This is one aspect of the political dimension of our crisis: the Government’s popularity and hegemony are in decline but the democratic Opposition is also in decline and unable to pick up the slack. Our political crisis is the crisis of an absent centre space. Both Government and Opposition are victim of two diverging types of extremisms and pressure groups, the Government to the majoritarian "hawks" and the opposition to the minoritarian "doves". Neither the Government nor the Opposition occupies the moderate centre space, which is where the vast majority of the citizenry are. Will the Rajapakse administration make a course correction and "govern from the centre", and will the Opposition re-brand and relocate to the centre-space?

However, this is only the surface visual of the postwar crisis. The most striking thing about the postwar crisis is that there shouldn’t be one. We have just won a war, removing the most obvious (but not only) obstacle that which held us back as a country for decades. We should have simply mainstreamed into the world system and economy, integrating with the Asian economic miracle and catching up for lost decades.

Why didn’t the UPFA win more resoundingly in the South, registering a virtual walkover? It is because there has been no economic peace dividend for the masses and also because of rising disaffection on domestic governance issues. Why has there been no peace dividend? Not only because of a global economic downturn but because we have not overcome the policy landmines that lie between us and that peace dividend. These policy landmines and roadblocks have not been removed because they are not seen as roadblocks but as desirable by some sectors of the power bloc and the ruling coalition.

This brings us to a more crucial question: Why are we in a postwar crisis? Because we are deadlocked as to the direction in which we want to head and the destination we wish to get to. There is no informed open discussion about the nature of the postwar order. This despite the warning and example given by one of our most distinguished citizens, also a distinguished citizen of the world, Judge CG Weeramantry in an early postwar essay carried in the Daily Mirror.

This too is only one aspect of the matter. The truth is that we are agreed with the unstated proposition of Never Again, by which is meant that there should never again be a separatist challenge and that our military victory must be irreversible. The predominant if invisible, subterranean perspective in the state and (Southern/Sinhala) society seems to be that Tamil separatism should not only be uprooted but that the soil in which its seeds may germinate should be upturned. This view is one of permanent roll-back and counter-reformation, targeting or diluting even the 13th amendment and redrawing the map of the North and the East. It is a hard-line neoconservative perspective.

There is a contrary view, which is that Tamil separatism can be pre-empted only by a more liberal approach which goes beyond the 13th amendment to explore federal or quasi-federal alternatives.

To both these approaches there is an alternative third approach, which is one I hold, hopefully not in isolation. This is a policy mix that recognizes the need for a long term and secure military presence in those areas as well as certain security red lines, which however must be broadly parametric rather than narrowly prescriptive, strictly professional rather than ethno-religious. This recognition is coupled with another, namely that Tamil nationalism cannot be stamped out and if there is a perceived threat to their collective identity we shall face blowback. This may not take the form of the renewed insurgency, which our military can handle easily, but a civic conflict, which it cannot and must not be forced to. We are not the Israelis, and the recent remarks and moves by the US, UK, EU, and UN together with the visit of MPs from neighboring Tamil Nadu demonstrates that our treatment of the Tamils is under international scrutiny. Therefore we must combine security measures with political devolution within a unitary state, and improvement on the human rights and humanitarian fronts. This is a Realist approach.

Sri Lanka’s postwar crisis is one of the inability, unwillingness or delay in making the transition from a Just War (in content if not always in method) to a Just Peace. Had we done so, there would be no crisis. There are those who will say that we cannot make the transition because the war was not just and that the absence of a Just Peace is evidence of the unjust character of the war. This is simply untrue. The Sri Lankan Final war 2006-9 met all the criteria of a Just War as did those waged against the Tigers from 1987onwards. The Six Day War of 1967 provides the classic example of a Just War which failed to move on to a Just Peace.

In a related feature, the postwar crisis also results from the divergence of external and internal pressures and State’s inability to balance optimally and successfully between the two. External realities – not only the EU but more importantly the US; not only the West but also India—will not let the State implement a West Bank model in the North. The idea that lobbyists, including influential third country lobbyists, would get the West and especially the USA on side, or off our back proved to be, shall we say advisedly, a mirage. On the other hand, the state feels it cannot eschew such a closed model and the drive towards it, because of hard-line domestic pressure groups which form part of the constituency of the ruling coalition. Failing to chart a Middle Path and balance between these contending forces, the State finds itself deadlocked.

The option it has chosen is to pile on domestic political victories, which in the absence of a change in opposition leadership, will result after the next parliamentary and Presidential elections, not in a dictatorship but in what political scientists call a "one-party dominant" state (or system), such as prevailed in India from 1947-’77 or Mexico until the defeat of the PRI. This is usually the product of a chronic failure to evolve a viable national level Opposition as an alternative government

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said yesterday that the elections to the remaining local bodies in the Jaffna district would be conducted soon.

