 Welcome everyone to our discussion about Sri Lanka's parliamentary elections. My name is Thimana Salikuddin. I'm Director for South Asia Programs at the US Institute of Peace. The US Institute of Peace or USIP is our country's national nonpartisan independent institute founded by Congress and dedicated to the proposition that a world without violent conflict is possible, practical and essential for US and global security. I want to welcome you and say good morning to everyone in the US and good evening to everyone joining us from South Asia. On August 5th, Sri Lanka held a momentous parliamentary election. It was the first South Asian nation to hold such national elections amidst a global pandemic. This election has going to have impact for a long time to come but is also particularly key right now in the place that Sri Lanka finds itself both in terms of international affairs, domestically, economically and politically. Today we have a great panel of speakers who are all experts in their own right and we're very excited to hear what they have to say. Please feel free to send us questions via the chat in YouTube and we will have questions at the end. But I want to just set the stage a little bit. A sleeping parliamentary victory for the Sri Lanka People's Front has brought the Rajapaksa family back to the apex of power in Sri Lanka. And today we want to talk about what does that mean both immediately but also for the long reconciliation process in Sri Lanka and other issues which the nation is facing. So we'd like to kick it off with Manjula Gajanayaka who's a researcher attached to the Center for Policy Alternatives, a leading research and advocacy organization in Sri Lanka. He's also the national coordinator for CMEV, a respected and leading election monitoring body that has covered elections in Sri Lanka since 1997. Manjula is the go-to person when it comes to technical aspects and details about this election. So I would love to turn it to Manjula first to lead us off with a broad overview of the election. Manjula? Welcome you all. The Gaffer notification for the purpose of electing the members for the ninth parliament was issued by the president on 2nd March, 2020. Since then, the ever longest election campaign period was on for this election and that was 153 days. On one hand, the decision taken by the election commission to hold the election after it was postponed two times amid COVID-19. On the other hand, the relief program implemented for the benefit of victims of the COVID-19 pandemic was subject to some degree of politicization. Literally, the election is poorly rat rate competition which ended with the voter turnout of 75% to 89%. The election campaign which is based over a full district is nothing other than a fatal competition like doggy dog that creates provoking attitudes. One of Sri Lankan political scientists, J.A. Wilson stated once that the constitution introduced to Sri Lanka in 1978 as the goalist system in Asia. The further noted that behind it's a facade of democracy, constitutional, government-led, political, authority-arianism. The election results this time is such that even J.A. Javadana which received sixth power would not have imaging. What are the aspects we can identify as the immediate results of this parliamentary election? Firstly, I can mention that the leader of the United National Party, UMP, whose generation represented it over 44 years could not even secure 5% of votes even in his most liked district. As the number of votes were so less for the UMP and thus didn't even count the Kalamudhi district votes. When Sri Lanka received the Dominion status and produced the first ever prime minister and UMP has now no elected member to represent UMP in the parliament. This is going to be the first parliamentary inaugural session since 1947 after 16 elections having no single elected representative from the UMP. Even for the single membership received through the national list is yet to be agreed upon. Secondly, the votes received by Sri Lanka Podujana Perimuna, SLPP, at this election election is just like a wild and storm. How great the velocity of that is voters have elected two candidates who have allegations of murder cases. Not only that, from among the 208 candidates represented the previous parliament and contested this election from various parties have lost their parliament memberships. It is important to mention that among those 66 there are five female members of parliament too. Additionally, it seems that the voters must have failed enough of 23 politicians who held ministerial portfolios. Thirdly, the other specific aspects reflected in this election was that the power centered on other key parties have also reduced gradually. United National Party had only one seat in the legislature, had a person like my father who went early in the morning to the polling centers center decades ago and voted for elephant votes knew about this situation. He would have certainly fainted by seeing this election result. This indicates that despite all wine is in new bottles, our people are looking for something new. Elephant is a symbol in politics over 71 years and no young may out is yet to take over UNP. The power initiated, the power entailed in UNP and SLPP being transferred to SLPP and SJB is a political matter that should be studied in depth. However, we should not forget that what one great Abraham Lincoln stated, an election cannot give a country a firm sense of directions if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names, but as alike in their principles and aims