In Sri Lanka’s presidential election, a question of security vs. rights

Sri Lankans on Saturday voted for president after a year of political meltdowns and deadly terrorist attacks, in an election that could return the polarising Rajapaksa family to power.

The two leading candidates are Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former defence chief known for his hard-edge leadership, and Sajith Premadasa, the son of a former president who was killed during the country’s long civil war.

A decade ago, Rajapaksa and his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, then Sri Lanka’s president, were credited with ending that civil war, but at a brutal cost: thousands of civilian deaths and the propagation of a muscular Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism that persists today.

In a country split along ethnic, class and religious lines, divisions have only been intensified by the wave of bombings on Easter Sunday in April by a Muslim militant group claiming loyalty to the Islamic State group. Hundreds of people were killed, mostly at churches and hotels, in attacks that shattered a tenuous postwar peace and raised fears of retribution against innocent Muslims.

Shortly afterward, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, 70, announced his intention to run for president, making a vow to restore stability that many voters have responded to in Sri Lanka, a lush island just south of India with a Sinhalese-speaking Buddhist majority and large Christian, Hindu and Muslim minorities.

But Rajapaksa stands accused of human rights violations during the war he ran against Tamil Tiger rebels. The Rajapaksas’ watch also featured many forced disappearances and violence against journalists.

Some activists and journalists worry that a return of the Rajapaksas would only widen the country’s differences, rather than bringing a scarred nation together.

Sajith Premadasa, Sri Lanka's presidential candidate of the ruling United National Party (UNP) led New Democratic Front alliance shows his inked finger after casting his vote during the presidential election in Weerawila, Sri Lanka November 16, 2019. REUTERS/Stringer

On Saturday, a group of unidentified gunmen opened fire on buses carrying Muslims to polling stations in northwest Sri Lanka, officials said, though there were no immediate reports of casualties. And on Thursday, a journalist was stabbed by several men who accused him of hurting Rajapaksa’s campaign after publishing a critical book about the family.

For now, at least, many Sri Lankans struggling to make ends meet are ready to shelve their apprehensions about the Rajapaksas, hoping that the family can revive the economy, which boomed toward the end of their stretch in power.

But if the economy grew, so did the country’s debt, particularly to China, whose influence in Sri Lanka grew powerful under the Rajapaksas.

The issue of China’s rising sway here was a major facet of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s surprising election defeat in 2015. Since then, the country was forced to give up a port complex to China, and its debt crisis has been a serious drag on the economy, along with a collapse in tourism since the bombings.

Saturday’s presidential election, when 16 million eligible voters will choose among 35 candidates, could come down to a vote margin in the thousands. Results should be announced in a few days, and could lead to a runoff.

Rajapaksa’s leading opponent, Premadasa, 52, of the United National Front, draws considerable grassroots support from Sri Lanka’s most impoverished districts. The son of a former president who was killed by the Tamil Tigers in 1993, Premadasa polls well with minority Tamils and Muslims in the war-torn north and east.

“Premadasa understands the poor man’s struggles,” said HE Edirimanne, 27, a voter in the southern town of Hakmana. “We want a leader who is down to earth and leads by example, not one who lives in the lap of luxury.”

But Rajapaksa could have enough momentum to expand beyond his party’s traditional vote bank: Sinhalese Buddhists who celebrate him for ending the war. Former paramilitary troops supportive of Rajapaksa have stoked anti-Muslim fears in eastern Sri Lanka, where many Hindu Tamils are upset about Islamic militancy in the country.

To his supporters, Rajapaksa’s tough approach to quashing terrorism is what makes him an attractive candidate. “We want a fearless decisionmaker,” said Pradeep Kumara, 56, a fisherman from the southern village of Mirissa.

The Easter bombings and the ailing economy were twinned nails in the coffin of the departing government, led by President Maithripala Sirisena. Lawmakers urged him and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to resign, then held a no-confidence vote in Parliament that dented the hopes of either man to run for office this time.

Constantino Xavier, a foreign policy fellow at Brookings India in New Delhi, said Mahinda Rajapaksa tried to rebuild his brother’s brand over the past couple of years, including mending ties with India and allying with diplomats from China to counter Western pressure to investigate wartime abuses.

Xavier said a victory for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, despite concerns that he may tightly concentrate executive authority, would indicate “that a majority of the electorate is willing to risk curtailing civil liberties in exchange for a return to political order and economic revival.”

©2019 The New York Times Company