By Vishvanath
Social media platforms are awash with news about crowds of varying sizes at political rallies. The leading presidential candidates boast of their well-attended meetings, which receive wide publicity. They have pulled out all the stops to attract huge crowds to their political events, and it is public knowledge that they have their supporters bussed there from different parts of the country to inflate crowd sizes. An oft-heard complaint is that some political parties distribute artificially brewed toddy in the plantation areas to lure workers into attending their meetings.
Most of the presidential candidates are not conducting election campaigns as such although as many as 39 persons handed over nominations for the forthcoming election. Only about seven candidates are actively participating in the contest, and of them President Ranil Wickremesinghe, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa and JVP/NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake hold big outdoor rallies and attract media attention. More than 28 candidates have not launched their campaigns, and election monitors complain that some of them are not even contactable.
Former war-winning Army Commander, and unsuccessful presidential candidate (2010) Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka is running for President again, and his efforts to match others’ electioneering capabilities have not yielded the desired results. His election rallies are in the news for the wrong reason; they are very poorly attended, but he makes fiery speeches. He may have expected to perform better when he threw his hat into the ring. It may be recalled that he held a series of huge rallies in the run-up to the 2010 presidential election, where he challenged the then incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He was also very popular at the time due to the role he played in defeating the LTTE. The UNP and the JVP threw their weight behind him in a bid to topple the Rajapaksa government, and his rallies drew massive crowds, which compared with those of his main rival, Rajapaksa. One of the biggest rallies he held was in Galle close to the election, and he was so excited that he went overboard, threatening to put the Rajapaksas in prison uniforms after being sworn in as the President.
About fifteen years on, Fonseka cannot attract at least a few dozen people to his rallies. Interestingly, Wickremesinghe, Premadasa and Dissanayake considered Fonseka far more popular than they were, in 2010. That was why they made him the common Opposition candidate and threw in their lot with him. Today, they are running for President as three frontrunners, and hold well-attended election rallies. Fonseka is in this predicament as he failed to get his political fundamentals right and did not realize that timing was of the essence in making political moves.
Do crowds at political rallies translate into votes at elections? The answer is both yes and no, paradoxical as it may sound. Crowd sizes do matter in electoral politics, for they are indicative of popular support to some extent and help boost the morale of the candidates, their organizers, fundraisers, and supporters. Hence, political parties and independent groups go flat out to increase crowd sizes by employing various methods. Scores of buses used for transporting people can be seen parked around the venues of political rallies in all parts of the country.
There are situations where crowd sizes indicate which way political winds are blowing, as was seen in 1970, 1977, 1994, 2010, 2019, and 2020. One could easily predict the victory of the SLFP-led United Front (UF) in the 1970 general election by looking at the crowds at Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s election rallies. The UF won with a two-thirds majority. Seven years later, the UNP made a comeback, holding as it did massive rallies, and obtained a five-sixths majority, which it abused in every conceivable manner. It took 17 years thereafter for the country to witness a similar wave of popular support for a political party. The SLFP-led People’s Alliance under Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga mobilized the public against the UNP government of the day and emerged victorious, but it could not reap the desired results in terms of seats because of the Proportional Representation system. Year 2010 saw another groundswell of popular support for a candidate. The then incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa, secured a second term, by facing a snap presidential election close on the heels of the conclusion of the war in 2009; he sustained its momentum and his party the SLFP-led UPFA won 144 seats, just short of six seats for a two-thirds majority in the 225-member Parliament. The last two waves of popular support for a political party were in 2019, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa became the President. The SLPP won the last general election, obtaining 145 seats in the parliament, the following year.
Crowd sizes could also be deceptive in that the people attend more than one political rally and/or political parties transport their supporters to their meetings in large numbers to give the impression to the public that they are leading in electoral contests. Fonseka’s election rallies were so huge, thanks to support he received from the JVP and the UNP, that many thought he would beat Rajapaksa in the presidential race. Closer to that election, the Democratic National Front, from which Fonseka contested, held a very successful rally in Galle. On seeing the seething crowds, Fonseka must have thought his victory was as certain as night follows day, and emotions got the better of him; he declared that he would ensure that the Rajapaksas would be thrown behind bars first thing after his inauguration as the President. He also launched into a tirade against his political enemies, putting off a good number of people.
In sharp contrast, President Rajapaksa’s rallies were much bigger than those of Maithripala Sirisena in 2015. Many thought Sirisena had made a huge mistake by coming forward to challenge Rajapaksa in the presidential race. Perhaps, what made his upset win possible was the block votes that the TNA and the SLMC delivered to him in the North and the East.
In 1982, JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera’s campaign rallies drew huge crowds. A brilliant orator, he would thunder from political platforms, tearing his political opponents to shreds, and his speeches were appealing to the youth of the day. President J. R. Jayewardene, who ruled the country with an iron fist, suppressed the Opposition, and the JVP was leading an effective anti-government campaign from the front. The SLFP was divided and its leader Sirimavo could not contest due to her civic disabilities. So, Wijeweera stole the limelight. He held a massive rally in Matara close to the election, and the sheer size of the crowd there prompted him to address the people as if he had already been elected President. But when the election results were announced, he had obtained only 4.1 % of votes. JVP breakaway groups claim that he could not come to terms with the humiliating loss and went to Kurunegala, where he confined himself to a room in the house where he was staying and refused to receive visitors for weeks on end.
In 2015, all secret surveys the state intelligence services conducted predicted an easy win for the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, but Sirisena came from behind to beat him.
Thus, one may argue that while crowd sizes are indicative of popular support to a considerable extent, they could be deceptive in some situations. But the success of election campaigns hinges on gimmicks and rhetoric to a considerable extent and hence the preoccupation of political parties with the means of inflating crowd sizes and ensuring that they receive enough publicity.