The President was addressing a function to mark the swearing in of the mayor, the deputy mayor and other members elected to the Jaffna Municipal Council on the UPFA ticket. The election was conducted   on August 8, 2009.

He said that he would resettle the displaced civilians after ensuring their safety as a priority.

“We will not allow any form of racism to raise its ugly head on this soil again. In the past, Sinhala and Tamil people lived in peace and harmony. We had very close Tamil friends. This cordial existence was hampered due to terrorism,” he told the audience.

The President addressed the meeting in Tamil, and it sometimes took the appearance of a dialogue when he asked the members in the audience to correct his mistakes in pronunciation.

In the meantime, when he talked about the elections to the other local bodies in Jaffna, he spoke in English and said turning to Minister Douglas Devananda, “Douglas Malli, you have to be ready.”  (Read More)

The main opposition UNP secured 14 seats with 297,180 votes while the JVP was placed a poor third with just three seats and 72,379 votes.

The UPFA rank and file which expected the party to poll an overall 80 per cent of the votes while they expected more than 90 per cent of the votes in Hambantota -- where President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ancestral home is situated -- were surprised and shocked to realize that in the three districts of Galle, Matara and Hambantota, the UPFA had only managed to obtain less than 68 per cent of the votes. 

The JVP said yesterday the results of the Southern Provincial Council election was a turning point in Sri Lanka’s political scenario and signalled the government’s decline and the JVP’s ascendancy.

JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva told a news conference the people in the South had set the tone for this country’s political future.

He said the UPFA had recorded an overall decrease of 25,491 votes when compared with the 2005 presidential election.

Mr. Silva said in the Hambantota District which is considered to be President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s home base, the UPFA had lost 9,995 votes while the JVP held on to its vote bank and fared well in this district. (Read More)

President Mahinda Rajapaksa summoned all the SLFP electoral organizers last evening to Temple Trees and requested them to get ready for either the Presidential or General election to be declared very soon.

The President, however, did not say which election would be conducted first under the present circumstances.

The SLFP General Secretary Agriculture Development Minister Maithreepala Sirisena who addressed the meeting first asked the organizers to stop their overseas tours during this period and fully concentrate on work at their respective electorates starting from today. (Read More)

The police said yesterday that Saturday’s election was held in a peaceful atmosphere and no complaints or violence were reported during the polls expect for some minor incidents with no reports of post election violence.

Three suspects attempting to distribute hand bills were arrested by the Matara police.

Police media spokesman Nimal Mediwaka said police personnel who were deployed on special duty would be kept on standby to pre-empt post election violence if at all.

He said some 7,500 policemen were mobilized from police stations in Galle, Matara and Hambantota districts, while members of the armed forces stood by in case they were needed. (Read More)

In what could be a poser for the Parliamentary Select Committee on Electoral Reforms, headed by Urban Development and Sacred Area Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardana and Elections Commissioner Dayananda Dissanayake, Minority parties who contested the Southern Provincial Council elections failed dismally to make an impact on the final result of the poll. 

One of the significant developments of Saturday’s Southern Provincial Council elections was the failure of independent candidates to make a significant impact in the Galle, Matara and Hambantota districts. (Read More)

National Freedom Front (NFF) candidates including Sarath Weerawansa, brother of its President, MP Wimal Weerawansa, who contested on the UPFA ticket, have not been elected to the Southern Provincial Council.  

The NFF fielded three candidates for each of the districts of Hambantota, Matara and Galle. 

Sarath Weerawansa who contested the Matara district obtained only 12,903 votes which was the second lowest number of preferential votes by a UPFA candidate. 

The NFF candidate for the Galle district, Priyantha Bellana meanwhile, has polled the lowest number of 13,629 preferential votes.

A supporter of the JVP who was going to a polling station to cast his vote has been assaulted by two supporters of the UPFA at Imbulgoda, Akuressa states media unit of the JVP.

According to JVP media unit the incident has taken place at about 2.30 p.m. The two assailants are two noted criminals wanted by police for being involved in several crimes. Dayananda, the supporter of the JVP has received serious injuries and has been admitted to Akuressa Police.  

He has received information regarding a conspiracy to swap ballet boxes at the Southern PC election says UNP Parliamentarian Dayasiri Jayasekera. Mr. Jayasekera says the swapping was to take place at counting centers. He said he received information that the counterfeit boxes to be swapped are already kept at the Navy camp at Boossa and a house at Malimbada. The government has sent a group of officials on duty to a selected number of polling stations, get the number of polled votes and has planned to stuff the counterfeit boxes according to that number said the UNP Parliamentarian.