ASIA PACIFIC
Sri Lankans Vote on Whether to Keep Leader Who Crushed Insurgency
By ELLEN BARRYJAN. 8, 2015 NYT
NEW DELHI — Voters in Sri Lanka turned out in unusually high numbers on Thursday to vote in a presidential election that will decide the fate of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a larger-than-life figure who during nearly a decade in office has built close ties with China, begun a campaign of “megadevelopment” and sharply centralized power in one of Asia’s oldest democracies.
Five years ago, riding a wave of popularity after crushing the long-running Tamil insurgency in the north, Mr. Rajapaksa embraced a far grander vision for his governance of the island nation. Supporters took to calling him a modern-day incarnation of the ancient King Dutugemunu, who defeated Tamil invaders and ushered in a flourishing period of peace.
After declaring victory over the Tamil insurgency, Mr. Rajapaksa, 69, began laying the groundwork to secure power for a longer period, amending the Constitution to remove a two-term limit for presidents and removing a resistant chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was buoyed by a steady postwar economic expansion that is the envy of Sri Lanka’s South Asian neighbors and by billions of dollars in Chinese loans for modern ports and highways.
But his decision to call for the elections that were held on Thursday, nearly two years before the end of his second six-year term, has proved a bigger gamble than he anticipated. A longtime loyalist from his own party, Maithripala Sirisena, a former health minister, suddenly defected and declared himself the opposition candidate, lashing out at the president for allowing his family members to dominate the upper levels of government.
The race is being watched closely by the governments of China, India and the United States. China has underwritten Mr. Rajapaksa’s trademark achievements, and in September, to the alarm of Indian diplomats, a Chinese military submarine docked in the commercial harbor of Colombo, the capital. Mr. Sirisena has suggested that, if elected, he will steer Sri Lanka’s foreign policy along a different course.
After casting his vote in the city of Hambantota on Thursday morning, Mr. Rajapaksa told reporters that he was confident he would be re-elected. A tireless and charismatic campaigner, Mr. Rajapaksa won around 58 percent of the vote in the last election, a year after the end of the civil war.
“We will have a resounding victory,” he said. “That is very clear.”
During the waning days of the campaign, Mr. Rajapaksa promised changes if he won a third term, among them a revamping of the Constitution and an internal investigation into reported human rights violations by Sri Lankan troops during the civil war.
He also warned voters of the untested quality of the opposition coalition, which has expanded to include factions from highly disparate interest groups.
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“The devil you know is better than the unknown angel,” he told an audience in the northern city of Jaffna. “I am the known devil, so please vote for me.”
As they left polling places on Thursday morning, voters in Colombo said they were balancing Mr. Rajapaksa’s clear successes against grievances that have built since 2010, when he won his second term.
“The defeat of terrorism had to be achieved, and the whole country was deeply grateful to President Rajapaksa,” said Dr. Mohan Perera, 62, a scientist from the Sinhalese ethnic group, after voting in a well-off central district of Colombo. “If they had managed the economy better after the war, I think he would have been unshakable. But much of the good will he got after the war has been squandered.”
Others said they feared that a change of government would knock Sri Lanka off the growth trajectory Mr. Rajapaksa had set. One man, who voted in the working-class Colombo suburb of Maharagama, worried about the country’s security if the opposition should come to power, alluding to Western pressure over the reports of human rights violations in the civil war.
“In this election we have thought first about the country,” said Piyaratne Jayasena, 62, a retired government banker. “We must first of all have a country left. We have to know it is secure from foreign interference.”
Despite Sri Lanka’s high growth rates, many people complain about the rising cost of living, driven by the cost of fuel and other imported goods. During the euphoric period that followed the war, many Sri Lankans increased their consumption in anticipation of a rise in income that did not come, said Nishan de Mel, an economist based in Colombo.
“The other side to the optimistic growth story is that jobs are not increasing very much,” said Mr. de Mel, who heads Verité Research, an independent research organization. “There is a sense of not really reaping the benefits of postwar economic growth.”
Because Mr. Rajapaksa’s support is concentrated in one part of the electorate — he remains popular among ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists, who make up 70 percent of the country’s population, but not among ethnic minority groups in the former conflict zones — the election’s outcome may hinge on turnout.
In the days before the election, observer groups warned that violence or a heavy military presence could be used to discourage turnout in important districts.
Turnout was reported to be strong on Thursday morning, with around 40 percent of registered voters showing up by 11 a.m., four hours after polls opened, according to Bharrat Jagdeo, a former president of Guyana who is heading the Commonwealth Observer Group. He said polling booths “are operating in an objective way.”
“We see a fairly decent on-the-ground translation of what you can call fair polls,” Mr. Jagdeo said. “So far there is no presence of the military anywhere in the country, and it has been peaceful.”
A hand grenade exploded about half a mile from a polling station in Jaffna, the Tamil-dominated northern city, but no one was wounded, said Ravi Waidyalankara, a senior police officer in Jaffna.
Monitors reported that Muslim voters displaced from their homes and living in temporary camps in the northern district of Mannar were unable to go to the polls because they had no transportation.
