Maithripala Sirisena has taken office as president of Sri Lanka after winning the island's January 8 election. Sirisena won 51.28% of the vote, defeating incumbent president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who got 47.58%.
Seventeen other candidates won 1.14% of the votes between them.
Rajapaksa had been elected president in 2005 and re-elected in 2010. In his first term, he presided over the most brutal phase of the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The LTTE was formed in the 1970s to fight for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island. It was created by Tamil youth in response to discrimination against Tamils and the violent repression of peaceful protests.
In 2002, a ceasefire was signed between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. Rajapaksa ended the ceasefire, and waged a genocidal war against the Tamil people.
With military aid from the United States, China and other countries, his government was victorious. The war ended with the defeat of the LTTE in May 2009. Tens of thousands of Tamil civilians died in the final few weeks.
Repression
After the LTTE's defeat, Tamils were subject to military occupation. Land was seized for new military bases, as well as for settlements for members of the Sinhalese ethnic majority. Many Tamils have suffered murder, torture and rape at the hands of the occupying Sri Lankan army.
Tamils were the main victims of Rajapaksa's regime, but members of other ethnic groups, including Sinhalese, were also at risk if they were critical of the government. Journalists were murdered or disappeared.
After his military victory, Rajapaksa benefited from a triumphalist mood among many Sinhalese, who were influenced by the anti-Tamil chauvinism cultivated by Sinhalese politicians for many decades. Rajapaksa easily won the 2010 presidential election.
However, discontent gradually rose, due to the regime's corruption and its repressive actions against workers, students, peasants and fishers. There were several cases where the army fired on demonstrations and killed protesters. The army was used to evict slum dwellers from their homes to make way for development projects.
Muslims also suffered pogroms instigated by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), a Sinhalese Buddhist chauvinist organisation with close links to the Rajapaksa regime.
Sirisena was a minister in Rajapksa鈥檚 government for nearly 10 years. He resigned and announced his candidacy for president in November.
He gained the support of the United National Party (the main opposition party), promising to appoint UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister. He also got the support of the Jathika Hela Urumaya, a Sinhalese Buddhist chauvinist organisation (although the BBS continued to support Rajapaksa).
Sirisena benefited from the growing discontent with Rajapaksa. He promised to end corruption. He also promised to abolish the system of executive presidency, which concentrates power in the hands of the president.
Many human rights activists, who have advocated the abolishing the executive presidency, supported Sirisena in the election.
Debate
The Tamil National Alliance, the main Tamil parliamentary party, also supported Sirisena, even though he had been part of a government that had waged war on the Tamil people.
A TNA statement issued on December 30 said: 鈥淭he TNA ... believes that it is essential for the health of Sri Lanka鈥檚 democracy that the authoritarian and dictatorial trajectory on which the Rajapaksa regime has set the country be reversed urgently.
鈥淭he Rajapaksa regime has been particularly harmful for the wellbeing of the Tamil speaking peoples of Sri Lanka ... The Tamil speaking population in the North-East has been subjected to numerous other hardships: the denial of livelihoods; shelter; food; self-respect; physical safety, particularly for women and children who have been targeted by sexual violence; and justice in respect of the dead, the injured, the disappeared and those detained for long periods.鈥
The TNA statement referred to Sirisena鈥檚 commitment to abolish the executive presidency and 鈥済uarantee primacy to the rule of law鈥, but failed to cite any commitment from Sirisena to remedy the specific problems of Tamils.
Most Tamils followed the TNA鈥檚 recommendation and voted for Sirisena. But there were dissenting Tamil voices, both inside and outside the TNA.
The Tamil Civil Society Forum (TCSF), for one, saw no real difference between Rajapaksa and Sirisena. In a statement issued on December 23, the TCSF said: 鈥淩egime change does not necessarily result in change in the lives of the Tamil people. Both main parties in the South ... are deeply embedded in Sinhala Buddhist, chauvinist, anti-Tamil politics.
鈥淭hey do not even have a minimally just position on Tamil issues. For example, both parties are not even prepared to discuss a solution that goes beyond the confines of a unitary constitution.
