A new President, a new Parliament, and a new Cabinet of Ministers sans true minority representation in Sri Lanka led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake.
The nation voted overwhelmingly for ‘comrade’ Dissanayake in the Parliamentary Election. Except for the Batticaloa Electoral District which ‘saved the self-respect of the Tamils’, all the other 21 districts went with the National People’s Power (NPP), Dissanayake’s political party with the compass as its Poll symbol.
But, the compass distinctly pointed toward the Sinhala majority when it came to Government formation.
None among the 21 Cabinet Ministers are from the traditional Tamil homeland of the North and the East and among the Muslims who form a sizable population in the country, although being an oppressed minority.
“The Election result is the call of the oppressed for freedom,” thundered Dissanayake after the result.
Tamil voters in Jaffna say that this is the first step of betrayal by the ‘compass regime’. People voted for NPP candidates hoping that their representatives would be part of the decision-making process only to be believed.
Among the 28 lawmakers from the North and the East, 12 are from the NPP. Three of the six Tamil Members of Parliament elected from Jaffna were from the NPP. While the public voted for two from the Vanni, it was one in Batticaloa, where the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kadchi (ITAK) secured three seats.
Despite what the NPP claims as ‘significant wins’ in the Tamil homeland, its Party Leader and President Dissanayake decided not to award a Minister post to the Tamils from the North and the East.
Even Muslims suffered the same fate when it came to the allocation of a Cabinet berth. No Muslims were awarded a place in the country’s apex policy-making body. It is the first time since the country became Independent that the Cabinet does not have a Muslim.
“Muslims are also citizens of this country. As such, we also have equal rights of dignity like other communities. A member of our community has always been in the Cabinet since we became a free nation. For the first time in the history of the country, the new Government has completely ignored the Muslims in the Cabinet formation,” Trincomalee Samagi Jana Balawegaya Opposition MP Imran Maharoof told local journalists. Maharoof adds that the entire Muslim community in the nation is deeply worried by the attitude of the present Government. “This is clearly evident in the social media posting. The disappointment among our community is so huge and people feel badly let down. Looking at some of the activities of the new Government in a short time span, we suspect that the Government has a different view about the Muslims in the country”.
Tamils too have vented their deep disappointment with the NPP discriminating against them by not accommodating any of the Tamil speaking MPs elected on their ticket from the North and the East.
Much euphoria erupted across the country after the resounding two-thirds victory of the NPP in the Parliamentary Poll. The Party claimed that they have unified the country which was divided on ethnic lines for over 75 years.
Most of the minority parties aligned with the Opposition candidate Sajith Premadasa in the Presidential Election who secured most of the votes in the North and the East of the country.
However, in the General Election, with the exception of a single District, the whole nation went behind Dissanayake and his NPP which called for a change and a new political culture.
A vision document of Dissanayake or the ‘NPP Presidential Manifesto’ alive on his website speaks about space for all ethnicities. “A key initiative of the NPP will be an effort to build a unified Sri Lankan nation. The elite ruling class, which has run the country until now, failed to unite the Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and plantation community under one flag as a Sri Lankan nation. We will create space for all ethnicities to envision a shared future as a unified Sri Lankan nation”.
But, his Cabinet formation speaks in a different tone, clearly pointing towards majority appeasement.
While Muslims are upset about being left out of the Cabinet for the first time despite a million of them amongst a million and a half voting for the NPP, Tamils still feel further alienated from the mainstream polity of the country, with no native Tamil member elected from the traditional Tamil homeland.
“Even during the Rajapaksa regimes, which came to power sowing seeds of ethnic hate among people, had offered a Cabinet post to a Muslim person which should be noted,” said Maharoof.
However, the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament and Colombo District MP Dr. Rizvie Salih has justified the Cabinet formation. Elected on the NPP ticket, he says that his party is of the view that the primary condition for heading a Ministry should be the qualification, skills and political acumen of the person rather than their religion, gender or race. “What matters is the progress of the country, not the labels of individuals,” he posted on social media.
Although the newly appointed Minister of Fisheries, Aquatic and Ocean Resources, Ramalingam Chandrasekar is a Tamil-speaking politician, he hails from the upcountry area and entered the Parliament through the NPP National List.
Meanwhile, India has impressed upon the ITAK MPs that Tamil parties lost significantly in the Parliamentary Election due to a lack of unity among them. The newly elected eight MPs from the ITAK met the Indian Envoy to Colombo, Santosh Jha at the latter Embassy. Even though the Indian External Affairs Minister and their National Security Advisor had suggested unity among the Tamil parties, it did not materialise, which led to the loss of seats for the Tamils, Jha told the ITAK MPs, it is reliably learned.
(The writer is the World News Editor of The African Gazette)
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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication