THE PC ELECTION CONUNDRUM

Against the backdrop of President Ranil Wickremesinghe having called on all political parties in Parliament to put their heads together to resolve the long due ethnic problem, Tamil parties representing the Northern and Eastern Provinces during a meeting on Friday in Colombo have identified three issues that have to be resolved urgently.

Releasing all lands in the two provinces that have been occupied by the security forces and other state agencies, holding provincial council elections and enabling maximum power devolution through a new Constitution were the three issues.

It is not realistic to expect a resolution to the ethnic issue urgently, given the hundreds of meetings, resolutions and discussions held on the matter since ’80s. However, the other two demands seem to be not only reasonable but also practical through relevant negotiations. If the security forces and other State agencies have occupied private lands belonging to the people under the circumstances during the war, it is pertinent that the authorities release them to their legitimate owners in light of the war having been ended 13 years ago.

Provincial councils - though they came into being through an accord between Sri Lanka and India which was in fact thrust upon Sri Lanka by the latter - were established in 1987 mainly to bring the separatist rebellion to an end and resolve the ethnic conundrum for good. Those councils were made relevant to the other provinces as well in order to ease the antipathy towards them out of the minds of the southern people.

Hence, when the Tamil parties tell the president “Okay, we’ll discuss the ethnic issue, but first give us what you have retaken from us – the provincial council elections,” then it is fitting. And telling it to the man who was instrumental to the provincial councils becoming institutions without elected people’s representatives is more pertinent.

Last Provincial council election was held in late 2014 – eight years ago in the Uva Province. And the government led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe brought in an amendment to the Provincial Councils elections Act which provided for the introduction of mixed electoral system in 2017 while election for Sabaragamuwa Provincial Council was weeks away. The delimitation process that had to be completed before the elections under the new amendment hit so many snags, as expected, postponing elections for all nine councils indefinitely.

This happened while the United National party has been fast building its credentials as a liberal democratic party, in the eyes of the international community. The Yahapalana Government adopted the 19th Amendment to the Constitution with provisions to curtail powers of the executive Presidency and to uphold the people’s right to information (RTI). Influenced mainly by the UNP leader Wickremesinghe it had brought an animosity between Sri Lanka and the United Nations Human Rights Councils (UNHRC) to an end by cosponsoring two resolutions on the country at that council. The government had also initiated a process for the introduction of a new Constitution with special focus on resolving the ethnic issue, in 2016. However, the party tarnished its image by sneaking an amendment to an Act in a manner that would postpone the provincial council elections indefinitely.

In fact, PCS were to be created initially only in the north and the east as the system was meant mainly for the resolution of the ethnic problem. That means only the Tamil dominated provinces needed such a mechanism under the power devolution. But even the Tamil leaders do not seem to have realized it. When the merged North-eastern Provincial Council was instituted with Varatharaja Perumal being the Chief Minister in 1988 and the Northern Provincial Council was elected under Chief Minister C.v.wigneswaran in 2013, both councils were more involved in political activities than resolving issues faced by the people in the region ravaged by the war.

Perumal’s council in fact pushed to take up political issues rather than socioeconomic issues by the turbulent political environment prevailed then. The LTTE had been hell-bent on eliminating the leaders of the council while the Sri Lankan government led by President Ranasinghe Premadasa was having “peace talks” with the LTTE. Indian Government which had sent in its so-called Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was attempting to stage its agendas in the region though Perumal’s council.

However, the Northern Provincial Council was instituted for years after the end of the war and in a relatively peaceful environment. Hence the council could have done a lot in the socioeconomic field. Some of the issues handled by the council was in fact should have been handled by the Tamil National Alliance, the party that dominated the council. The council passed resolution on genocide, calling international investigation into war crimes and commemoration of people killed in the war. Even the TNA had sometimes expressed reservation on having those issues on the agenda of the council. The Sunday Times in one of its issue in August 2018 reported that the NPC had adopted 415 resolutions during its five year tenure, seven resolutions a day it had met, but many resolutions adopted had been related to issues mostly do not come within the purview of the NPC. Thus, more than three decades had been wasted.