COLOMBO: The debacle suffered by Mahinda Rajapaksa’s United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) in the July 23 local body elections in Sri Lanka’s Tamil-dominated Northern Province has raised doubts about the establishment of an elected northern provincial council in the foreseeable future.
Although the provincial councils system was established in Lanka in 1988, the northern province has not had a council to date, even though the war in the north ended two years ago.
D Siddharthan, leader of the pro-government Peoples’ Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), told Express that the government had been planning to set up the northern council and hold elections to it in June-July next year. And to win the elections, it was planning to rebuild the war-devastated north impressively; release most of the Tamil Tiger detainees; and resettle all the war refugees.
“Despite the election losses, government believes that all these goals can be achieved, and the northern Tamils weaned away from their obsession with devolution of power and provincial autonomy by mid next year,” Siddharthan said.
But another top-level pro-government Tamil leader wondered if the government’s ardour would be the same after the drubbing the UPFA received in the elections. The UPFA lost to the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) 17 of the 20 local bodies up for grabs.
The government would not want the TNA to capture the northern council as the latter was seen as a voice of the LTTE, he said.
Contrary to the government’s expectation, the local polls had indicated that the northern Tamils were for provincial autonomy (as touted by the TNA), rather than for economic development, which the government had dangled before the Tamils as an alternative to political power.
The TNA believes that the government would not hold provincial council elections as an elected council would try and prevent its agents and the armed forces from having their way always.
“To give an example, even though the provincial council does not have control over State lands, it will have a say in the alienation of private lands. Colombo and the army will not like this,” said Suresh Premachandran, TNA MP for Jaffna district.
But K Sritharan of the Eelam Peoples’ Revolutionary Liberation Front (Perumal) said that, eventually, the government would have to accept the Tamils’ passion for devolution.