Why JVP is silent on the injustice done to their Party by allocating only 6 seats while the TNA covering a small area with a lesser number of votes gets 16?
Posted on August 20th, 2015

By Sudath Gunasekara 19.8.2015

Sri Lankan parliamentary elections 2015

Map showing land area won by each Party

electionresultsmap2015 This map does not unfortunately show land area won by the other party JVP, perhaps even more important as it has an Island wide coverage though it could not win a single District. But the fact remain that it polled 543,944 valid votes and contested all over the Island. Unfortunately it has got only 6 seats while the TNA that was confined only to few districts in the North and Batticalloa District that polled 515 963 (purely ethnic Tamil) has awarded 16 seats in a Parliament of 225 representatives. To me this appears to be a big flaw in our electoral system. Going by simple arithmetic JVP should also have got at least 16 or 17 seats if they gave 16 to TNA. Isn’t this a big discrepancy and a big injustice to universal franchise? Isn’t it a violation of the fundamental rights of the nearly 550 000 young people who voted JVP?

There is another big discrepancy I note in this decision. Look at the map and compare the land areas won by the respective parties. The blue area is definitely larger than the green. But the UPFA that represent the blue has got only 95 seats. One can argue that the green area represents more people and in carving out electorate they have taken both the area and population in to account. True but it is obvious that there appears to be a big injustice done to the area factor here. Justice must be done to the total area factor as well. These are some important factors that have to be taken in to account seriously by the legislators to ensure the fundamental rights of the people.

Message to the JVP

There is another blunder made by the JVP by contesting alone. Had they contested with the UPFA as they did in 2004, UPFA would have polled 4,732,669 +543,944 = 5,276,613 that is 177,686 more than the UNP (5,098,927) coalition and UPFA would have won 106 seats at least? I am sure jointly they would have got even more than 125 seats or more as many other sections like the nearly 500 000 who did not vote as they were disgusted with both major parties but also did not want to waste their vote to JVP as it is not going to come to power in any case under the present set up would also have voted the UPFA coalition. Therefore the JVP should take the responsibility for putting the UPFA in second place and committing this historic blunder.

The problem with the JVP is their overestimation of their current strength and failure to understand their real place in the minds of the people. Secondly, their wrong strategy that does not fit in to the Sri Lankan electorate. Had they contested with the UPFA as they did in 2004 they would have definitely got many more seats and could have laid a firm foundation for the future’. As such what they should have done this time is they should have joined UPFA and contested together without harping blindly on their overestimated imaginary strength and got few cabinet posts and shown their coulours to the country and gradually built up.  As for me I predicted they are not going to win 4 or 5 districts the most when they started to attack both major parties. This is utterly foolish war strategy by any standards.

JVP must take up this number issue, that is the obvious discrepancy between JVP 6 and TNA 116 immediately with the authorities and get it rectified before it thinks about the future strategy. Thereby they may be able to build up their position in Parliament or at least build up their confidence among the 545,944 people who voted them. Also they will be making a big contribution in rectifying a major flaw in our electoral system so that this type of mistakes will not occur at least in future

8 Responses to “Why JVP is silent on the injustice done to their Party by allocating only 6 seats while the TNA covering a small area with a lesser number of votes gets 16?”

  1. SA Kumar Says:

    Map showing land area won by each Party- ohh my god our Eelam is get smaller and smaller …. Velu where are you ???

  2. Lorenzo Says:

    JVP is lost after WW left.

    Did you know that the current parliament leader of a particular party is married to his mother’s younger sister?

  3. Dilrook Says:

    If the election was held in FPTP system (as in almost all democracies), UPFA wins 74 seats, UNP 68 seats and TNA 18 seats, others none, out of 160 seats. UPFA won 6 more electorates than UNP.

