By N. Sathiya Moorthy
C. V. Wigneswaran
The ‘unanimous choice’ of retired Supreme Court Justice C. V. Wigneswaran as the TNA’s chief minister candidate for the North may not have been all that unanimous. Yet, it’s only a reflection on the reality of the political situation, which is not peculiar to the Tamil polity or Sri Lanka. The final declaration showed that the TNA, like many other political parties have ‘arrived’, has acknowledged internal differences matter-of-factly, and is capable of accepting larger realities, going beyond the narrow strand of ‘Tamil nationalism’ and through internal discussions.
It may not be the case at every turn, as already the seat-sharing talks have been showing – as it did ahead of the Eastern PC polls last year.
There would be scope and occasion for more and sharper differences post-poll. It should set the Tamil civil society as different from self-styled ‘Tamil nationalists’ among them, too, thinking. They should take a collective and conscious decision on drawing a line between thinking for the people and thinking for the provincial administration. The temptation would be otherwise.
Though internally the choice may have stirred the TNA nest for the same reason, Justice Wigneswaran’s knowledge, legal and constitutional expertise, experience and executing skills would keep the TNA and the Northern PC in good stead while negotiating power-sharing and overall political solution with other stakeholders in the country. The choice of an ‘outsider’ (?) when politically-experienced leaders with chief ministerial ambitions dot the TNA landscape should be a pointer to the TNA’s continuing commitment to find a political solution within a ‘united and undivided Sri Lanka’.
A popular administration in the North is a constitutional creature like that at the Centre. It is an opportunity for the Rajapksa Government, too, as both learn to work together within a constitutional mandate, as it exists now, and may (have to) be renegotiated. For the likes of incumbent Central Minister Patali Champika of the JHU to liken a post-LTTE politician if at all, in Justice Wigneswaran to non-existing LTTE’s late ideologue Anton Balasingham, as if implying something, is mischievous and uncharitable, improper and untenable.
With Justice Wigneswaran destined to share the lead, TNA should revisit its current position of not joining the PSC, a creation of the constitutionally-mandated Central Government. It is not unlikely that the UNP to reconsider its current strategy of boycotting the PSC then.
If it is assured of an electoral victory, as it claims, the TNA should make the PSC process a part of its election manifesto. Whether it will do so openly or not, the Government, by timing the setting up of the PSC to the three-Province polls, has served notice on its possible options, if not intentions. It need not stop with the three-PC polls.
Challenges and opportunities
A Tamil chief minister in the North has his job cut out. He has more challenges than opportunities, more so if he or she were to be from the TNA. Justice Wigneswaran’s stature as a respected public personality both within and outside the Tamil community should keep him in good stead.
His reputation for honesty and sincerity can cut one way with the Tamil masses and another way with his TNA colleagues. If elected, they need to give him a free hand in the conduct of the political administration at the Province-level, something that they want from the ‘Sinhala Centre’ for themselves.
Most, if not all ministers and Provincial Council members in the North including the chief minister would have had no administrative experience of any kind, for them to be able to adjust to governmental realities, from which they had escaped all along. Sooner or later, the larger Tamil community that had fed on a generation-long diet of alleged partisanship and high-handedness of the Sinhala Centre could hold them responsible, and accountable.
With Wigneswaran having acknowledged the role of the Centre-appointed Governor while arguing against the Sinhala nationalists’ demand for abrogation, the current flash-point of the Eastern PC should be renegotiated, on the political, practical and personal fronts.
A TNA government, if elected, should learn to work within the system even while demanding more. It should not demand more without knowing what powers they already enjoy to serve their war-torn people. Nor should the Alliance leadership to deflect from this main cause, either if they felt threatened by the elected government from within, or found that their ministers and PC members were not up to the task, which they had not known anyway.
Post-poll, a TNA chief minister would be confronted by having to balance the political demands of the party’s urban/urbane ‘Tamil nationalist constituency’ on the one hand, and those of the periphery, who (alone) lost all of their meagre everything in ‘Eelam War IV’ in particular. Despite possible inadequacies and mindless political badgering, the Government in Colombo has addressed the rehabilitation and reconstruction needs of this segment of the Tamil population, substantially, if not wholly.
It is easy for a TNA government in the North to upset the apple-cart. It would be difficult for the peripheral Tamil population to accept it and live with it – as they may have done through the war years!
(The writer is Director, Chennai Chapter of the Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email: sathiyam54@gmail.com)
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