as two piece in the same part. The specialty with the CM maybe is that it mainly focuses on the election related to violence incidents occurred. Accordingly, if I am asked about the conduct of this election, I can only say that the parliamentary election was conducted in a free and fair manner in general. However, if I am further asked to detail it out, I would say that the election was free, but not fair. I was born in seventies. They are for one of the best indicator to state that the election was peacefully that neither a candidate nor a supporter was hospitalized due to violence on the election day. There were hundreds of violent incidents that involved grave hurts reported during 2004 election in Sri Lanka. The post-election period at that era was such that defeaters hide and winners come onto the streets to celebrate the victory and thus making the defeaters physically and psychologically hurt. Nowadays, the defeaters can share memes and make in bit of fun just to get some relief from the worry of defeat. I stated that the election was not fair. This is not an allegation only against the SLPP that received the ruling power. Whatever the types of election is held in this country which doesn't happen in an equal level playing field when the running party was given 17 minutes during the main news bulletin, National People's Power NPP had been given only seven seconds on certain days. The other fact is that even the functioning of social media has also now become a force that cannot be controlled. We as CMEV complained about thousands of social media posts detrimental to candidates for political parties, but the election commission was only able to take actions for bit over 10%. We should acknowledge that the election commission doesn't have a strong mechanism with human and physical resources to make immediate intervention towards all matters related to social media in an election period. Above all, one of the very important issues is that the election campaign finance has not been regulated in this country. You may know that there is a traditional sport called Tampkof Borough during Singhala Hindu New Year Festival. There are the fundamental rule is that each party should essentially have an equal level playing field. It is common for any game, but in Sri Lanka that is not the case for politics. The situation was not different even this election. According to our estimations, the estimated election campaign cost for 31 days was 2,400 million rupees. It is 130 million of US dollars. Whatever the cost we monitor, we can only monitor about 25% or 230% of the potential estimated cost. We do not know how much funds coming from foreign countries in country companies singhala and Tamil diaspora to the elections. Given such context, the candidates contested and won in Jaffna of Northern province, Vigamadu of Eastern province and Matra district of Southern province had spent a huge amount of money for their respective election campaigns. You need to understand that if the campaign expenses are so high even in this COVID-19 restricted context, how high the campaign cost would have been had the election been held in a normal social context. The estimated campaign cost incurred on five main television channels only on the second of August, just before the cooling off period was 94 million rupees. The total estimated cost of nine TV channels and five radio channels are 1,108 million rupees for 30 days. The total number of political advertisements in 18 hours on first August, telecasted on five main TV channels are 3,458. We did a special monitoring mission to Matra district to the in down south to one of the meeting to which the president attended and thus it revealed that around from three million rupees, 25 US dollars per day had been incurred on one day for just one event. One, another thing should be noted that is about the use of media during the election. What happened during the presidential election, the contest was between the opposition and the SLPP from media. Therefore, I would like to quote Thomas Jefferson. Once he stated that, were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. If the future election are also to be conducted in the same manner, then my opinion is that not only a society without newspapers, but also a society without a government which would be fine. Finally, I should tell you something about women's representation. This time around, we couldn't even have the 13 female members of parliament who represented the last parliament. Our courageous women launched a campaign named One More For Her. However, my opinion is that we need to work hard at the ground level to bring a change. Women in politics doesn't just mean that women receive nominations and unless some tangible powers to women within the hierarchy of political parties, women in politics will be stagnant. Other aspects is that the attitudes. Attitudes, we should never forget that the ones who have become a barrier to women in politics are the party leaders. No one has been able to move beyond from the thinking of Konnambalam Ramanathan. At the time when there was a discussion about women's engagement in politics, he stated before the Donomo Commission by giving verbal audio evidences that do not throw pearls before swine for they will turn and renew what suits European women will not suit us. What was mentioned about is what can be shared given this limited time, but it would be a gap if I do not mention something about debatable situation connected to the counting process. The counting process of this country such a