Sri Lankan Presidential Elections 2015

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Abstract

"On August 17, Sri Lanka’s 15 million strong electorate went to the national polls for the second time this year. Among analysts, there is no doubt that this was not only a ‘popular vote’, which decided over the new composition of the country’s 225-seat-parliament, it was also a referendum regarding the basic nature of Sri Lanka’s political culture. Furthermore it was a choice of destiny over the future course of national reconciliation, the need for political revamping to fix political-administrative aberrations, and the pledge of the minorities in a civil war-torn country. More concretely, it was a decision whether the authoritarian strongman and former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa representing the vision of a ‘strong state’ based on an extreme, ethnic exclusive brand of nationalism, should be allowed to return to power or not. In sharp contrast, there was the alternative option to continue the notion of democratic political reforms and inclusive, consensual-based politics in order to improve good governance in multi-ethnic and multi-religious Sri Lanka- despite the fact that it started slow and tenacious – personified in President Maithripala Sirisena and incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. (...)."