Lanka poll a referendum on peace & economy

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s presidential election is a two-horse race that boils down to a referendum on how to forge lasting peace with the Tamil Tigers and develop a rural economy battered by two decades of civil war.

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse is set to go head to head with main opposition leader and investor-favourite Ranil Wickremesinghe on Thursday in a race seen too close to call.

Left-of-centre Rajapakse has forged election pacts with hardline Marxists and Sinhalese nationalists and vowed a tough line on the rebels and build up a “national economy”, which some analysts fear is code for protectionism.

Wickremesinghe, the market choice for his emphasis on freemarket policies and foreign investment, is seen best placed to convert a 2002 truce he brokered while serving as prime minister into a peace deal with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

The Tigers, blamed for a suicide bombing at the last presidential election in 1999 and for murdering the island’s foreign minister in August, have promised they won’t interfere.

“It is a referendum on nationalism versus internationalism, on modernity versus tradition,” said Jehan Perera, director of the non-partisan peace advisory group, the National Peace Council.

“It is a choice between an indigenous oriented effort to both resolve the ethnic conflict and to develop the economy, and an outward, international-oriented effort,” he added.

In a photo-finish, the Tigers could emerge as unlikely kingmakers.

The rebels and their political proxies have vowed to remain neutral in the poll, but front organisations are encouraging a boycott in the rebel-dominated north, which could hurt the more moderate Wickremesinghe’s chances.

With a silent war raging between the Tigers and a renegade faction they accuse the military of helping in the restive east, some analysts believe the Tigers are not ready to give up their push for a separate homeland in the island’s north and east.

While analysts say a return to war is unlikely, they suspect the Tigers want efforts to convert a truce into a final end to a war that killed over 64,000 people to remain in limbo.

Sri Lanka’s hopes of jump-starting an economy long hamstrung by low foreign investment and underinvestment in infrastructure, particularly in rebel-held areas, hinge on a lasting peace deal.

“All economic fundamentals are linked to the longer-term prospects of the peace process,” said Hasitha Premaratne, head of research at HNB stockbrokers in Colombo. “Whether the foreigners want to come and invest in Sri Lanka or not would largely depend on the practicality and workable peace solution that you would see here,” he added, saying Wickremesinghe’s plans were more realistic and practical.

Rajapakse and right-of-centre Wickremesinghe, who narrowly lost the presidency to outgoing President Chandrika Kumaratunga in 1999, are both in hot pursuit of moderate swing voters among the 13.3 million electorate.—Reuters