US embassy cable - 04COLOMBO321

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000321 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SA, SA/INS, INR/NESA, DRL/CRA; NSC FOR E. 
MILLARD 
 
PLEASE ALSO PASS TOPEC 
 
E.O. 12958:   DECL: 02-26-14 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PINS, PINR, PHUM, CE, Elections, Political Parties, LTTE - Peace Process 
SUBJECT:  Campaigning begins in earnest as nomination 
lists are finalized for April 2 election 
 
Refs:  Colombo 309, and previous 
 
(U) Classified by James F. Entwistle, Deputy Chief of 
Mission.  Reasons 1.5 (b,d). 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY:  The proverbial dust has settled on the 
nomination process for Sri Lanka's upcoming April 2 
parliamentary elections, with nominations closing 
February 24.  Campaigns by the two major parties have 
kicked off as of February 26, and the stage is set for 
the fourth national election in less than five years. 
Turning to news of the Tigers, the Norwegian Ambassador 
told Mission that the group is interested in the 
upcoming elections, and seemed calm during his February 
25 trip to Kilinochchi in the north.  END SUMMARY. 
 
============================================= 
Nomination process closes, campaigns kick off 
============================================= 
 
2.  (C) The nomination process for Sri Lanka's upcoming 
April 2 parliamentary election closed on February 24, 
with nearly six thousand candidates from around the 
country vying for 196 electoral posts.  Following the 
submission of nomination lists, campaigning has kicked 
off in earnest by the two major parties.  President 
Kumaratunga's United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) is 
set to begin their campaign with a large rally on 
February 26 in the north-central cultural town of 
Anuradhapura.  Prime Minister Wickremesinghe's United 
National Party (UNP) is also poised to begin its 
campaign with customary verve, with a rally in Kandy on 
February 26, the central city where the UNP 
traditionally kicks off its campaigns.  (The UNP also 
has put up campaign billboards in Colombo with a photo 
of the PM and President Bush at the White House.) 
 
3.  (C) Nominations were received from 22 electoral 
districts, with 24 parties and nearly two hundred 
independent groups submitting nominations lists.  Sri 
Lanka has approximately 13 million voters, and voter 
turnout in the past has been around 70 percent. 
According to reports, this is the largest number of 
candidates fielded in Sri Lanka since the country's 
independence in 1948.  Out of the 225 total seats in Sri 
Lanka's parliament, twenty-nine seats will be filled 
later from the "National List," the allotment of which 
will be fixed in the days immediately following the 
elections, as the allocation of these seats is 
determined on the national percentage of votes that each 
party wins. 
 
======================== 
Breakdown of nominations 
======================== 
 
4.  (C) The PM's UNP party nominated 250 candidates. 
Notable among the nominations were that of Hindu Affairs 
Minister T. Maheswaran, who will be running from Colombo 
rather than from his home district of Jaffna in the 
north; and the addition to the National List of Navin 
Dissanayake from the hill district of Nuwara Eliya, and 
son of a former Prime Minister.  Mission contacts have 
indicated that Dissanayake was placed on the National 
List so as to not split support in the Nuwara Eliya 
district in the center of the country for the Ceylon 
Worker's Congress (CWC), a tea estate Tamil party.  Also 
on the UNP's National List was Ronnie de Mel, a senior 
MP most recently from the President's party, who left 
the UPFA on February 21 to rejoin the UNP. 
 
5.  (C) For its part, the President's UPFA also 
nominated 250 candidates in total, which included 39 
individuals from the extremist Marxist Janatha Vimukthi 
Peramuna (JVP), 211 individuals from the Sri Lanka 
Freedom Party (SLFP), several Muslims, and members of 
the Buddhist clergy.  Notable on the UPFA's National 
List is Lakshman Kadirgamar, former Foreign Minister and 
a key presidential advisor who President Kumaratunga 
named Minister of Information and Media in early 
February. 
 
6.  (C) Tamil Parties:  Thus far, Tamil parties have 
nominated 33 candidates in the north and east of the 
country.  Following attempts by members of the Tamil 
United Liberation Front (TULF) to remove the group's 
liberal-minded leader V. Anandasangaree and considerable 
internal party discord, pro-LTTE members of the TULF 
will run under the symbol of the Tamil Federal Party, 
while Anandasangaree will run independently under the 
TULF banner in the northern district of Jaffna. 
 
7.  (C) Muslim and other parties:  As previously 
reported, four Muslim MPs from the Sri Lanka Muslim 
Congress (SLMC) signed an agreement to support the 
President's party on February 22.  In reaction to this 
move, Rauf Hakeem, head of the SLMC, signed an agreement 
with the UNP stating that the SLMC would support the 
PM's party in certain districts -- thus, the SLMC's 
nominations are rolled into the UNP's slate of nominees, 
except in Ampara District in the east, where Hakeem will 
be running under the SLMC banner.  The SLMC also 
nominated 23 individuals to its National List.  In 
developments regarding other parties, the extremist 
Sinhalese Buddhist Janatha Hela Urumaya (JHU) nominated 
a slate made up entirely of Buddhist clergy, a move that 
has drawn considerable criticism, including from 
prominent Buddhist monks.  Also noteworthy among the 
nominations was the Jathika Janatha (National People's 
Party), an independent group, which nominated a slate of 
23 women in the Colombo District. 
 
=========================== 
Tiger interest in elections 
=========================== 
 
8.  (C) Turning to news of the Tigers, Norwegian 
Ambassador Brattskar met with Tiger political leader 
S.P. Thamilchelvam on February 25, and called the DCM 
later that day to provide a readout of the meeting. 
Brattskar noted that the atmosphere in the northern town 
of Kilinochchi was "serene and calm."  Brattskar said he 
had briefed the LTTE leadership on the co-chairs meeting 
in Washington, and noted that Thamilchelvam was "in 
listening mode" during Brattskar's briefing.  Brattskar 
also briefed the Tiger political chief on a World Bank- 
proposed mechanism for reconstruction aid to the 
north/east in which the LTTE, NGOs and the GSL could 
each put up development proposals to a World Bank 
Secretariat.  Brattskar said Thamilchelvam listened 
 
SIPDIS 
carefully to the proposal, asked a few questions and 
said he would seek guidance from Tiger leadership. 
 
9.  (C) Thamilchelvam spoke at length about how the 
aspirations of the Tamil people should be "respected" in 
the coming election and told Brattskar that the LTTE 
would not hinder Tamils in their areas from voting, but 
was non-committal on whether elections could take place 
in LTTE-held territory.  Thamilchelvam expressed concern 
that the GSL would not let Tamils cross out of LTTE 
areas to vote.  Brattskar told Thamilchelvam he had seen 
no sign that this will happen (we agree, although there 
have been a few muddled press reports suggesting that it 
might).  Brattskar commented to DCM that the LTTE 
interest in playing a role in the elections through the 
TNA is a positive sign and should be encouraged as part 
of an effort to make the LTTE see that peaceful 
political change is possible.  Brattskar said the LTTE 
is "saying and doing the right things in the runup to 
the elections" which he finds "quite encouraging." 
10.  (C) COMMENT:  With the nominations lists having 
been filed, the campaigning has begun in earnest.  In an 
Unfortunately, reports continue to filter in of 
additional incidents of election-related violence. 
The Tigers seem to be interested in being involved in 
the political campaign in an open manner, and, on the 
whole, have been relatively quiet of late.  END COMMENT. 
 
11.  (U) Minimize considered. 
 
LUNSTEAD