鈥淏oth parties are also against international investigations [of war crimes].鈥
The TCSF said that changing the form of government from presidential to parliamentary would not solve the fundamental problem: 鈥淭he Tamil people have suffered equally under Westminster style parliamentary form of governments, prior to the enactment of the Second Republican constitution.
鈥淲hen the Sinhala Only Act was enacted in 1956 [making Sinhala the sole official language and denying equal status to the Tamil language] Sri Lanka had a parliamentary form of government.鈥
The TCSF also said that attacks on the democratic rights of people in the predominantly Sinhalese south of the island of Sri Lanka are a by-product of the war against the Tamils, and can only be ended by 鈥渢aking a just stand on the national question鈥.
There were also differing views among left parties.
The NSSP, while putting forward its own candidate in the presidential election, also supported the election of Sirisena. This was possible under the optional preferential voting system.
The New Socialist Party (NSSP) leader Vickramabahu Karunaratne said the key struggles in Sri Lanka are for democracy and against the influence of multinational corporations (MNCs), and that Sirisena should be given 鈥渃ritical support鈥 for supporting these struggles.
The United Socialist Party, by contrast, saw Rajapaksa and Sirisena as essentially the same. USP presidential candidate Siritunga Jayasuriya said: 鈥淭here is no difference between these two capitalist parties. Choosing among them is not a real choice for the people.鈥
Jayasuriya campaigned against privatisation and for cutting military spending to fund better wages and services. He also supported self-determination for Tamils, saying: 鈥淭he Tamil-speaking population has suffered immensely over the decades.鈥
The Frontline Socialist Party rejected both Rajapaksa and Sirisena. FSP leader Kumar Gunaratnam told Ceylon Today: 鈥淥ur aim is to revive socialism.鈥
The FSP calls for workers to unite across ethnic lines. However, its failure to support the right of Tamils to self-determination limits its ability to win the support of Tamils.
Foreign policy
Sirisena鈥檚 election seems likely to bring a shift in Sri Lanka鈥檚 foreign policy.
The Rajapaksa government had close relations with China. Jason Koutsoukis wrote in the January 10 Age that Sirisena 鈥渨ants to loosen Sri Lanka鈥檚 increasingly tight embrace with China, pledging to scrap a $1.5 billion deal with China Communications Construction Co Ltd for a port city on the island鈥.
This will please the US and India, which are rivals of China for influence in Sri Lanka.
During the war, the US, India and China all supported the Sri Lankan government against the LTTE, as did US allies such as Israel, Britain and Australia.
Western governments made occasional mild criticisms of Sri Lanka鈥檚 human rights record, but this did not prevent them giving the regime military aid. US aid included weapons, military training and satellite surveillance information.
Israeli aid included Kfir jets, which were used to bomb Tamil areas. The US banned the LTTE in 1997, and other Western countries did the same later.
After the war ended, Western governments became more critical of the Rajapaksa regime. It appeared that Rajapaksa had outlived his usefulness to the West.
In part this was due to the rivalry between the US and China, and the perception that Rajapaksa was too close to China. But it was also partly a response to growing public awareness of the crimes of the Rajapaksa regime, due to the protests of the Tamil diaspora and information spread by some journalists and human rights groups.
This made continued support for Rajapaksa a public relations problem for Western governments.
Speaking to Tamilnet before the election, academic Jude Lal said that if Sirisena won, this would not result in a better situation for Tamils. Rather it would signify 鈥渢he next stage of the genocidal process against the Tamil people鈥.
鈥淭his is when the US/UK, the real architects of the genocide of the Tamil people, by pushing away the Rajapaksa regime, which has been identified internationally as the public face of the massacre in 2009, will oversee its replacement by 鈥榝resh new faces鈥 who will take on the baton to give a new lease of life to the continued torment of the Tamil people.鈥
However the fall of Rajapaksa was not primarily the result of imperialist pressures. It was a result of the social discontent of the workers and peasants, as well as the hopes of Tamils for an improvement in their terrible situation of national oppression.
If these hopes and expectations are not fulfilled, new struggles will inevitably break out.
[A longer version can be read at .]
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