SRI LANKA FREEDOM PARTY COUNTING ON MUSLIM VOTE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 001891

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/INS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/31/2015
TAGS: PGOV CE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA FREEDOM PARTY COUNTING ON MUSLIM VOTE

REF: COLOMBO 1853

Classified By: AMB. JEFFREY J. LUNSTEAD. REASON: 1.4 (B,D).

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) Campaign strategists for Prime Minister and Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP) presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse
told poloff in an October 27 meeting they were confident that
votes from supporters of the Sinhalese extremist Jathika Hela
Urumaya (JHU) and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) will
give their contender the majority he needs to secure the
November 17 election. The Rajapakse campaign's math does not
add up, however, and the candidate will have to do more to
broaden his appeal among minority Christians and Muslims if
he is counting on their support to win. End summary.

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SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE--
AS LONG AS YOU'RE SINHALESE
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2. (C) On October 27 poloff met with Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP) presidential campaign strategists Dulles Alahapperuma
(a former SLFP MP from the southern district of Matara),
Kanchana Ratwatte and Vindhana Ariyawanse. Not surprisingly,
the trio professed complete confidence in the ability of
their candidate, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, to secure
victory at the polls on November 17. The PM will achieve
this feat, according to Alahapperuma, because his campaign
has "gathered all the diverse forces that not been part of
the peace process" before--like the pro-Marxist Janatha
Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Buddhist extremist Jathika
Hela Urumaya (JHU)--under the SLFP's commodious banner. The
PM has succeeded in convincing these Sinhalese skeptics that
"devolution is acceptable," Alahapperuma claimed, suggesting
that the two chauvinist parties now have embraced the peace
process. At the same time, he added, the JHU's pro-market
orientation "evens out" the JVP's statist reflexes, thus
offering something for everyone on the economic front. That
said, Alahapperuma conceded that the SLFP platform guarantees
"special protection" for certain key sectors, such as energy.
The rhetoric in the manifesto notwithstanding, Ratwatte
explained, the SLFP campaign accepts private university
education "in principle" and is working hard to bring the JVP
along. In general, the "JVP is much more flexible than
before," he claimed.

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IF IT'S NOT ONE,
THEN IT MUST BE TWO:
"UNITARY" VS. "UNITED"
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3. (C) Alahapperuma discounted perceptions that the PM's
position on the peace process represented a step backward
from acceptance of federalism and substantial devolution for
the north and east (Reftel). The real difference between
Rajapakse's position (preservation of a "unitary state") and
that of United National Party (UNP) candidate Ranil
Wickremesinghe ( a federal structure within a "united" Sri
Lanka) is semantic, rather than ideological, Ratwatte
insisted. Since the Sinhala word for "unitary" ("ekiye") is
the same as the word for "one," Sinhalese-speaking voters
will automatically assume that any system not described as
"unitary," or "one," must, by force of logic, be "two," or
divided, he said. When asked to explain how Rajapakse
interpreted the different words with respect to whether
federalism could be part of a permanent settlement to the
ethnic conflict, his campaign advisors did not answer
directly, stressing instead that elements of a federal system
are not new to Sri Lanka. In fact, Ratwatte went on, a
federal system existed in ancient Sri Lanka, and a de facto
"quasi-federal" state currently exists in the country, even
though "the nomenclature is not there." (Comment: Despite
several allusions to Sri Lanka's ancient Buddhist kings in
Rajapakse's manifesto, this particular historical fact is not
mentioned.) Even some countries with an openly federal
system, such as South Africa, do not highlight the term
"federal" in their names, he observed.


4. (SBU) When asked for specifics about how Rajapakse's
proposed "Jaya Lanka" program would be different from the
tsunami coordination mechanism (known as P-TOMS) he had

SIPDIS
introduced into Parliament several months earlier,
Alahapperuma explained that Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs
would "negotiate a (aid-coordinating) mechanism" with the
LTTE. The TNA MPs would also be "empowered to begin
immediate relief operations" in LTTE-controlled territory, he
said, adding that the PM had imposed an April 14 deadline
(both the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year) for Jaya Lanka to
begin operation.

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CAMPAIGN OPERATIONAL TEMPO ON STEADY RISE
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5. (C) When asked for an assessment of how the SLFP was
faring, Ratwatte proudly produced a graph purportedly showing
the respective "intensity" of the SLFP and UNP campaigns
since August. While SLFP "intensity," according to the
graph, lagged somewhat behind the UNP's in August and much of
September, the SLFP campaign rises meteorically in
mid-October (at a point intended to represent the October 18
release of the Rajapakse platform) and continues its
relentless ascent until November 17. UNP "intensity," on the
other hand, flat lines after mid-October. When asked what
data points (e.g., number of rallies conducted, houses
visited, leaflets distributed, interviews broadcast, etc.)
were used in constructing the graph, Ratwatte was unable to
offer any illumination, reiterating instead that the graph
represented campaign "intensity." He acknowledged that the
unimpressive graphic depiction of UNP activity after
mid-October did not take into account possible plans by the
competing campaign for a similar increase in "intensity."