responsible process and there is no way a counting officer of the election commission can make a candidate of their choice in the election. If otherwise can be done, how come the candidate who held the position of returning officers and ministry secretary could lost the election contest? Because their peer officers were the ones managed counting process. So regarding the post displayed in social media is just a strategy used by the defeaters to get themselves happy. Please don't forget that the untruth has wings. Finally, I wish to remind you two things. The victory of SLPP is not a random thing that was something planned from 2015. The other factor is that I believe that the election was held amid the COVID-19 pandemic is a positive example for the entire world. Many expected that there would be a second wave of COVID-19 to occur after the election but we the Sri Lankans are still safe. The total official cost incurred for the election is 8,500 million rupees. It is just like 461 million of US dollars. Even having spent such huge amount of money for the election we have elected our rulers in an election that was conducted in a free environment. That is something for all people who respect democracy to be pleased. Thank you. Thanks very much, Manjula. It's very interesting in terms of the high voter turnout and yet fair access to the elections. Just to know for everyone who's watching at home our chat function is also available on our USIP event page. So if you look at the video player on the USIP event page there's a chat function box there. So please send in your questions. Next I'd like to turn to a good friend and somebody I admire a lot, Bhavani Fonseca who's a senior researcher, a human rights attorney and attorney at law with the Center for Policy Alternatives. Her focus and her research has been on national and international advocacy and public interest litigation. She's worked on assisting victims in affected populations around Sri Lanka and she served on the National Human Rights Action Plan for Sri Lanka between 2017 and 2021. So I welcome Bhavani to talk about what does this mean? So the elections happen. The SLPP now has a two-third super majority in parliament. What does this mean for Sri Lanka? What does it mean for your constitution and what do you see going forward? Thanks Tramanan. Thank you to USIP for hosting this event and it's very timely considering we parliament will start its sittings in two days time. So this is I believe the first event where we are looking into the implications of the elections but also in terms of what's in store in Sri Lanka. I mean, I'm glad that Manjula set us in terms of what happened with elections and some of the issues in terms of election monitoring but also reforms related to elections that we need to look at. As you said, we are now having a government that had a very huge victory. Many didn't think they would get the two-thirds. They have now proven they have. It has implications in terms of the government but also opposition and hopefully we'll have some time to look into these things. But one needs to just take a moment to look at what happened in November when the president was elected. He was elected on a platform of a strong leader, the need for security, stability, discipline and economic revival. And those are issues that we saw in the last few months with the COVID pandemic. And I think it's very important to look at the issues related to the pandemic. This whole premise was further reiterated that we need a strong government, a strong leader. And we're seeing trends of high executive presidency, creeping militarization and these are premised on this whole rhetoric that we are in need of stability, of security. So with the pandemic, the government was able to show that they've had things under control. As human rights activists, lawyers, we raise very serious issues in terms of fundamental rights, in terms of civil liberties about the response where they was legal, proportional. But generally, across Sri Lanka, there was this sense that this government, the government of Gotabe Rajapaksa was able to bring the pandemic under control. And that played in with the elections and it's played in now in terms of the mandate given. And I think it's very important to also recognize that the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019, the pandemic all contributed to this feeling among many Sri Lankans. And hopefully Guru speaks to how the minorities are feeling, but majority community feeling that they need a government that can deliver. So the government that was elected with this massive majority, there's a lot of expectations in terms of delivering on constitution reform, on stability, on discipline, on security, on the economic front. And we will have to see whether this government is able to deliver. So there are high expectations. And as you quite rightly said, they have the two thirds. So reforms are possible to moving the parliament when they meet on the 20th. I don't want to speculate in terms of what form these reforms would take because we haven't seen the details of the reforms. But what's been said in the public in statements, official statements by the government indicates there will be changes to some of the pro-democracy reforms that were introduced in 2015, which introduced checks on the executive precedences. So that's an important thing to understand that they are speaking about a rollback in terms of what is called the 19th amendment. There's also in the public domain and statements where they say there's going to be