The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) swept all five districts in the Northern Provincial Council in the polls held on Saturday.

Tamil nationalist party scored a landslide victory in the disputed “autonomous” council elections in the north even though the elections were held under military rule.

Though all democratic forces criticize the election procedures the TNA bagged 30 out of a total of 38 seats in an election held under a system of proportional representation.

Though the official results claimed that the TNA secured 78% percent of the popular vote, in the most populous district of Jaffna, they mobilized more than 80%.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s United People’s Freedom Alliance that was backed by the military power reached a distant second with just seven seats and 18% of vote while the Muslim Congress picked the other seat.

This shows that a motivated determined community backed by national and international democratic forces could over come corrupt ruthless military power to win in a bourgeoisie election! Hence the TNA, which has vowed to press the demand for autonomy for Lankan Tamil nationality in the majority Sinhala, dominated state of 20 million, made a clean sweep in the war-affected region despite allegations that the army discouraged TNA voters.

The election commissioner said 68 percent of the 719,000 electorate in the Northern Province turned out to vote Saturday. This is in spite of the charge the TNA made that the military was intimidating their supporters and forcing them to stay away from voting.

Obviously the masses have overcome the obstacles made by the military net work. Elections officials said they had “plenty of complaints”, but there were no major incidents during the nine-hour voting period.

During the election campaign Mahinda accused the TNA of raising expectations of a separate state with there election manifesto. In fact this became the main campaign point of the UPFA in the south.

They appealed to the Sinhala masses to rise against the separatist conspiracy launched by the TNA backed by the Tamil Diaspora and western powers. They went to court to suppress powers of the PC system and then tried every trick to post phone elections.

They appealed the Sinhala masses in the south that if they remain in power, the Tamils of the North and East will not be given a civilian police force with whom they can talk without translation. There were attacks on opposition candidates as well.

In Puttalam, Government goons attacked Mohamed Fairoos, the leading candidate for the Nationalities Unity Organization, an opposition alliance including the NSSP. Mr. Fairoos is a brother of the Puttalam Mayor and was targeted for attack while he was campaigning with the NSSP leader Vickramabahu Karunarathne.

The police were helpful after the attack but were not powerful enough to prevent the attack or apprehend the attackers. Violence and election law violations are now facts of Lanka’s political life.

They have spawned a monitoring industry but there is no prospect of a behavioral change. The principal political leaders, starting with the President himself, take no responsibility to stop the violence and the violations of the election rules.

This election exposes the domination of national problem in the minds of the people. The Tamil national problem has polarized the society submerging the economic disasters developing under the name of development.

Mahinda has covered complete subservience to the strategies of global capitalism. However not only in the north but even in Hambantota there are specific political problems as well as humanitarian problems.

The government cannot hide these problems under new roads and bridges, and without addressing those problems the government cannot even get the ears of the people, let alone their support.

How does it benefit someone to have the road in front of his property carpeted when he or she is denied access to that property on the pretext of state security?

How does that property benefit from a road reconstruction if the road is raised above the property and the drainage from the property runs to the property and not the other way around?

What benefits are there to the local people and entrepreneurs when they are excluded from the immediate spin-offs from infrastructure investment and construction, such as jobs and contracts?

The not so obvious factors are the government’s motivations in undertaking this investment programme and the manner in which the programme is implemented. The selection of contractors and suppliers and the network of kickbacks have bred cynicism among the people rather than any appreciation for the infrastructure invasion. These factors invariably make political sales job all the more difficult for government apologists and campaigners.

Though TNA is not much interested in the slavery brought in by the pro IMF, MNC dominated economic strategy of the government, in the coming period the TNA will be forced to harness their knowledge and ideas and formulate a new program of action that goes beyond the election manifesto.

Vickramabahu Karunarathne