COLOMBO, 20 September 2005 — Sri Lanka will vote for a new president on Nov. 17, the island’s election secretariat said yesterday, a poll analysts say centers on two issues: How to cement peace with Tamil Tiger rebels and how to manage the economy.
Left-of-center Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is set to face off against his right-of-center predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, in a vote considered too close to call.
“The election is on Nov. 17,” A. De Silva, assistant to Election Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake, told Reuters. He said the commission would invite formal nominations by Oct. 7.
Rajapakse has aligned himself with hard-line Marxists and Buddhist monks demanding a tough line in a peace bid with the Tigers. He is fervently against privatization and has vowed to nurture local business to take on foreign competitors.
Business leaders and investors are betting on a win by Wickremesinghe, seen as more market friendly and more likely to seal a peace deal. But many worry he is out of touch with the middle class and poor, who voted him out of power in 2004.
“The two main issues are peace and the economy,” said Rohan Edrisinha, a political analyst with the Center for Policy Alternatives in Colombo. Both candidates must battle their own images as much as each other, he added.
“Mahinda is in a sense way out on a limb. It’s more than just a hard line on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It’s a harder line on every issue. Even constitutional reform, a unitary state ...”
If elected, Rajapakse vows to amend a 2002 truce that halted a two-decade civil war that killed more than 64,000 people and ditch plans to share tsunami aid with the Tigers — promises which have angered the rebels.
Analysts say Wickremesinghe must address widespread apprehension about his previous economic policies, such as state sector funding cutbacks and reductions in agricultural subsidies, which was central to his party’s last election defeat.
Both candidates are still preparing official manifestos, but have been in campaign swing and addressing their party faithful at rallies since August. That was when the Supreme Court ruled that outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s term ends this year — a year earlier than she had hoped.
The private sector is rooting for Wickremesinghe, and many moderates are wary of Rajapakse’s election pacts with hard-liners.
“Whenever Ranil comes into power, business does well,” said Ananda Peiris, who manages a firm that cuts and polishes imported rough diamonds, as he watched Wickremesinghe address a weekend rally in Colombo attended by tens of thousands of party acolytes.
“The trouble with Rajapakse’s deals with the Marxists is they have never allowed anyone to govern properly.”
Colombo’s stock market has soared to new highs in recent sessions as investors bet that a policy rift between Rajapakse and Chandrika, leader of his ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party, could undermine his campaign and favor Wickremesinghe.
And while both candidates have raised the possibility of forming a cross-party alliance after the election to push the peace process forward, some observers suspect Chandrika could seek to revoke her party’s nomination of Rajapakse and possibly even call a snap general election.
“Ranil has a proven track record in managing the economy, and is also very clear on how he wants to tackle the peace process, which most moderates feel is the right way to go,” said Dushyanth Wijayasinghe, director of research at Asia Securities in Colombo.
But with the cost of living soaring, inflation at its highest level since early 2002 and tens of thousands of tsunami survivors living on food handouts in basic concrete and wooden shelters, many ordinary Sri Lankans say neither candidate fits the bill.
“I don’t care about the elections,” said 35-year-old street vendor Susantha Gunarathna, who sells king prawns to motorists near Parliament. “It doesn’t matter who comes into power. I lost six family members, my house, everything in the tsunami. No one from the government helped us. Now I’m just trying to make a bit of money selling prawns,” he added. “I’m not voting for anyone.”
