By Kumar David –

Prof. Kumar David

In 12 day the country would have to congratulate Anura Kumara Dissanayake as President and hurl imprecations at an electoral processes which opened a perilous pathway for Sajith or possibly Ranil to stake a claim to the presidency. For impenetrable reasons however Sumanthiran decided to support Sajith (as did a miniscule left entity known as the ULF). Why Sumanthiran backed Sajith, instead of the NPP, is difficult to understand. It is true that the NPP/ JVP has not issued a guarantee that it will hold regular parliamentary and presidential elections, nor has it promised to respect the independence of the judiciary, nor has the NPP/JVP made a commitment to the devolution of power to Tamil areas. Nevertheless, from a Tamil perspective Sajith is worse on all counts as he lives in the pocket of the Sinhala-Buddhist clergy.

Whether Anura wins a clear mandate to the presidency or not another bunch of constitutional snares open up before him. This pertains to the abolition of the Executive Presidency (EP). The NPP and the JVP are committed to the abolition of the EP and backsliding on this matter will all but provoke a rebellion in the ranks of the JVP. (I need to say that, notwithstanding the large rallies and gatherings that it has mobilised, if Anura fails to win the presidency, there will be chaos in the ranks of the JVP as on the previous occasions on which the JVP was defeated).

To move on, if Anura (or anyone else) fails to win an absolute majority on the initial count, the second and third preferences of all the candidates taking part in the election are counted and added to the votes polled by the candidates themselves.  Then the candidate with the largest number of total votes in declared elected. That’s it! I am spelling this out in very simple words because we need to see what was in that crafty devil and personification of evil, JR’s, mind. He calculated that if the UNP candidate did not make 50% on first count, then voters of all other candidates would pick the UNP offering as their second or third choice. That JR thought was the standing of the UNP as a “national” party. Therefore the UNP man would win the election by “crook” if not by “hook”. JR himself was president from 1978 to 1989 and his man Ranasinghe Premadasa from 1989 to 1983. Deaf-and-blind (DB) Wijetunga was able to hang on through 1993-1994. Then the storm broke and Chandrika stormed to power in 1994 and remained till 2005 followed by “war winner” Mahinda, PIssu Sira and then 69-lakh Gota in 2019 to 2022. (JR died of colon cancer in November 1996 but the malicious executive presidential system that he crafted persists to this day).

Crisis on economic issues starts on the very next day after the September 21, 2024 presidential election no matter who wins. In truth the fun and games will be more manifest if Anura wins; more pronounced than the constitutional issues of annulling the executive presidency that I have mentioned previously, will be fulfilling economic expectations. Political expectations will be quickly drowned when wolf comes to the door. I say fairly confidently that it the NPP/JVP that will be the victim of exaggerated economic expectations on the morrow of the elections. This can be tricky because of the comparative expectations of the silent vote that will be stirred up by Ranil. There is a silent expectation that Ranil would have been able to keep petrol prices lower. There is also a perception that the IMF would make international borrowing terms less stringent. The Governor of the Central Bank is playing along and encouraging these expectations. The economy may nail the NPP/JVP not on the day after it wins the elections but perhaps on the third or fourth day after victory.