Voices from Diyawanna Oya

By D.C. Ranatunga

After a lull of nearly 10 weeks, the ‘House at Diyawanna Oya’ will soon be active once again. Newly-elected Members of Parliament will formally meet on 1 September, take their oaths, elect the Speaker and start proceedings. 

There will be a lot of ‘senior citizens’ – both from the point of view of age and experience – for whom Parliament is not a ‘strange’ place. For them it will be like going to school after vacation. For the newcomers it will be a new experience like going to a new school or a new class.

For the MPs of the new Parliament to get familiarised, the officials will have an Information Desk opened from tomorrow, 23 Sunday, for three days. Facilities provided to MPs will be discussed, relevant documents will be given and any queries answered. A fundamental requirement will be for the MPs to study the Standing Orders detailing how the Parliament operates. 

For Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe who started at the Galle Face Parliament in 1977 at the age of 28, it’s familiar ground. He continued without a break and is possibly one among the very few, if not the only one, who listened to President J.R. Jayewardene when he opened the new Parliament at the present site in Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the royal capital in the days of the 15th century Sinhalese monarchs. As a keen student of the parliamentary system of government and well versed in a wide range of subjects, he is bound to have a busy time in the coming years. 

There is a full plate on his agenda – items which he patiently explained to the voters when he addressed election rallies, explained to the party members at grass-root level and discussed at business forums and with professionals. He was confident, he was clear and he was frank when he appeared in one to one chats on television whether it be ‘Ratu Ira’ or ‘Derana 360’. Viewers were impressed with the way he handled tricky questions. He never avoided a single question and had an answer for every one of them.

Ranil W, who topped the Colombo list of MPs with 500,566 preferential votes, got 415,686 votes in the 2001 election when he became prime minister. This year he surpassed the previous highest number of 464,588 votes collected by Chandrika Kumaratunga at the 1994 general election from the Gampaha District and became prime minister. Ranil W progressively increased his preferential votes after he took over the leadership of the UNP in 1994: 291,194 (1994), 363,668 (2000) and 415,686 (2001).The numbers dropped to 329,524 in 2004 and 232,957 in 2010. 

Having moved over from Hambantota to Kurunegala, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa came first with 423,529 votes. He has publicly stated that he will continue as an MP. With the UPLF having 95 members and having effectively led the Sandhanaya election campaign, will he be the Leader of the Opposition or will he give it over to a senior UPLF leader and prefer to take a back seat, political analysts ponder. This was what Dudley Senanayake did after the 1970 general election when the UNP lost. He handed over to J.R. Jayewardene and sat as a backbencher. In the election that followed in 1977, JRJ led the UNP to a landslide victory.

While the father was first in Kurunegala, son Namal was first at Hambantota 127,201 votes. So was the other son of former President/Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa, Sajith who topped the UNP list with 112,645 votes. There are two more sons of past prime ministers in the present Parliament. One is the son of Ratnasiri Wickremanayake, Vidura (Kalutara District) who was in the previous Parliament as well. The other is newcomer Anuradha Jayaratne (Mahanuwara), son of Di Mu (DM) who did not contest this year. Ratnasiri W too did not contest.

There is at least one minister/son combination – Senaratnes – Rajitha (Kalutara) and first-timer Chatura (Gampaha). Both contested from the UNP.

 

Brothers 

The two Ranatunga brothers will be on opposing sides. Former Minister Arjuna, who contested from the UNP (though he was appointed the SLFP organiser for Attanagalla a couple of months before the elections) coming second and Western Province Chief Minister Prasanna heading the Gampaha UPFA list with 384,448.

Arjuna R had company in brother Ruwan in the last Parliament, but the latter lost this election. Incidentally, Arjuna entered Parliament in 2001 from Colombo with his father Reggie Ranatunga (Gampaha) who was a Minister in the previous regime. Both contested from the People’s Alliance. 

Just a few days before the election, in the popular TV program, ‘Satana’ Arjuna was asked whether three members of one family contesting is not “family bandyism” for which he was fighting against, Arjuna’s reply was that they were fighting against “family rule”. There was no issue in any number from the same family contesting an election.

Former Minister Navin Dissanayake who has come in from the Nuwara Eliya District will be joined by his younger brother Mayantha, a member of the Central Province Provincial Council who contested from the Mahanuwara District. Both were UNP candidates. 

The election shattered any hopes of extremist organisations making any impact at a national level election. The voters swept away the Bodu Jana Peranuna, the offshoot of the Bodu Bala Sena, which was trying to create religious disharmony among communities.

The election endorsed that independent groups have no place. 2498 candidates who contested from 261 independent groups contributed Rs. 5 million (4,996,000 to be exact) to the State coffers by way of deposits. None of them were able to obtain the minimum requirement of getting 5%of the votes polled. It was to discourage independents from contesting that the deposit was increased to Rs. 2,000 per candidate. Independent groups were a creation after ‘manape’ was introduced. Earlier independents contested as individual candidates and at least in the early elections, some were successful in winning seats. 

 

New faces

A quick glance at the results indicates that there are 66 new faces in the new Parliament. Thirty-eight of them are from the United National Front (effectively UNP) and 20 from the UPLF. There are seven from Illankai Thamil Arasu Katchchi (Tamil National Alliance – TNA) and one – Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa from JVP.

Sixteen MPs who had been members earlier but had failed to win last time have won this time. Among them are two chief ministers – Dayasiri Jayasekera (UNP MP who quit o contest the Wayamba Provincial Council election on the UPLF ticket) and Harin Fernando who, in fact, gave a new lease of life to the UNP by a fine performance at the Uva PC election. He set the trend for the UNP to think afresh and start building up the party at grass-root level.

Apart from Ranil W and Mahinda R there were five who polled over 200,000 preferential votes each. Of them two got over 300,000: Prasanna Ranatunga – 384,448 (Gampaha UPLF/SLFP) and Wimal Weerawansa – 313,801 (Colombo UPLF/NFF). The other three were Akila Viraj Kariyawasam – 286,155 (Kurunegla UNP), Ranjan Ramanayake – 216,463 (Gampaha UNP) and Harin Fernando 200,806 (Badulla UNP). 

Of the 196 members elected by the voters, 48 had got over 100,000 votes. 

At least one female – Thalatha Atukorale (Ratnapura UNP) has topped a list of preferential votes getting over 100,000 votes. She collected 145,868 votes. Among new female MPs are Geetha Kumarasinghe (Galle UPLF) and Hirunika Premachandra (Colombo UNF). Rosy Senanayake (UNP) and Nirupama Rajapaksa (Hambantota) lost.

 

National List MPs

The next step is to see who would be in Parliament from the National Lists. It will be more interesting to see how many defeated candidates will be among them. The Commissioner of Elections had ruled that parties can select from among candidates who lost or from the names submitted with the other nominations.

Just as much as the Leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna Anura Kumara Dissanayake, many are disappointed that the JVP could not win more than four seats. Their campaign was so well organised and the speeches were so convincing and well-structured with facts and figures. They made TV talk shows so much more meaningful.

Quite in contrast to the January presidential election, there were no controversies over astrological forecasts this time. A few had predicted that planetary formations indicated that Ranil W would win. After the January election, some astrologers got away by saying that in the political environment that prevailed, they were scared to publicly state the actual position. So they preferred to predict that Mahinda R would win. They could have easily stayed neutral if they were afraid to tell the truth.