By Sudath Gunasekara 19.8.2015

Sri Lankan parliamentary elections 2015

Map showing land area won by each Party

 This map does not unfortunately show land area won by the other party JVP, perhaps even more important as it has an Island wide coverage though it could not win a single District. But the fact remain that it polled 543,944 valid votes and contested all over the Island. Unfortunately it has got only 6 seats while the TNA that was confined only to few districts in the North and Batticalloa District that polled 515 963 (purely ethnic Tamil) has awarded 16 seats in a Parliament of 225 representatives. To me this appears to be a big flaw in our electoral system. Going by simple arithmetic JVP should also have got at least 16 or 17 seats if they gave 16 to TNA. Isn’t this a big discrepancy and a big injustice to universal franchise? Isn’t it a violation of the fundamental rights of the nearly 550 000 young people who voted JVP?

There is another big discrepancy I note in this decision. Look at the map and compare the land areas won by the respective parties. The blue area is definitely larger than the green. But the UPFA that represent the blue has got only 95 seats. One can argue that the green area represents more people and in carving out electorate they have taken both the area and population in to account. True but it is obvious that there appears to be a big injustice done to the area factor here. Justice must be done to the total area factor as well. These are some important factors that have to be taken in to account seriously by the legislators to ensure the fundamental rights of the people.

Message to the JVP

There is another blunder made by the JVP by contesting alone. Had they contested with the UPFA as they did in 2004, UPFA would have polled 4,732,669 +543,944 = 5,276,613 that is 177,686 more than the UNP (5,098,927) coalition and UPFA would have won 106 seats at least? I am sure jointly they would have got even more than 125 seats or more as many other sections like the nearly 500 000 who did not vote as they were disgusted with both major parties but also did not want to waste their vote to JVP as it is not going to come to power in any case under the present set up would also have voted the UPFA coalition. Therefore the JVP should take the responsibility for putting the UPFA in second place and committing this historic blunder.

The problem with the JVP is their overestimation of their current strength and failure to understand their real place in the minds of the people. Secondly, their wrong strategy that does not fit in to the Sri Lankan electorate. Had they contested with the UPFA as they did in 2004 they would have definitely got many more seats and could have laid a firm foundation for the future’. As such what they should have done this time is they should have joined UPFA and contested together without harping blindly on their overestimated imaginary strength and got few cabinet posts and shown their coulours to the country and gradually built up.  As for me I predicted they are not going to win 4 or 5 districts the most when they started to attack both major parties. This is utterly foolish war strategy by any standards.

JVP must take up this number issue, that is the obvious discrepancy between JVP 6 and TNA 116 immediately with the authorities and get it rectified before it thinks about the future strategy. Thereby they may be able to build up their position in Parliament or at least build up their confidence among the 545,944 people who voted them. Also they will be making a big contribution in rectifying a major flaw in our electoral system so that this type of mistakes will not occur at least in future