{"id":96153,"date":"2019-12-08T17:33:55","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T00:33:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=96153"},"modified":"2019-12-08T17:33:55","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T00:33:55","slug":"election-results-can-be-skinned-any-which-way-you-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/12\/08\/election-results-can-be-skinned-any-which-way-you-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Election results can be skinned any which way you like"},"content":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"
A warm but flawed reading of the 2015 result, <\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\n\nPeople from the \nsame camp, in terms of who they voted for, can and do come up with \ndifferent reasons for victory, or if that’s the case, defeat. \n\n
\n\nFor\n example, some who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa could put his victory \ndown to one or more of the following: a) ineptitude of the Yahapalana \nregime and failure to deliver on promises, b) the need for a strong and \ntested leader in the face of new threats to national security, c) \nperceptions that he was a doer as opposed to a talker (that\u2019s Sajith), \nd) a strong, determined and well-coordinated campaign as opposed to \nSajith Premadasa\u2019s wayward, disorganized effort further marred by \nin-fighting. \n\n
\n\nOthers\n could point to the overwhelming surge in the anti-UNP vote from areas \ndominated by Sinhala Buddhists and claim that it was a response to \nunnecessary and endless needling of the majority community by various \nUNP spokespersons. They could add that lack of clarity on the part of \nSajith Premadasa on his arrangement with the Tamil National Alliance \n(TNA) given that party\u2019s Eelamist posturing through conditions offered \nto and rejected by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was key. \n\n
\n\nSo\n it is about strengths of the winner and weaknesses of the loser and\/or \ntheir respective parties. Strengths and weaknesses can be understood in \ndifferent ways. How would some one who voted for Sajith explain the \noutcome?\n\n
\n\nSome\n might say \u2018he didn\u2019t have enough time to campaign since his party was \nslow in offering him nomination.\u2019 Others would add, \u2018and Ranil \nWickremesinghe didn\u2019t put his heart and soul into the campaign,\u2019 even \nthough the party leader has refuted this claim by pointing out that he \nwas asked to campaign in the North and East, which districts he \ndelivered. Whether he was key in this \u2018deliverance,\u2019 of course is \nanother matter. Anyway, some inclined to be self-critical rather than \nlooking for scapegoats have argued that there was very little \ncampaigning at the grassroots, that the UNP\u2019s party machinery was rusty,\n that UNPers were demoralized after the debacle at the local government \nelections in February 2018, and that Sajith\u2019s \u2018I-ME-and-Myself\u2019 did not \nexcite the floating voter, that Sajith had a tough brief to defend \nconsidering the (non) performance of the government in which he was a \ncabinet minister.  \n\n
\n\nFinger-pointers\n who are not willing to acknowledge error or blemish, have simply said \n\u2018it\u2019s all because Gota appealed to Sinhala Buddhist chauvinists.\u2019  Some\n say \u2018It\u2019s the BBS\u2019. That\u2019s the Bodu Bala Sena. The BBS and it\u2019s \npolitical twin, Ravana Balakaya, following the election stated that the \norganizations would be dissolved following the parliamentary elections.\n\n
\n\n\u2018There\n you go!\u2019 did someone exclaim? It\u2019s easy to join dots (any which way you\n like) to prove you point. Still, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya \n\u2018decisions\u2019 are worth commenting on. Now these outfits are considered \nextremists by some who, interestingly, extrapolate the \u2018extremism to the\n entire Sinhala Buddhist population. Interestingly too, they don\u2019t apply\n the same logic to the National Thawheed Jamath (NTJ) and the Muslim \ncommunity. Neither do they pause to compare and contrast the extremisms \u2014\n the involvement of the BBS in Aluthgama and Digana versus the Easter \nSunday attacks carried out by the NTJ.  Cost of damage to property and lives lost could be but are not compared. \n\n
\n\nBack\n to the BBS and Gotabaya Rajapaksa. So is it that the BBS and the Ravana\n Balakaya, having \u2018delivered\u2019 the presidency to Gota, have concluded \n\u2018mission accomplished, we got our man in and our work is done?\u2019 Is \nGotabaya a BBS man or Ravana Balakaya man? That would be utterly \nsimplistic. First of all, the BBS and Ravana Balakaya are essentially \nfringe elements of the Sinhala Buddhist nationalist discourse. More \nvisible, of course, just like the NTJ, but that\u2019s just one part of the \nstory. Gotabaya Rajapaksa, when he was Secretary, Ministry of Defence, \ndid accept an invitation extended to him by the BBS to be chief guest at\n the opening of an office somewhere in the Southern Province. That was \nout of order for a government servant. Does that make Gota a member of \nthe BBS high command? Did the BBS deliver the presidency to Gota?  \n\n
\n\nThe\n BBS contested the last parliamentary elections as the \u2018Buddhist \nPeople\u2019s Front\u2019. The total votes polls by that party was 20,377 or just \n0.19%. Nation-wide. And that\u2019s \u2018push\u2019 enough to decide who would be \npresident? Sobering, ain\u2019t it?\n\n
\n\nForget the BBS; was Sinhala Buddhist nationalism the most significant element at the election? Ameer Ali, in an analysis titled \u2018Sibling wins, patriarch celebrates and minorities stunned,\u2019 <\/a>in the Colombo Telegraph, certainly thinks so. \n\n
\n\nAli\n believes that Ethno-religious nationalism decided the winner. He claims\n that ethno-religious Buddhist nationalists created and presented an \nimage to the Sinhala public that the two minorities are a clear and \nimminent danger to national security. He claims, \u2018an uncompromising but \nultra-nationalist section of the institutionalised Buddhist clergy \nspearheaded a campaign to deprive the minorities of that privilege and \nrallied Sinhala Buddhist voters behind Gotabaya, who in their view will \nbe the man to save Buddhist Sri Lanka.\u2019 And, pointing to the fact that \nSajith won handsomely in the North and East, but was trounced elsewhere,\n Ali concludes that it was indeed a battle between the Buddhist majority\n and the minorities. He says, in the process, that the minorities \u2018hoped\n for a 2015 repeat scenario when their votes decided the winner in a \ntightly fought presidential contest and threw their support behind \nSajith Premadasa.\u2019\n\n
\n\nOn\n the hand, why doesn\u2019t Ali see that the Sinhalese and Buddhists could \nperceive an existentialist threat given statements issued by the likes \nof Sumanthiran and Hizbullah and of course the fact that terrorists from\n both the Tamil and Muslim communities unabashedly vented against \nSinhala Buddhists? He doesn\u2019t play that part of the game, but picks the \nreverse. It can\u2019t cut just one way, though.\n\n
\n\nAnyway,\n Ali\u2019s reading reminded me of an elegant meme created by Shanuki De \nAlwis just after the January 2015 election. It was a warm interpretation\n of the result, depicting the North and East embracing\/protecting the \nrest of the country. Indeed, it seemed apt at the time. However, if you \nlooked at the numbers, the story is very different. What the \nanti-Rajapaksa candidates gained between 2010 and 2015 from these two \nprovinces are dwarfed by what Mahinda lost in just the Southern and \nWestern Provinces. It was not just the minorities that defeated Mahinda \nin 2015. \n\n
\n\nLess\n than five years later, Mahinda\u2019s brother swept these very same \nprovinces by massive margins. Were people in the relevant districts \nsuddenly converted to the political stance of the BBS (if we believe \nthat claim)? Obviously there are other explanations. Yes, national \nsecurity was an issue. So was incompetence. Incoherence. Utter \nconfusion. You name it!  That\u2019s all Yahapalana attributes. \n\n
\n\nSo\n why say \u2018Buddhist\u2019 or \u2018Sinhala\u2019 just because of the 6.9 million who \nvoted for Gotabaya happened to be identified in such terms? Sure, they \nwere Sinhalese and Buddhists, but on what basis can anyone say that it \nis only their ethnic identity and religious faith that determined \nchoice? It\u2019s a bit like saying all those in the North and East who voted\n against Gotabaya are Eelamists or Islamic Fundamentalists. They voted \nfor Sajith, a Sinhalese, who was in rhetoric far more nationalistic than\n Gotabaya was, if anyone followed their respective speeches. So Sinhala \nBuddhist anxieties may have been part of the story, but it cannot be \nconcluded that it was THE story of the election result.\n\n
\n\nIt\u2019s\n about how you want to skin it, in the end. Minority angst can of course\n privilege perceptions and hence persuade people like Ali to say \u2018we are\n shocked\u2019. Shocked because you didn\u2019t expect it or shocked because you \nfear the consequences? Perceptions are real, even if they are not based \non facts. You paint a monster and then \u2018the monster\u2019 haunts you. You \nbelieve your own propaganda. You have a set frame and cannot fathom that\n that\u2019s not the only one available. You see certain things, choose not \nto see others and are absolutely ignorant of still other factors. So you\n go with what you know, throw in anxieties and political \npreferences\/disappointments and get to \u2018THIS IS WHAT IT WAS!\u2019  \n\n
\n\nIt\u2019s\n good to feel good or, as the case may be, to feed one\u2019s anxieties in a \nmasochistic kind of way. That\u2019s however simplistic political analysis, \nnothing more.  \n\n
malindasenevi@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malinda Seneviratne People from the same camp, in terms of who they voted for, can and do come up with different reasons for victory, or if that’s the case, defeat.  For example, some who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa could put his victory down to one or more of the following: a) ineptitude of the Yahapalana […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malinda-seneviratne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96153","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=96153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}