UVA PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS UPDATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000781

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INSB

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/06/2019
TAGS: PGOV PREL PREF PHUM EAID CE
SUBJECT: UVA PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS UPDATE

Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES JAMES R. MOORE. REASONS: 1.4 (B, D)


1. (SBU) Summary. Pol Staff visited Badulla and Monaragela
Districts in Uva Province to get a sense of the issues
and progress of the campaign for the upcoming August 8
provincial elections. The elections are the first since
the end of war and are being perceived by many as a testing
ground for the President,s popularity. It was apparent
from the SLFP active campaign efforts that the government
is taking no chances on the outcome of the election. End
Summary.

Badulla District: Government Works to Woo Estate
Tamils, Some Complaints of Intimidation
--------------


2. (SBU) In Badulla District, Embassy staff observed
campaign posters covering virtually every flat space,
convoys of vehicles moving with campaign workers, and at
least four different door-to-door canvassing operations.
Candidates for both the ruling United People,s Freedom
Alliance (UPFA) and the opposition UNP indicated they had
spent large sums of their personal funds in order to 'help
the people.' At the same time, candidates from all parties
indicated that money was not the deciding issue but that
candidates would support them based on their personal
qualifications and message. A wealthy SLFP candidate
stressed that there were no intra-communal problems but
admitted that a lack of Tamil language capacity might be
an issue. As he observed, there were union issues among
the Tamil plantation workers and the lack of Tamil language
meant 'they did not always understand things correctly.'
Another wealthy SLFP candidate was confident that being a
Sinhalese Muslim would allow him to draw from the Muslims
in the district but was also anxious to emphasize that
there was no real division among the Sinhalese, Tamils
and Muslim communities.


3. (C) A wealthy UNP candidate, who was banking on his
youth (28 years),political connections, and good deeds
to propel him to office, observed that he had received
'some physical pressures' including disruptions of meetings
and physical attacks which left one driver in the
hospital. Campaign staff at another UNP candidate's
office, an area that has traditionally been UNP territory,
were mainly afraid of election-day abuses such as
encouraging people not to vote and using fraudulent
ballots. According to them, the SLFP had been emphasizing
in its campaign that it would protect Sri Lanka against
the nefarious efforts of the international community,
including the US. A second UNP candidate said he had
experienced physical attacks, intimidation, and a lack of
police response to his complaints and felt that the pressure
he was under was due to the likelihood of his success at the
polls. The JVP candidate provided a detailed description
of the campaign abuses they had documented, ranging from
the abuse of administrative resources to personal pressures.


4. (SBU) A young local government official who supervised
24 villages expressed frustration at the lack of funds he
was given to fulfill his responsibilities in the area of
roads and other infrastructure. He claimed that 80
percent of most grants went to support administrative costs
and only 20 percent made its way to the local level. He
said that health and infrastructure needs were a
priority. A group of Sinhalese NGO workers emphasized the
importance of decreasing communal tensions and improving the
capacity of local government workers in the area. In
their opinion, the Hill Tamils who work on the tea
plantations
are deeply afraid and suffer from an ignorance of their
rights. They were also anxious to work on minimizing the

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tensions between different communities and described their
efforts, through Peace Brigades, to prevent the President's
victory declaration from escalating tensions.


5. (SBU) The Embassy team also had occasion to visit a
Vedda (indigenous Sri Lankan) on the border of a
national park in Badulla District. He had no interest, and
nor did most Vedda in his opinion, in the political
campaign that was occurring all around him. He indicated
that he fully respected the national park as belonging to
the Government of Sri Lanka but expressed frustration that
they
were subject to onerous hunting rules and regulations. He
expressed a firm belief that their traditions were more
sustainable than the government's and asked for assistance
in conveying this message to the outside world.

Monaragela District: A Rajapaksa Running,
Little UNP Presence
--------------


6. (C) Monaragela District, Sri Lanka,s biggest and
poorest district, is considered SLFP territory and Embassy
staff observed little UNP campaign activity. UNP candidate
Gamini De Silva told Poloff that there have been no major
incidents of violence, only petty harassment such as
covering up or removing UNP posters. Nonetheless, he said,
the government has such a major presence in the district
that UNP supporters were shying away from campaign events
and meetings. He said the SLFP,s chief ministerial
candidate, Ports and Aviation Minister Chamal Rajapaksa,s
son Sashindra Rajapaksa, was using ministry resources to
fund his campaign, including 250 vehicles belonging to the
ports authority. He was confident, however, that UNP
supporters would come through at voting time and argued
that party loyalties in the district have not changed as a
result of the war. He noted that 75-80 percent of the
district people were farm laborers and that lack of water
was the major political issue in the area. Irrigation
schemes built to date have not helped Monaragela District,
and poverty in the area has driven many to engage in
marijuana cultivation out of desperation, he said.


7. (SBU) A poor villager working at a rural UNP campaign
office told Poloff that there had been no violence in his
area because all the villagers knew each other. He said
people would stay loyal to the UNP because the government
regularly engaged in petty politics. He added that the
government's campaign tactics were insulting to people. As
an example, he showed Embassy staff a letter from Sashindra
Rajapaksa that was sent to each household asking for a list
of their needs and concerns that he could address once he
was elected. The UNP workers said &people aren't that
stupid.8 If the government wanted to address their needs
they would have done so over the past several years they
have already been in power, he argued. Local shopkeepers
told the driver that the government was hiring the popular
national band Sunflowers to perform at campaign rallies and
paying them 300,000 rupees (USD 2,800) per show. They
complained that the government was spending money
carelessly when the district had so many real needs.
Workers at a rural UNP campaign office told embassy staff
that the government was worried about an upcoming campaign
visit by UNP heavyweight Sajith Premadasa and had scheduled
the Sunflowers to play at the same time as his rally.


8. (C) An official at Sashindra Rajapaksa,s main
campaign office told Poloff that the campaign had been
peaceful so far, and noted that Sashindra had specifically
instructed the campaign workers to keep it that way. He
said the people living in areas bordering the East were
happy that the war was over and were showing widespread

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support for the government, including donating time and
resources to the campaign. He argued that this gratitude
would overcome any previous party loyalties and predicted
that the government would secure 85% of the vote. He said
that the JVP had no support in the area and would not win
any seats. He added said that water was a main campaign
issue for the people, and reported that the government has
inaugurated a new irrigation project to address this.


9. (C) The JVP,s Chief Ministerial candidate R.M.
Jayawardena told Poloff that the government was ignoring
all election rules. He said the government was misusing
state resources for Rajapaksa,s campaign and that 10 JVP
campaign workers had been attacked. When asked about JVP
support levels in the area he said that the JVP had
launched a big campaign for two reasons: to improve the
JVP,s performance in the area and to sensitize people to
important issues. He said the two biggest issues for the
JVP were the fact that government has failed to put forward
a post- war economic development plan and that the
government has failed to provide a long term political
solution to the ethnic conflict. He argued that since the
end of the war the government has focused only on its own
political survival.


10. (C) COMMENT: The elections are the first since the
end of war and are being perceived by many as a testing
ground for the President's popularity. The extremely
active electioneering suggests that the government is
taking no chances, despite it being a generally
low-priority constituency. The candidacy of
Shashindra Rajapksa is likely part of the Government's
broader effort to replace stalwart SLFP members with
Rajapaksa loyalists.
MOORE