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Rajapaksa concedes defeat in pivotal Sri Lankan poll

Wickremesinghe

Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former president who ended Sri Lanka’s civil war, was pushed out of office in January when his decision to call a presidential election two years early backfired.SriLanka

In Monday’s parliamentary elections, however, Rajapaksa hoped to win a comeback as prime minister — especially as his successor, one-time ally and former health minister Maithripala Sirisena, struggles to rebalance power away from the presidency and toward the unicameral Sri Lankan parliament.

Rajapaksa appears to have failed, and even before full results were announced, he had conceded defeat on Tuesday morning, handing the once-powerful president his second electoral defeat in eight months. Nevertheless, he appeared to have won election as a member of parliament, where he will continue to attempt to block Sirisena.

Sirisena, who won January’s election as the candidate of the opposition coalitionstruggled to pass legislation through Sri Lanka’s parliament following his stunning victory earlier this year. Sirisena’s attempts at pushing through a wishlist of reforms in his first 100 days hit several roadblocks as Rajapaksa supporters blocked many Sirisena priorities, including changes to the country’s election law, though Sirisena has already been successful in reducing some presidential powers and restoring a two-term presidential limit. Faced with gridlock for deeper political reforms, Sirisena dissolved Sri Lanka’s parliament in June and called the August 17 elections nearly half a year early, eager to win a fresh mandate for his attempts to introduce new checks and balances on Sri Lanka’s political system.

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RELATED: Sirisena easily wins Sri Lankan presidency

RELATED: Tumultuous election a test for Sri Lankan democracy

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Most immediately, the parliamentary election has four major implications: Continue reading Rajapaksa concedes defeat in pivotal Sri Lankan poll

Tumultuous election a test for Sri Lankan democracy

rajapaksa

Pessimists worry that today could bring the first coup in Sri Lanka’s post-independence history, as political tensions are running high and military forces are rumored to be out in strong numbers as Sri Lankans go to the polls to elect a new president. SriLanka

They’ll do so in one of the tightest such races in Sri Lanka’s history, at least the tightest since president Mahinda Rajapaksa first took power in the 2005 election, and one with profound consequences for the direction of Sri Lanka’s democratic and policy future and with important regional implications for both India and China.

When the folksy Rajapaksa (pictured above) brought forward the election by two years in November, he hoped to take advantage of a fractured opposition and new rules that allowed him to call early election in either of the final two years of his six-year presidential term and revisions to the Sri Lankan constitution that allow Rajapaksa to seek a third consecutive term to the presidency. He didn’t plan, instead, on a close election that could bring his administration to a premature end.

Sri Lanka is an island country just off the southeastern coast of India. With over 22 million people, it’s one-third as populous as France (though it pales in comparison to many of India’s states — Tamil Nadu, for example, is home to nearly 70 million people alone). Formerly the British crown colony of Ceylon, the country was trapped for much of the past quarter-century in a civil war waged between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (தமிழீழ விடுதலைப் புலிகள்), popularly known as the ‘Tamil Tigers,’ a guerrilla group fighting to form an independent Tamil state. Despite false starts at peace talks, Rajapaksa presided over the group’s military defeat in 2009, a victory that has allowed Sri Lanka to put the fighting of the 1980s and 1990s behind it. Accordingly, under Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka has enjoyed annual GDP growth of nearly 7% over the last decade,  doubled per-capita income in the last five years, and marked massive reductions in poverty.

Nevertheless, the country remains precariously split between a Sinhalese-speaking majority that practices Buddhism (around 70% of the population) and its Tamil and Muslim minorities. Its Tamil-speaking minority practices Hinduism, not Buddhism — around 11% of the population consists of Sri Lankan Tamils clustered along the northern and eastern coasts and another 4% or so Indian Tamils clustered in the central highlands. Another 10% or so of the population consists of Tamil-speaking Sri Lankan Moors, who largely follow Islam.

For all of Rajapaksa’s successes in subduing the Tamil Tigers, he has become notorious for centralizing power in the Sri Lankan presidency since taking power a decade ago and amassing wealth for himself and his family, many of whom populate powerful positions in the government.

sirisena

The widespread impression of corruption and abuse of power is at the heart of the challenge to Rajapaksa’s reelection. His opponent, Maitripala Sirisena (pictured above), was until November 21, not only the health minister in Rajapaksa’s government, he was the general secretary of Rajapaksa’s ruling Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP, ශ්‍රී ලංකා නිදහස් පක්ෂය), the vaguely center-left ruling party that draws much of its support from the country’s Sinhalese majority.

In one fell swoop, Sirisena not only united the unruly opposition, but he brought more than two dozen members of the ruling Freedom Party into an anti-Rajapaksa coalition that includes the United National Party (UNP, එක්සත් ජාතික පක්ෂය), a more center-right party that draws support from minorities as well as Sinhalese voters, and any number of parties based on everything from Buddhist nationalism to Marxism. Less charismatic than the incumbent, Sirisena nevertheless heads a once-improbable movement that could topple Rajapaksa, tapping into the same ferocious energy with which Indian prime minister Narendra Modi ousted the long-ruling Nehru-Gandhi family and the Indian National Congress in last spring’s Indian elections. Continue reading Tumultuous election a test for Sri Lankan democracy