6. (SBU) Before Rajapakse's formal nomination, Ariyawanse
reported, the party canvassed house-to-house to identify the
issues that weighed most heavily on voters' minds. (The
answers: cost of living increases; peace process;
corruption.) Rajapakse has constructed his campaign to
respond directly to these concerns, the advisor said.
(Perhaps in tacit acknowledgment of Rajapakse's potential
vulnerability on the last issue, Alahapperuma noted that the
JVP's "clean" image would help the campaign.) Another
national door-to-door campaign is scheduled for November 4-6,
Ariyawanse said, to check voters' reaction to the "Mahinda's
Vision" manifesto (Reftel). The SLFP campaign will hold a
total of 140 major rallies across the nation (except in the
north) by November 17, Ratwatte said, and is now averaging
four a day, with the candidate appearing at one rally daily.
The UNP, in contrast, plans to hold 83 major rallies over the
same amount of time, the SLFP'ers asserted. In addition to
rallies, the campaign is capitalizing on Rajapakse's
good-old-boy image by organizing a mobile exhibition of
political cartoons featuring the candidate that will tour
major cities.


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OLD MATH:
SLFP COUNTING ON JHU VOTE BANK
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7. (C) Acknowledging that Rajapakse's alliances with the JVP
and JHU and his rhetoric on the peace process may have
alienated Tamil voters, the PM's advisors asserted that he
could still win the election without them. Ratwatte said
party strategists were taking the 46 percent of votes won by
the SLFP and JVP together in the 2001 general elections--when
the Alliance lost--as the combined SLFP/JVP core vote bank.
With that 46 percent in hand, Rajapakse would need only
another five percent of total votes cast to win, Ratwatte
said confidently, which the party believes he can easily get
now that the JHU is supporting him. If Rajapakse wins only
half of the almost six percent of votes garnered by the JHU
in the 2004 general election, the campaign advisor explained,
the SLFP will be just two percentage points shy of a victory.
Pointing to the two percent of the vote captured by the Sri
Lankan Muslim Congress (SLMC) in the 2004 election, Ratwatte
declared triumphantly that the Muslim-friendly policies
espoused in the Rajapakse platform, as well as his unflagging
support for the PLO (the PM is founder president of the Sri
Lanka Palestine Solidarity Committee),are sure to entice
that critical swing vote. (Comment: SLMC Leader Rauff
Hakeem's decision to support Wickremesinghe apparently was
not a factor in these somewhat optimistic calculations.)
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POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS:
JHU TO "REASSURE" THE CHRISTIAN VOTE
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8. (C) The campaign advisors did not belief Rajapakse's
support among Christian voters would be undermined by his
electoral alliance with the extremist JHU, claiming instead
that "we're using the JHU to reassure the Christians" that
their interests would not suffer in a Rajapakse government.
When asked how the JHU (which has proposed constitutional
amendments to criminalize "unethical" religious conversions
and to make Buddhism the state religion) would be viewed as
reassuring by Christians, Alahapperuma said that the SLFP was
considering giving air time to JHU monk MPs to explain that
they are not really anti-Christian. It is not enough that
the conversion issue did not appear in the manifesto,
Ratwatte acknowledged; the SLFP is also holding discussions
with the JHU aimed at persuading the monk MPs to take
"irritants" like the anti-conversion bill out of their
agenda.

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COMMENT
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9. (C) The Rajapakse campaign's math does not add up. The
JHU no longer commands six percent of the vote; most current
estimates put it at less than one percent. The SLMC,
moreover, has already endorsed Wickremesinghe, and non-SLMC
Muslim voters in the east are unlikely to support the Prime
Minister of an administration they believe did too little to
expedite tsunami reconstruction. (The alleged involvement of
Anuruddha Ratwatte, a former SLFP minister related to
President Kumaratunga, in the murder of 10 SLMC supporters in
the aftermath of the 2001 general elections may also dampen
support.) Rajapakse's advisors' attempts to depict his
campaign as an umbrella broad enough to accommodate a wide
range of voters' competing interests ring hollow. Bringing
the JVP and JHU along to accept devolution of power--a right
hypothetically already granted to the north and east by the
Thirteenth Amendment--could hardly be described as a critical
step forward in the peace process. His campaign advisors'
disquisitions into the subtle semantic differences between
"united" and "unitary" notwithstanding, Rajapakse has never
publicly endorsed a federal solution in this campaign, nor do
we expect him to so as long as the JVP and JHU are sharing
his stage.

LUNSTEAD