2020 General Election results and what it means for the country

Having voted for a new parliament, we need to look at the next five years and discuss what the future holds for us.

First, we need to address the elephant in the room. In fact, the elephant is no more. We need to write its' post-mortem. The people have killed the biggest political party in Sri Lanka. Do not get us wrong. We don't care one bit about the UNP, it's leadership or their donors. The problem is that with a dead UNP, the new government has no real opposition. They have a 2/3 majority in the parliament. Given their political practice, they will use it to pad up their own pockets.

We cannot expect the Samagi Jana Balawega MPs' to act as a real opposition. That much was evident from Sajith's press conference. He was more concerned with how his party performed compared to the UNP, than what needs to be done in the next five years. Herein lies the opposition’s problem. While the president presented a technocratic political system, the “opposition” was busy running a popularity contest. Though President Gota’s Viyathmaga didn’t come to fruition like he thought it would, it certainly swayed the floating votes in his favour. When the new government starts to make mistakes, misuse public property, and break laws, the people need an ideology to rally around. Sajith will not provide that. Besides, Saith and Rajapaksa are good buddies.

Had they won at least 10 seats, Jathika Jana Balawegaya would have been able to fill the need for an alternative ideology. With only 3 seats on their hands, they have their work cut out for them. However, we will certainly come to regret not having more JJB MP’s in the parliament. Not having people like Sunil Hadunnetti, Samantha Vidyarathne is going to hurt the JJB and the people of this country. Seriously, who is going to be the chairman of the COPE committee? Mahindananda? Anura Dissanayake continuously said that the JJB do not need parliament seats to be the opposition, it will just make their job easier. Let us hope that they like doing their job the hard way.

ITAK and TMTK too have significant representation in the new parliament. The only problem is that they are the Tamil version of Sinhala nationalists. Given their track record, they will not make a meaningful contribution to bridge the Sinhalese-Tamil divide. We would like to be proven though.

One of the main talking points we see is that the Podujana Peramuna needed to win a 2/3, if we are to cure the “Rajapaksa Gaya”. While that may be true to some extent, democracy is not a game of chess. Freedom of speech is not a piece on a checkers board. We should not have to sacrifice basic rights to get rid of dictatorship and nepotism. If we are serious about this issue, we need to build a new ideology for the people to rally around. The new ideology needs to be more than a popularity contest. Like we said earlier, do not expect it from Sajith. This leaves room for the JJB to talk to people, fight for people, argue for people and represent people (albeit with 3 seats). With that in mind, let us cross our fingers and strap in for 5 more years of Mahinda Rajapaksa.

 

රට කරවන හැටි Podcast Episode 20