 The verdict from the local body elections in Sri Lanka was a mixed bag for the ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance and Sri Lankan President Mahindra Rajapakse. While the ruling coalition has had landslide victories in the local bodies elsewhere, it had to face comprehensive defeat at the hands of the Tamil National Alliance, the Tamil dominated and war ravaged northern province. We have with us Ahilan Kazeergambar, spokesperson of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum with whom we shall discuss the election results and other issues related to the long-awaited political solution to the conflict in the country. Ahilan, welcome to NewsClick. Ahilan, you have been to Jaffna recently during the local body elections. You must have seen the war affected Tamil Peoples mood from close quarters. What do you think were the reasons why the Tamil people voted for the TNA in such large numbers? Yes, now this is the first of all the second set of local government elections in Sri Lanka. We had local government elections in March for close to 234 bodies. And then this time in July we had local government elections for 65 bodies. So at one level these were not supposed to be elections of great importance. These were mainly to determine local authorities in many of these villages and towns. Now the government decided to raise the stakes on these elections because of the mounting political pressures international. In that context there was some amount of intimidation leading up to the elections. And from I think the Tamil community's point of view in particular where in the north in the Jaffna Peninsula and the Vanni where there were elections for close to 20 local government bodies. Issues of resettlement, the absence of a political solution and the continued militarization of the north were issues that had been raised. Now the government attempted to make this election a question of economic development versus political settlement and wartime accountability. They felt that enough had been done on the economic development front and through a larger campaign they thought they could send a message to the rest of the country and the world at large that the Tamil community was with them. So in that context number of ministers and the president himself campaigned for this local government election in the north. And the verdict of the elections as you know is that in the Jaffna Peninsula and the four councils that were being elected in Kilnochi and Mulattivu out of a total of 20 the government's partner and member of its coalition if you only want three of the local government councils and the TNA won a large majority of them and even Ananda Sangari who was a very vocal critic of the LTT managed to win two in Kilnochi. So this is was a resounding defeat of the government's agenda in the north. Now on election day it was very clear that people wanted to send a strong message to the government. They are I think very tired of the way in which politics is being manipulated that certain southern agenda is being pushed. And of course the problem is that intimidation continues just today in the newspapers and news has come out that the editor of the leading Tamil newspaper in Jaffna Udayan was beaten up very badly by two thugs with iron crow bars. Now this sort of fear combined with the military presence is is part of the reason why there was this kind of overwhelming response on the part of the Tamil community. You are telling us that intimidation continues now there is tremendous international pressure following the release of the channel for video and of course the UN special panel report which we discussed upon that about that last time with you. Now combined with the clear mandate from the Tamil people what implications do you think these elections would have on a prospective talks between the TNA and the government. Yeah the negotiations between the the TNA and the government had been going on since the the beginning of this year. And as you mentioned the UN panel report and the channel for documentary have become very important interventions in the public domain on the basis of which some very powerful actors have taken the Sri Lankan government to task. Here particularly the United States and the British have repeatedly called for a credible process of accountability into wartime abuses. And what they have said is that unless there is genuine and credible movement on this accountability issue by the end of the year that the international actors might take this up in various UN forums. On the other hand India has also become much more vocal they've called for a credible political settlement they have emphasized more the political process as well as lifting the state of emergency. And so this international pressure combined with the the TNA's victory in the local government elections in the north. And as I mentioned earlier that the government's attempt was to deflect that kind of international pressure by hoping to have a major victory in the north and and having failed that. Now I think the TNA is hoping to use this victory to push for more leverage on the negotiations with the government in terms of political. What's the government strategy now? There is talk of a parliamentary select committee to be going to be set up. How do you evaluate these steps? Now the parliamentary select committee is an idea that the president floated soon after the joint statement between India and Sri Lankan. I believe in me coming on the heels of the UN panel report where India had called for a credible political settlement. Now the the worry I think among many analysts is that there have been numerous processes to attempt to come towards a political settlement. More recently President Rajapaksa himself had appointed a process that called the all party representative committee process which in fact went on for three years. The process came to an end. Many of the leaders of political parties co-signed a document including his own party and it was presented to the president in 2009. But the president has not made that report public. There was also a multi-ethnic experts committee report that came at the very beginning of that process. So there have been various processes, there have been various documents and in that context many worry whether this parliamentary select committee is yet another time buying exercise or time dragging exercise by the president and the ruling government. Now if they are serious about this kind of a process I think they have to do one of two things. Either the president and his SLFP, Sri Lanka Freedom Party should adopt the APRC report and say that they are willing to start, make that the basis of negotiations with all the other parties. Or the president should very clearly come out with his own proposals and here the president has been very non-committal and that is why there is very little confidence in whether this parliamentary select committee report will actually contribute towards arriving at a political settlement or whether it's just a time buying exercise until the international pressure reduces. This is in line with the disappointment that we have had with the proclamations from the president and no action later on. There was a lot of talk about so called 13th amendment plus package as part of the political solution even before the end of the civil war. Now nothing has concretely happened in that front as of now. Do you think it is still a chimera based on what the current government is doing? That's right. The 13th amendment which came with the Indus Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 for the first time moved towards devolution of powers to the provinces. Now such devolution to the provinces was a major step but the kind of powers that would be devolved became a major question over the last 20 years. Because under the 13th amendment some powers are reserved for the centre, some powers are given to the provinces and there is something called the concurrent list which are a set of shared powers between the centre and the provinces. Now the reality is that even many of the other provincial councils now in the north provincial council elections have not been held for the last 20 years because of the war. But in the other provincial councils whether it is in the south or the west again powers were not devolved so these provincial councils haven't worked in the way in which they were envisioned. Now there was eastern provincial council elections in 2008 and there again the experience over the last three years has been that very little has been achieved through that provincial council. So the kind of powers that would be devolved through the 13th amendment becomes important and central here also in the negotiations between the TNA and the government is the question of police powers and land powers. Whether they would be vested with the provinces and the president has expressed that he will not devolve police powers and land powers so I think that's going to become a sticking point. Now that is what is already part of our constitution in terms of the 13th amendment that even that has not been working but the original vision and even in discussions between the Indian government and Sri Lankan government they had talked about 13th amendment plus more than the 13th amendment which would have involved things like a bicameral legislature where minorities would have a greater representation. Now when I talked about the political solution the original vision of even the APRC process and many of these other political processes was to go much further that one problem why devolution has failed in Sri Lanka is because of the unitary structure of the state and this very centralization of power also in the executive presidency. So there was much discussion about going much further changing of the structure of the state from unitary to a united but now very few people have hoped that this president and this government would go for anything far reaching such as that and then they felt that the compromise might be the 13th amendment plus but the reality that we see now in Sri Lanka is really 13th amendment minus and that is a great worry for minorities.