First free, fair election held in Eastern Province - Senior Minister Gunasekara

This is the first free and fair election held in the Eastern Province. Since 1988 all the elections were held in the middle of various problems. But this time the people in the East were able to exercise their universal franchise freely. This is a very positive point. When it comes to the Eastern Provincial Council election non LTTE/ anti LTTE parties, such as, EPRLF, PLOT, TELLO were contested along with the pro LTTE political parties. This province is multi-lingual and multi-cultural, said CPSL General Secretary and Senior Human Resources Minister D.E.W. Gunasekara in an interview with the Daily News.

Excerpts of the interview:

Q: How do you interpret the recent election results of the three provinces, especially the Eastern Province?

A: The turnout for the recent Provincial Council (PC) election was low. This is natural and understandable because since 1988, the turn out at all PC elections was low and around 51 percent. The highest is the Presidential and Parliamentary elections. At the PC elections, the people are lethargic and not interested in voting. They never take leave and go to their homes to vote. This is because it does not change governments. But, governments are changed at other elections and even the people are more enthusiastic to vote at these elections.

We can take the Sabaragamuwa and North Central Provinces (NCP) results together and the result of the Eastern PC. The people living in the two provinces reposed their trust in the government in the middle of drought and all the other problems. The message given by the people of the two provinces was clear. There had been a polarization of voters in the Eastern Province in terms of communities and religions more than political persuasions. That was obvious. That is how the Tamil people rallied round the TNA, Muslim people rallied round the SLMC and the Sinhala people rallied round the UPFA and the UNP. This is not a positive outcome. It is a negative outcome. But this is the ground reality.

This is the first free and fair election held in the Eastern Province. Since 1988, all elections were held in the middle of various problems. But this time the people in the East were able to exercise their universal franchise freely. This is a very positive point. When it comes to the Eastern Provincial Council election non LTTE/ anti LTTE parties such as EPRLF, PLOT, TELLO were contested along with the pro LTTE political parties. This province is multi-lingual and multi-cultural. This is one reason for polarization. In the middle of a lot of strong objections, late President J.R. Jayewardene deliberately brought the electoral system in order to cater to the caste system.

Q: How about holding the PC election in the Northern Province?

A: President Mahinda Rajapaksa stated that the Northern Provincial Council election will be held in the next year and again assured this while addressing the 58th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference held in Colombo recently. It was a very clear message for that it will become a reality. When it comes to the Northern Provincial Council election, there will be no room for polarization because around 98 percent of people are Tamil and the Tamil political parties will compete.

Q: Communal issues are harmful to the smooth functioning of democracy. Some countries have already banned racist politics. Should not the government ban racial, religious and linguistic issues being played in elections?

A: Banning the use of communal issues will not solve the entire problem. The ethnic conflict that has existed since independence should be solved. Since then there is a tendency to use the communal issues during elections. In history, there were only two or three political parties in Sri Lanka and they were national political parties. All ethnicities were included in those few national political parties. But after independence, many political parties were formed and people began to polarize. Our leaders did not understand the gravity of the problem and did not do nation building. A number of communal issues created by ourselves led to the creation of communal political parties. Now there are Buddhist, Muslim, Tamil etc political parties. This is due to our failure in nation building. We have to build our nation as Sri Lankans.

Q: Implementing LLRC recommendations is subject to various discussions at national and international level. What is the latest situation in connection with this?

A: President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed a Task Force to implement the LLRC recommendations. When it comes to the LLRC recommendations, some of its recommendations, such as, resettlement and rehabilitation have already been implemented and some of them are being implemented.

There are some recommendations that are to be implemented. There are some other recommendations that are unimplementable at the moment without the consensus of political parties. The consensus of political parties are required to change the constitution etc. This is the current situation. The Task Force is going ahead with the line ministries. Now court procedures in connection with LTTE cadres have been accelerated. President Rajapaksa proposed the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to solve the ethnic issue with the consensus of all political parties. If we can have a consensus today, we can implement the unimplementable recommendations tomorrow.

Q: Separatism is still very much active outside Sri Lanka. The Tamil Nadu incident is one example. Please comment.

