{"id":91557,"date":"2019-07-19T15:28:57","date_gmt":"2019-07-19T22:28:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=91557"},"modified":"2019-07-19T15:39:06","modified_gmt":"2019-07-19T22:39:06","slug":"another-presidential-election-another-display-of-tamil-eelam-and-malaya-nadu-maps-to-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/07\/19\/another-presidential-election-another-display-of-tamil-eelam-and-malaya-nadu-maps-to-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Presidential Election, Another Display of Tamil Eelam and Malaya Nadu Maps to the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Another presidential election is\naround the corner. And that means the nation is forgotten once again and\npolitical clans take centre stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a sinister side to all\npresidential elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All presidential elections after\n1994 showcased internal divisions to the whole world. The ethnic group\nclassified as \u2018Sri Lankan Tamils\u2019 demand Tamil Eelam \u2013 a hypothetical state\nmaking up the entirety of the north and parts of the east and the north western\nareas. This has been an election issue since 1977. Similarly since 2002 the\nethnic group classified as \u2018Indian Tamils\u2019 have been demanding Malaya Nadu \u2013\nanother hypothetical state within the hill country in the middle of the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All presidential elections after\n1994 divided voters into two main camps very clearly separated out on a map.\nThe areas claimed as Tamil Eelam and Malaya Nadu are obvious on the election\nresults maps. This is the perfect opportunity for external meddlers to\ninterfere in local matters. What they see are three different countries within\nthe island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politicians understand this very\nwell but they don\u2019t care. However, they do rely on this fact for their benefit.\nPeople demanded referendums for the 13A and the proposed new constitution.\nPoliticians (including likely candidates for the 2019 presidential election)\nstated that it is dangerous as it will display to the whole world our internal\ndivisions. Correct. However, why don\u2019t they see the very same danger in\npresidential elections? Surely, it\u2019s an attempt to hide their real views on 13A\nand the proposed new constitution. If a referendum is called they have to say\ntheir stand and people will know they are not different to TNA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sirisena won the 2015\npresidential election. He had support of the two dissenting Tamil speaking\nareas. This calmed the international community down as the president was seen\nto have won the confidence of the pro-India and pro-West minorities. What will happen\nif the result is the opposite?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This happened in 1999, 2005 and\n2010. In all these instances the international community put severe pressure on\nLanka to come up with separatist political solutions, address sham human rights\nissues and downgrade the military. However, before 2009 it was a difficult\nchoice for the international community. Accepting separatist territories was\nout of the question as one of them was controlled by a banned terrorist\norganization. Even the Chief Minister of the East was a former LTTE cadre\naccused of using child soldiers. The north didn\u2019t have an elected Chief\nMinister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the case since 2013.\nThere are governance mechanisms in place in each of these areas that have\ndevolved powers now vested in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than anything else, the 2019\npresidential election will be a massive display of a fractured country,\noutright rejection of the winner with executive powers by the minorities and\nexisting divisions will be exploited by foreign powers for military purposes.\nIt is much worse than a referendum on 13A which federalist politicians of all\nshades of patriotism have cunningly avoided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dilrook Kannangara Another presidential election is around the corner. And that means the nation is forgotten once again and political clans take centre stage.  There is a sinister side to all presidential elections. All presidential elections after 1994 showcased internal divisions to the whole world. The ethnic group classified as \u2018Sri Lankan Tamils\u2019 demand Tamil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dilrook-kannangara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91557\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}