Sri Lanka’s stunned silence

There were no families strolling down the Galle Face on the seafront in Colombo. The vendors had packed away the deep fried balls of unidentifiable shellfish that they usually hawk from rickety carts. And instead, a large group of uniformed policemen lolled about ominously on the seaside green.

A stunned silence hung over the Sri Lankan capital in the hours after Mahinda Rajapaksa conceded defeat in the country’s presidential elections, which were held on 8th January. In doing so, he ended a decade-long reign, which will be remembered both for the government’s savage triumph over separatist Tamil guerrillas and, more recently, for corruption and nepotism.

The island’s new leader is Maithripala Sirisena. He owes his surprise victory to Sri Lanka’s minority groups, Muslims as well as Tamils, who together make up around 20 per cent of the country’s 20m population.

These communities, in an unlikely show of unity, voted en bloc for the opposition candidate—but they did so purely on anti-incumbency sentiment. There is no great hope that President Sirisena will be able to mend Sri Lanka’s deep societal divisions, a legacy of the bloody 32-year civil war between government forces and Tamil seperatists in the north, which was brought to an end in 2009. But these divisions must be resolved before Sri Lanka can see any real, long-term stability.

Sri Lanka has been criticised for the treatment of its Tamil minority. Western governments have condemned both poor accountability for crimes committed during the last stages of the civil war, and the vast military presence in the Tamil-dominated north. Meanwhile, activists claim that large-scale land grabs and the forced use of contraception in the north are part of an ongoing mission to shrink and splinter the Tamil community.

Those who believe the change in government will trigger progress forget that 63 year-old Sirisena is cut from the same cloth as his predecessor.

When Rajapaksa called the snap election in November—two years ahead of schedule—Sirisena was firmly on his side, as Minister for Health and a veteran of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). But during the closing stages of Sri Lanka’s civil war, Sirisena was acting minister of defence. According to a UN report, in the course of those final days an estimated 40,000 civilian lives may have been lost. It’s remarkable that, during his election campaign, Sirisena was careful not to overplay any promises to support the minority groups that carried him into power.

Conscious that he couldn’t afford to lose the support of the majority Sinhalese Buddhists, he stated clearly that he has no intention of scaling back military bases in the north. And he has promised to shelter the Rajapaksa family from investigations into war crimes.

Sirisena’s apparent reluctance to address Sri Lanka’s minorities may be a shrewd political calculation and no reflection of his real intent. Even so, in the first few months of his leadership, these issues will inevitably be eclipsed by the hefty promises he must now deliver.

With the elections out of the way, foremost on the President’s agenda is his pledge to abolish, within his first 100 days, the executive presidency, which gave Rajapaksa draconian powers. He needs to create a parliamentary democracy and to re-establish an independent judiciary. Promised anti-corruption probes could complicate ongoing projects and prove controversial and all the while, Sirisena will be struggling to unite the motley coalition that was strung together hastily in the past two months to back his candidacy.

There is a risk that the change in government will reduce foreign pressure for the Sri Lankan government to address serious violations of human rights. With the defeat of Rajapaksa, the battle could—mistakenly—be considered won.

There are, however, some glimmers of hope now for social cohesion. Following a series of elections plagued by violence and malpractice, the latest result is empowering for Sri Lanka’s minorities, whose votes have ousted a President. A UK-style parliamentary system has the potential to provide greater representation, and Sirisena’s commitment to freedom for the media is a step towards democratic debate.

Many Sri Lankans are hopeful that the new government, eager to drive growth, will direct more investment towards the Tamil-dominated north and east of the country, while Rajapaksa had concentrated on developing infrastructure in the south of the island, where his voters are concentrated. When the civil war finally drew to a close, the former President, Rajapaksa, stood before the parliament and claimed there would be “no more minorities.” There would be, he said, only those who love the country of their birth and those who don’t.

Five years on, the chilling nationalism behind that promise has survived, and is used regularly to appeal to Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community. Meanwhile, a third of Sri Lanka’s population still feel like “minorities,” marginalised in the home country that they love.