Kumaratunga scores landslide win in Sri Lanka poll

P Jayaram in Colombo

Sri Lanka's ruling People's Alliance scored a landslide victory in the local government elections, boosting the popularity of President Chandrika Kumaratunga's government and the chances of peace in the ethnically-divided island.

The results of all the 238 local government bodies which went to the polls on Friday are out, and the PA has won an overwhelming 193 bodies, leaving the main Opposition United National Party a distant second with just 44. An independent group won the rest.

The PA, which campaigned on a platform of continued good governance, restoration of democracy, eradication of the era of State terror and progress towards resolving the ethnic conflict, virtually swept the poll in the rural areas, making deep inroads into some traditional UNP strongholds.

The UNP, which sought to highlight the rising cost of living, the government's inefficiency and adopted an ambiguous stand on Kumaratunga's far-reaching devolution proposals to end the ethnic conflict, managed to win the prestigious Colombo municipal council, besides those of Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Kurunegald and Badulla.

The party's hope of capitalising on the perceived discontent among the middle class and the fixed income groups failed to materialise as even the predominantly middle-class Sri Jayawardenepura Motte and Dehiwala municipal councils in the capital returned the PA.

While the elections once again underscored the fact that the two-party system is well entrenched in the island with the PA and the UNP as the main players, observers said the success of the former extremist group, the Janata Vimukti Peramuna in winning a number of seats was a remarkable development.

Although the JVP failed to get control of any local body, its success in gaining representation to many of them indicated that the people, particularly the youth, welcomed its return to the democratic mainstream, giving up its violent past.

''The JVP could well emerge as the third force in the island,'' said one political observer.

While Kumaratunga's personal popularity received a further boost in the elections, UNP leader and former prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe could face a challenge to his leadership within his party for the debacle, the observers said.

They attributed the UNP's poor showing to its failure to capitalise on the rising cost of living and other issues and the pre-poll violence in Ratnapura in which a government MP was shot dead, allegedly by an Opposition legislator, and Wickremesinghe's own lacklustre leadership.

''The people have basically voted for freedom, peace and tranquility, forgetting their stomach,'' said another observer. ''The dark days of UNP rule, when corruption and terror reigned, are still fresh in the minds of the people,'' a PA supporter said.

Analysts noted that in the predominantly agricultural areas like the north-central Anuradhapura district, the people had supported the PA, despite the high cost of living and the failure of the crops for the third consecutive year due to prolonged drought.

The results were a personal blow to Ceylon Workers Congress leader and cabinet minister S Thondaman. The PA, of which the CWC, representing the Tamil plantation workers of Indian origin, is an ally, suffered losses in Thondaman's traditional strongholds of Nuwara Eliya and Badulla district.

''The results have shown that there is no ethnic or minority block votes and they are distributed between the PA and the UNP,'' said Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam, an MP of the Tamil United Liberation Front.

The results exploded the myth that any major Sinhala party, which came out with significant proposals to resolve the conflict, would suffer electorally as the majority community was opposed to any devolution of power, Tiruchelvam noted.

On the contrary, he noted, that Sinhala nationalist parties like the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna, which had contested the election on a plank of opposition to the devolution proposals, had been total rejected by the people.