    The reason for the JVP, TNA disparity is district wise allocation of seats and bonus seats the district winner gets. JVP and TNA national percentage would give them 11 seats each. However, JVP is 5 seats less and TNA 5 seats more. Out of this, 3 seats are due to bonus seats TNA won (Batticaloa, Jaffna and Vanni) – JVP, none. The other two seats are due to cut-off votes required to win seats. TNA had a huge lead in Jaffna tipping its seat allocation (apart from the bonus seat) by 1 more. A similar case in Batticaloa.

    JVP failed to win a seat in most districts it contested. Although these votes get added in the national count, at the district level it is useless. TNA won at least a seat in all districts it contested.

    The combined effect of UPFA-JVP contesting together must also be looked at district by district. Not nationally. Then the combined UPFA-JVP will win 3 additional seats taking their total tally to just 104. Still behind UNP.

    The electoral perspective of most UPFA organisers is wrong. They must take a district view. For instance despite UPFA winning most electorates in Gampaha and Puttlam districts, it lost these due to a handful of electorates losing to UNP with a big margin.

    Another interesting fact about this election is Mahinda’s party won more Tamil votes (percentage) than Narendra Modi (BJP won only 5% in Tamil Nadu) in 2014. UPFA won 5.75% in Jaffna, over 13% in Batticaloa and over 30% in Nuwara Eliya with 2 Tamils elected. Despite the different election system, the real difference is the focus. Modi had a very strong focus on the majority with specific promises appealing to the majority only while Mahinda had a substantially less focus on them with no specific benefits to the majority. This became particularly important when faced with the “wedge strategy” of Lynton Crosby who spearheaded the UNP campaign.

    In Lanka, Crosby created a wedge within Sinhala voters while retaining Tamil and Muslim votes for the UNP (which was a given). Mahinda’s campaign should have focused on driving a wedge between the Sinhala community and minorities. That would have unified more Sinhalese under Mahinda and divided the UNP vote base along ethnic lines. That would have defeated Crosby and the UNP. Crosby’s strategies though controversial have been mostly successful. The current Australian, British and New Zealand prime ministers relied on his strategies to win elections and he was consulted in elections in over 50 countries.

    In January 2010, Fonseka hired James McGrath who followed the same strategy but lost. His aggressive wedge strategy focused on dividing Sinhala voters using corruption, nepotism and abuse of power (knowing most minority votes were with the UNP) failed as the UPFA very strongly whipped up Sinhala sentiments (including the promise to resettle Sinhala and Muslim IDPs in the north, ban mono ethnic parties, follow a hard line approach to Tamil demands, etc.). This was lacking in 2015.

  4. Independent Says:

    Andy,
    No Elam getting bigger. Don’t forget those green areas around the coast, from Colombo to Mannar, Jaffna back to Trinco the Batticloa all UNP green considered Elam too. Then look at Malayanadu at the centre grown hugely. In 20 more years , yours and Lorenzo’s dream will come true – that is whole island Tamill Speaking – Happy ?
    Wellawatte will become Wellwatai. Haputale will become Happutalai. Dutugemun = Thutugemuai Lorezo is already practicing , spreading these Tamil names.

  5. Nimal Says:

    I find it very unjust for the JVP to have lower number of MPs that the northern Tamil party and I suppose it had gone by the law of the country that the JVP have to accept.

  6. NeelaMahaYoda Says:

    අනුර දිසානායක නව ජවිපෙ නායකයා යටතේ එම පක්‍ෂය මෙවර ලැබූ පරාජය තරම් පරාජයක් 1989 වර්ෂයේදීවත් ලබා නැති බව එම පක්‍ෂ හිටපු නායක සෝමවංශ අමරසිංහ මහතා පවසයි.

  7. Hiranthe Says:

    My3 is still best suited for the Grama Sevaka job.

    If so Anura Dissanayaka is best suited to be the office peon who goes to bring lunch packets to the clerical staff.

    I am sorry to say this… but it is the truth.

  8. SA Kumar Says:

    Don’t forget those green areas around the coast, from Colombo to Mannar, Jaffna back to Trinco the Batticloa all UNP green considered Elam too- To much for us 2/3 of sea 1/3 of land for 20% of We-Tamil more than enough.

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