By Vishvanath
Election campaigns have reached feverish pitch with only a few more days to go before the 2024 presidential election. All serious candidates have put out their election manifestos, but the public has grown so cynical that it is doubtful whether the ordinary people have cared to read and understand them, much less analyze and decide whom to vote for, based on what is stated in those documents. Typically, rhetoric and mudslingingtake precedence over policies and discussions on them as election campaigns hot up in this country; the leading candidates are busy having the public believe that they are riding waves of popularity. They are using every trick in the book to inflate crowds at their campaign rallies. Long lines of buses used to transport their supporters and others from distant places can be seen around such events.
Large crowds at election rallies could be deceptive, as we argued in a previous column, but Sri Lankans are in the habit of using them as a yardstick for popular support for political parties. The bigger the rallies, the greater the chances the parties that hold them have of winning, the public seems to think. National Democratic Front presidential candidate and former Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajpakshe has sought to dispute this view.
Taking part in a television interview, recently, he claimed that manpower agencies help increase crowd sizes at political rallies for a fee. He said it had become a lucrative business, and those companies charged Rs. 3,000 per head for the paid attendees, and offered discounted rates (about Rs. 1,500 per head) to smaller political parties. They provided their services throughout the country, Rajapakshe said, adding that they had given him a pitch, but he had turned down their offer.
It may be that, unable to attract big crowds to his campaign rallies, Rajapakshe has sought to discredit his rivals in the presidential race by making the aforesaid claim, but the fact remains that there have emerged organizations that specialize in election related activities, which used to be carried out party activists themselves in the past. All that a candidate or a political party, or a private tutor for that matter, has to do to have wayside walls, lamp/telephone posts, etc., covered with their posters almost overnight is to entrust the task to poster pasting outfitsand pay them. Most politicians obtain their services. Hence the extremely high costs of election campaigns, and politicians’ overdependence on moneybags including anti-social characters with a lot of black money.
Mainstream advertising companies are minting money thanks to the ongoing presidential election campaigns they are handling, but they, unlike others, are mindful of the guidelines set by the Election Commission as can be seen from their promotional campaigns of some candidates in the fray. Digital marketing teams are also in overdrive these days; they are making a killing, given the presidential candidates’ preference for social media platforms to boost their images. It has been reported that they hire click farm operators to increase clicks, likes and views, and charge as much as Rs. 4 million each for two-week campaigns.
There are also deepfake contractors who carry out promotional as well as vilification campaigns for money. They are hyperactive these days as evident from the sheer number of defamatory posts and doctored videos doing the rounds in the digital space. In fact, teams of deepfake producers working for presidential candidates are at war on the Internet. The presidential hopefuls are apparently operating on the basis that the end justifies the means, and all’s fair love, war and election campaigns.
In most cases, the waves of popular support that politicians tout and people seem to take seriously are the results of well-crafted, expensive propaganda drives. This, however, does not mean that there do not occur real groundswells of support for politicians and their parties ahead of election. There have been several such instances where waves of popularity propelled political parties to power with huge majorities at elections, especially the national-level ones. However, political parties and their leaders so elected could not or did not care to live up to people’s expectations, for power usually makes the wielders of it take leave of their senses and act as though they were invincible. They tend to abuse their extraordinary majorities to further their own interests at the expense of those of the public and ruin their electoral prospects in the process.
In 1970, the SLFP-led United Front (UF) rode a massive wave of popular support to capture state power. It embarked on some socialist experiments, which proved disastrous; worse, itmisused its two-thirds majority to extend the life of the parliament by two years in 1975. The first post-Independence armed uprising took place during the UF government in 1971. The SLFP lost badly to the UNP at the 1977 general election,with the latter benefiting from a massive countrywide swing and obtaining a five-sixths majority, which it abused in every conceivable manner.
That UNP regime did away with a general election in 1982 by holding a heavily-rigged referendum instead. It remained in power for 17 long years and oversaw the eruption of the North and East war, and the second JVP insurrection. Democracy suffered immensely under its which, was characterized by political violence, corruption, assassinations, crony capitalismand all kinds of election malpractices.
The next surge of public backing for a political leader was seen in 2010, when the war-winning President Mahinda Rajapaksa sought a second term for him and a mandate for his SLFP-led UPFA. He won handsomely and so did his party. He obtained 6,015,934 votes (57.88%) as opposed to his main rival, Sarath Fonseka, who polled 4,173,185 votes (40.15%). The UPFA won 144 seats in the 225-member Parliament and went on to muster a two-thirds majority with the help of some crossovers. President Rajapaksa and his government incurred much public opprobrium for abuse of power, nepotism, corruption and political violence. Rajapaksa suffered a humiliating defeat at the 2015 presidential election.
A rush of collective approval shifted the outcome of the 2019 presidential election in favor of SLPP candidate Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who secured 6,924,255 votes (52.25%); the SLPP polled 6,853, 693 votes, won 145 seats at the 2020 general election, and thereafter secured a two-thirds majority by engineering defections from the Opposition. Gotabaya undertook some ill-conceived missions such as his organic farming drive, could not manage the ailing economy properlyand had to flee the country to escape from angry protesters and tender his resignation from overseas in 2022.
Now, some candidates in the current presidential race are boasting of groundswells of public approval for them. The veracity of their claims is in doubt, given the unethical methods they are employing to artificially boost the crowd sizes at their rallies and their social media presence. The outcomes of waves of public support at elections are like fire; they have the potential to be a danger not only to the politicians who benefit from them but also to the public if they are mishandled.
All political parties that secured huge majorities thanks to waves of popular support made it a point either to introduce new Constitutions or to effect far-reaching constitutional amendments and other laws. The SLFP promulgated the first Republican Constitution in 1972, and the UNP introduced the existing one in 1978. In 2010, President Rajapaksa amended the Constitution to enhance his executive powers and scrap the presidential term limit in a bid to enable himself to remain President indefinitely. The 18th Amendment he introduced for that purpose was scrapped in 2015, when the UNP-led UNF government effected the 19th Amendment. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa changed the Constitution in 2020, and the 20thAmendment he introduced to further the interests of his family restored more of the executive powers the 19th Amendment had abolished. What he did was undone with the 21 Amendment, which came into being after his ouster.
Thus, it may be argued that waves of support and impressive wins they enable politicians and their parties to secure could become either blessings or curses, depending on the way they are handled.
