SRI Lanka goes to the polls once again on March 17 in an election that's sorely lacking in interest due to a combination of factors: focus on the World Cup cricket tournament, absence of the poll in the capital Colombo and its immediate suburbs, and disinterest in local government issues. Colombo's mainstream media has also shown little interest in the campaigning, relegating a few pages to coverage of campaign rallies and house-to-house campaigning. The few occasions when banner headlines have appeared it's because of a meeting in which President Mahinda Rajapaksa was present and expectations that his speech will deal with national issues – not necessarily of a local, village interest. L.H. Mettananda, a resident of the central town of Kurunegala, was quoted in the Daily Mirror newspaper Monday saying that “people are not interested in the local government elections and therefore will not use their vote on election-day.” Campaigning ended at midnight Monday under election rules where all political party meetings and propaganda have to end 48 hours before polling day. The poll is not being held in Colombo city and the immediate suburbs, a step taken by the authorities to avoid any clash with the World Cup cricket tournament which Sri Lanka is co-hosting with India and Bangladesh. The same applies to local councils in the southern city of Hambantota and central region of Kandy where elections have been put off for the same reason – as they are hosting matches in those areas. Issues over the submission on nomination papers to 66 other local authorities saw a legal challenge in the Supreme Court followed by the Elections Commission postponing the poll in these areas. Thus only 235 of the 335 local authorities will be polling on March 17 to elect 3,049 members. “No one is interested in the election. I see less than 60 percent of voters (totaling close to 10 million) casting their ballot,” said Kusal Perera, a political analyst and newspaper columnist. “Hardly any interest – this is a stubborn fact.” He says people have also lost faith in fair elections — due to alleged vote-rigging or intimidation of opposition party candidates and their supporters by President Mahinda Rajapaksa's powerful ruling party in the past. “They have also lost faith in local government bodies as they don't deliver on the people's expectations on local level issues like maintaining road, culverts, services, etc,” he said. M.S.M. Ayub, a senior political writer at the local Daily Mirror newspaper, believes that one of the reasons for the lack of interest is that the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) itself is not running a powerful, overwhelming campaign. “In Sri Lanka the opposition parties rarely display their merit in creating election hype, especially during provincial and local elections, since all opportunities are plundered by the ruling parties in this regard since early eighties. Hence, all credit for the hue and cry during elections, particularly during provincial and local government elections, goes to the ruling parties. Thus the relatively subdued election campaign this time seems to be owing to the fact that the UPFA had made little headway in running the show,” he wrote in his weekly political column on March 5. “The UPFA seems to be at a loss about how to proceed with the campaign or it is not interested in making extravagant public events, perhaps due to the overconfidence in the outcomes of the mini polls,” he said. Without any doubt, the ruling party will – yet again — pull off victory at the March 17 polls and the only issue that's uncertain would be the margin of victory. The main opposition United National Party hasn't won a national poll since 2004 with Rajapaksa's UPFA winning by sizable margins all elections during this period. However, the opposition including the former Marxist-oriented People's Liberation Front (which goes by its Sinhalese acronym-JVP) is banking on disenchantment by the people over economic issues and the high cost of living which has soared in recent times. Time and again, speakers from the UNP and the JVP have been reminding the people at campaign rallies of the economic burden plus unbridled corruption in government circles. The president has been plugging the line that a vote for ruling party is a vote for future development of the country in the post-war era. “The elections are being fought by parties on national issues. The UNP campaign is about defeating the government,” said analyst Kusal Perera, who agrees with analyst Ayub that the government is not putting its full weight behind the campaign. Perera also believes that the cost of living and economic burden on the people are more urban issues and not rural ones; one of the reasons why the government had postponed many polls in urban cities conveniently using the excuse of World Cup matches. Other political commentators say the government is clearly aware that it cannot ride on the success of its war victory, nearly two years ago when Tamil rebels were wiped out by government forces in May 2009, as that's long gone by and largely forgotten by the people as new issues emerge like the cost of living, etc. Hence there is little to talk about apart from the so-called development that the government says it taking off after the war ended in May 2009. The writer is a senior political analyst based in Colombo __