A: During the humanitarian operation in Sri Lanka there were no protests in Tamil Nadu. Everything came up only after the completion of the humanitarian operation. During our Presidential election campaign etc, the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and others kept quiet. But since the defeat of the LTTE, pro LTTE elements have sprung into action.

Some Tamil Nadu political parties use the Sri Lankan issue to come to power and stay in power. That is all. But finally it will spill out to our country and the relationship between our countries will be strained. We have to deal only with the Indian Central Government and have nothing to do with state governments. We will approach the problem in a diplomatic manner and solve the problem without getting provoked unnecessary by press reports. India is an emerging economy and our closest neighbour. Raising Sinhala communalism here and Tamil communalism there will harm both Sri Lanka and India.

Q: Has the government taken action to implement the COPE recommendations and also prosecuted those responsible for corruption and misappropriation of government funds?

A: The implementation of the COPE is purely the responsibility of the Executive. Now the Executive is implementing it.

According to the latest reports, annual reports had been submitted up to 2010. Earlier, for 10 years some annual reports had not been submitted. Now around 10 annual reports come to the Cabinet every week for approval. All final accounts for 2011 had been completed. This is the first time it happened in the history.

This is the effect of our COPE Report. Heads of Departments, Ministry Secretaries and all are doing their duties now because the President tabled the report before the Cabinet and gave instructions to relevant officials to supervise it and report back to the Cabinet. Then the Cabinet Secretary send the reports to my ministry. Now we are monitoring what is not been implemented. I have two roles. As the chairman of COPE, I am responsible only for Parliament.

Q: In the middle of rapid development, social ethics and morals are declining fast all over the world, including Sri Lanka, causing social unrest. Please comment.

A: This is a topic discussed by sociologists, economists, religious leaders, politicians and all. Neo-liberal economic policies speed up growth. But the benefits of this growth did not go to the people. As a result, it created a big gap between growth and inequality.

The disparity between growth and income, the gap between the rich and poor is growing. This is a single problem with various faces. You cannot take one problem, such as, the crime wave and address it.

This is a global problem which has an impact on Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and all the other countries. We have to address the problem as a whole and not in parts.

The root cause for this cancerous problem is our economic policies. There is no doubt about growth. The GDP was six to eight percent from 2005 to 2011. This is unprecedented in our economic history. We had continuous economic growth. Our per capita income was 100 USD in 2004.

It is 2,800 USD now. It is a matter of seven years. It took 56 years to reach 1,000 USD. But it took only seven years to increase from 1,000 USD to 2,800 USD. Growth is there for sure but it does not reflect on the lives of the people or in the government revenue.

The bulk of what we produce goes for consumption. The rich people neither save nor invest, but, only consume. Therefore, the disparity of income is there. This has to be corrected through our taxation policy.

There is no other way out. But our taxation rate, 24 percent is the lowest in the world. People who can pay tax do not pay tax. The tax administration has failed. Our tax laws are not adequate. This has to be corrected, otherwise, although the poverty level has gone down, people's wants have gone up beyond their needs.

The people's wants have gone up and exceeded their needs. Sometimes, people cut down on their food to buy a flat screen television etc.

Finally, they fall sick and end up in hospital. When the people cannot afford what they want, they steal, rob and take bribes, involve in corruption. Crime is only an after effect. The media plays a leading role in increasing people's wants.

Billions of rupees are spent on advertising. Politicization of the state mechanism is another main problem. In the year 2000, Rs. six billion was spent on advertising but now it is unknown as to how much money is spent on advertising. Religious leaders say that the people are no longer religious and lawyers say there is no rule of law. Economists say another thing while sociologists explain the same in another way.

There are a number of factors, such as, the economic policy, constitution, etc which contributed to the problem. Today no educated poor man can contest in an election.

Only the rich can contest. That is how Sarpaya, Naya and all get elected instead of Jinadasa, Piyasiri etc.

This is the nature of today's politics. These are by products of the neo-liberal economic policy. We cannot get out of it immediately because of globalization, but, we have to distance ourselves from it, as much as, possible.

All must get together and solve the problem. All should listen to each other. You cannot solve this in stages. This is a global problem which effects all countries.