A new chapter in Sri Lankan history - The Hindu

THE election of Mahinda Rajapakse as Sri Lanka's fifth President heralds a new chapter in the country's troubled history, the Hindu said yesterday in an editorial.

The editorial: "The paradoxical factors behind his hard-worked victory offer a hint about how the plot may unfold. This was the closest contest since Sri Lanka adopted the presidential form of Government in 1978.

Rajapakse polled 50.29 per cent of the votes, barely two percentage points more than United National Party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe.

A veteran politician of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, hailed as the `Lion of the South' for his popularity among the majority Sinhalese of southern Sri Lanka, Rajapakse started with an arithmetic and political advantage over his rival by forging an alliance with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna.

During the campaign, he leant heavily on its unique combination of radical politics and rural Sinhala appeal. But, in the final analysis, it was the non-participation of a large section of voters, ensured by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, that made the winning difference.

To a large extent, Tamil voters in the North-East obeyed its thinly veiled order to boycott the elections. In Jaffna district, for instance, just 8525 of 701,938 registered voters (not all of them actually live there) turned out compared with 305,259 in the 2004 Parliamentary Election.

This cost Wickremesinghe heavily. Where Tamil and Muslim voters were able to exercise their franchise, including in the North-East, they voted overwhelmingly for him. But what might have been is an academic issue now.

What is not is the challenge the LTTE has thrown at President-elect Rajapakse. The LTTE, it is quite clear, sees its interest in helping usher in an era of hardline Sinhala politics, which will help it justify the pursuit of Eelam and enable it to regain a measure of international sympathy for its project of dividing Sri Lanka.

The LTTE has hatched this cynical game plan exploiting the stand of the newly elected President, and his close ally, the JVP, against the 2002 ceasefire and their more general pronouncements against federalism as a lasting solution to the conflict.

Rajapakse starts out with weak support among the country's minorities and the LTTE hopes to exploit this too.

The first task before President Rajapakse must be to reach out to the Tamil and Muslim minorities, and to Wickremesinghe's voters and assure them that he intends to work towards a just solution that will meet their aspirations within a united Sri Lanka.

In his manifesto, he promised to adopt a "fresh approach" to the stalemated peace process with the LTTE based on the premises of "undivided country, a national consensus, and an honourable peace."

Given the nature of his mandate, the margin of his victory, and the complexity of the national question, the road from here on will not be easy. But then, no Sri Lankan presidency has been a bed of roses.