways it is multicultural democracy
due to the minds connecting beyond internal political subjectivity.
My main thrust during the time leading to the elections was
that Tamils needed to vote and not abstain. There is good reason for this.
During the 2005 Presidential elections – Mr. Rajapaksa became President for the
first time due to Tamils abstaining from voting not voluntarily but due to
threats by the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) who claimed they were
fighting for a separate country for Tamils. According to statistics, if not for
the suppression of Tamils’ right to vote, Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe would have been the
President in 2005. The LTTE move was damaging to the investment made by Tamils
in the system of Democracy. The LTTE through use of arms, were taking over
power from Sinhalese leaders. They were not promoters of Democracy.
Where the stronger force (combination of individual and
collective) within the Tamil community rejected the LTTE rule and its negation
of Tamil investment in democracy, that force naturally added itself to
defeating the LTTE through Mr. Rajapakse’s
cleverness, drive and position. I believe that this happens through
God’s system where the feeling force is
stronger than the expressing force. By suppressing Tamils from exercising their
franchise – the very basis of self-governance through democracy, the LTTE attacked the very system
of Democracy while claiming to fight for self-governance in a world driven more
by Democracy than by Autocracy.
The autonomy of minorities is the key to liberation from
majority rule. A group that suppressed this turned the force against
itself. To the extent Mr. Rajapaksa
became the medium through which this returning force worked to redeem Tamil
investment in Democracy – we Tamils owed Mr. Rajapaksa. I believe that those of
us Tamils who in our minds were with Mr. Rajapaksa during the 2015 elections –
despite popular support for the Opposition candidate – were repaying that debt
– to redeem our right to democratic self-governance. Owings need to be settled
for us to progress towards ownership.
At the voting level –
Tamils by voting overwhelmingly for the Opposition candidate ( who was strongly
in partnership with Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe) paid their overdue debt to
Democratic self-governance. This was the reason why I was urging Tamils to
exercise their vote. We ultimately get the governance we have earned. This may
not be the one we voted for. Each genuine voter – physical as well as mental –
would identify their real returns if they read outcomes through their own Truth
and not through hearsay. Such identification would help them work the system in
its current form – with the energies of the investment in the losing side being
carried forward as Administrative power. If Tamils had not exercised their
right to vote – they would have
confirmed rejection of democracy or indifference to self-governance.
As per the published election outcomes majority Sinhalese
did vote for Mr. Rajapakse. The Tamil had marginal power. The majority by which Mr.
Sirisena won was 449,072. The majority in largely Tamil areas of Jaffna,
Batticaloa and Vanni totalled 453,951. If Tamils had
abstained as they were forced to by LTTE in 2005 – Mr. Rajapaksa would have returned to power. Tamils continue
to be the natural opposition of Sinhalese in Parliament driven by subjective
power. Sinhalese have demonstrated that they are Equally empowered to form
democratic opposition.
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