Dharisha Bastians contributed reporting from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankans Vote on Whether to Keep Leader Who Crushed Insurgency
By ELLEN BARRYJAN. 8, 2015 NYT
NEW DELHI — Voters in Sri Lanka turned out in unusually high numbers on Thursday to vote in a presidential election that will decide the fate of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, a larger-than-life figure who during nearly a decade in office has built close ties with China, begun a campaign of “megadevelopment” and sharply centralized power in one of Asia’s oldest democracies.
Five years ago, riding a wave of popularity after crushing the long-running Tamil insurgency in the north, Mr. Rajapaksa embraced a far grander vision for his governance of the island nation. Supporters took to calling him a modern-day incarnation of the ancient King Dutugemunu, who defeated Tamil invaders and ushered in a flourishing period of peace.
After declaring victory over the Tamil insurgency, Mr. Rajapaksa, 69, began laying the groundwork to secure power for a longer period, amending the Constitution to remove a two-term limit for presidents and removing a resistant chief justice of the Supreme Court. He was buoyed by a steady postwar economic expansion that is the envy of Sri Lanka’s South Asian neighbors and by billions of dollars in Chinese loans for modern ports and highways.
But his decision to call for the elections that were held on Thursday, nearly two years before the end of his second six-year term, has proved a bigger gamble than he anticipated. A longtime loyalist from his own party, Maithripala Sirisena, a former health minister, suddenly defected and declared himself the opposition candidate, lashing out at the president for allowing his family members to dominate the upper levels of government.
The race is being watched closely by the governments of China, India and the United States. China has underwritten Mr. Rajapaksa’s trademark achievements, and in September, to the alarm of Indian diplomats, a Chinese military submarine docked in the commercial harbor of Colombo, the capital. Mr. Sirisena has suggested that, if elected, he will steer Sri Lanka’s foreign policy along a different course.
“Sirisena’s manifesto is very, very clear on this — ending reliance on one family and one country,” said Sasha Riser-Kositsky, an analyst with the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy based in New York. “They don’t name the family or the country, but it’s very obvious. They are very suspicious of becoming over reliant on China.”
After casting his vote in the city of Hambantota on Thursday morning, Mr. Rajapaksa told reporters that he was confident he would be re-elected. A tireless and charismatic campaigner, Mr. Rajapaksa won around 58 percent of the vote in the last election, a year after the end of the civil war.
“We will have a resounding victory,” he said. “That is very clear.”
During the waning days of the campaign, Mr. Rajapaksa promised changes if he won a third term, among them a revamping of the Constitution and an internal investigation into reported human rights violations by Sri Lankan troops during the civil war.
He also warned voters of the untested quality of the opposition coalition, which has expanded to include factions from highly disparate interest groups.
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
“The devil you know is better than the unknown angel,” he told an audience in the northern city of Jaffna. “I am the known devil, so please vote for me.”
As they left polling places on Thursday morning, voters in Colombo said they were balancing Mr. Rajapaksa’s clear successes against grievances that have built since 2010, when he won his second term.
“The defeat of terrorism had to be achieved, and the whole country was deeply grateful to President Rajapaksa,” said Dr. Mohan Perera, 62, a scientist from the Sinhalese ethnic group, after voting in a well-off central district of Colombo. “If they had managed the economy better after the war, I think he would have been unshakable. But much of the good will he got after the war has been squandered.”
Others said they feared that a change of government would knock Sri Lanka off the growth trajectory Mr. Rajapaksa had set. One man, who voted in the working-class Colombo suburb of Maharagama, worried about the country’s security if the opposition should come to power, alluding to Western pressure over the reports of human rights violations in the civil war.
“In this election we have thought first about the country,” said Piyaratne Jayasena, 62, a retired government banker. “We must first of all have a country left. We have to know it is secure from foreign interference.”
Despite Sri Lanka’s high growth rates, many people complain about the rising cost of living, driven by the cost of fuel and other imported goods. During the euphoric period that followed the war, many Sri Lankans increased their consumption in anticipation of a rise in income that did not come, said Nishan de Mel, an economist based in Colombo.
“The other side to the optimistic growth story is that jobs are not increasing very much,” said Mr. de Mel, who heads Verité Research, an independent research organization. “There is a sense of not really reaping the benefits of postwar economic growth.”
Because Mr. Rajapaksa’s support is concentrated in one part of the electorate — he remains popular among ethnic Sinhalese Buddhists, who make up 70 percent of the country’s population, but not among ethnic minority groups in the former conflict zones — the election’s outcome may hinge on turnout.
In the days before the election, observer groups warned that violence or a heavy military presence could be used to discourage turnout in important districts.
Turnout was reported to be strong on Thursday morning, with around 40 percent of registered voters showing up by 11 a.m., four hours after polls opened, according to Bharrat Jagdeo, a former president of Guyana who is heading the Commonwealth Observer Group. He said polling booths “are operating in an objective way.”
“We see a fairly decent on-the-ground translation of what you can call fair polls,” Mr. Jagdeo said. “So far there is no presence of the military anywhere in the country, and it has been peaceful.”
A hand grenade exploded about half a mile from a polling station in Jaffna, the Tamil-dominated northern city, but no one was wounded, said Ravi Waidyalankara, a senior police officer in Jaffna.
Monitors reported that Muslim voters displaced from their homes and living in temporary camps in the northern district of Mannar were unable to go to the polls because they had no transportation.
Dharisha Bastians contributed reporting from Colombo, Sri Lanka.