changes, possible reforms to the 13th amendment to the constitution, which provided for devolution of power. And now we're also hearing reports that there may be reforms through the 16th amendment to the constitution, which provides for language rights. Now, these are in the public domain. So I'm just referring to that. But we would have to see what the government is going to deliver in terms of constitution reform, whether they would need a referendum or whether it would be something that they expect parliament to pass. So a lot of expectations as to what they can do and they've said in September, they're likely to showcase what is going to be introduced in terms of constitution reform. But the sense is there's going to be a rollback. There's going to be likely a backsliding of the democratic reforms that we've seen. What does that mean? Possibly we will see great authoritarianism where there's a hyper-presidency. There could be implications to the independent institutions. There could be implications to the judiciary and the rule of law. In the last few years, we've seen institutions act in an independent manner. Would we go back to the years where we've seen politicized institutions? We don't know. I mean, these are early days, we'll have to see. But these are worrying trends. In terms of also, I think it's very important to also speak to some of the issues of human rights. We've seen lawyers, media activists attacked, some detained. We do process safeguards ignored. So there is a fear that dissent, the space for dissent will shrink quite fast. Again, we'll have to see how this plays out. So this is also worrying trends in terms of what that means. We've also seen, and I'm aware the time is short, but very quickly we've also seen increased military and security sector role in governance. And this has implications for reconciliation, it has implications for governance. But there is a worrying trend. Now we've seen secretaries appointed. We've had former military personnel in these positions, but we've also seen new actors, increased military, former military actors playing key roles in governance. So what does that mean in terms of future? So there are many I think we need to be looking to. I think the next couple of weeks, months, possibly years are going to have huge implications in terms of democracy in Sri Lanka, in terms of rights and reconciliation. But again, early days, and we will have to see whether this government is able to deliver on their key promises and the role of the opposition. As I said before, it's very fragmented. Now very weak, whether civil society will have space, whether we will have space to even have these kind of conversations are to be seen. But again, early days, but very worrying sense. Thank you very much, Pivani, for that. That's very interesting. Now I'd like to turn to Dr. Kumar Vadeval Gauruparan, who's a senior lecturer attached to the Department of Law at University of Jaffna. He's also practicing attorney in the civil appellate litigation, administrative law and human rights law. Dr. Gauruparan was the founding executive director of Adialam Center for Policy Research, I think tank based in Jaffna. Guru, I'd love to hear from you what the mood is in Jaffna. As Pivani pointed out, this majority of people voted for stability, for security. They see in the midst of a pandemic, in the midst of the aftermath of the Easter bombings and just generally the reconciliation from years of civil war, people seem to be opting at the ballot box for a strong government stability and security. But is that the mood in Jaffna? What do you see from there? I mean, what do the minority communities, both Temmels and others, what do they think that this election portends for them? Please. Thank you for this invitation to the US Institute of Peace. In terms of the verdict itself from the North and East where the majority of the numerically smaller communities live, particularly the Tamil and Muslim communities, it's been a fractured verdict, particularly within the Tamil community, the dominant role that the Tamil National Alliance played in the post war context and in the elections and the two elections preceding the post war, preceding 2009, that is broken. So in 2010, the Tamil National Alliance won 14 seats. They bettered their performance in 2015, tallying 16 seats and they've come down to 10 seats. And if you look at who has occupied that space, parties that were critical of the Tamil National Alliance engagement with the last government, the government supposedly that brought in pro-democratic reforms and was willing to engage in accountability and reconciliation because the delivery wasn't to the expectation. The other Tamil Nationalist parties reaped on that, reaped on that, on the gap that was developed by way of not being able to deliver on the promises of the 2015 government. But interestingly, I think, and this is particularly so in Jaffna and Matigalore, there have been significant inroads that pro-government parties have made in this election to the extent that almost 100,000 votes to be very accurate, 94,000 odd votes have been cast in favor of two political parties that are aligned with the present government in Jaffna who have one seat each, so two seats from Jaffna and two seats from Matigalore. In fact, in Matigalore, it's much worse if you tally the votes that pro-government parties, pro-government Tamil parties have got in Matigalore, they have over-performed the Tamil National Alliance in Matigalore, for example. In Ampara, we've lost Tamil representation because of calculated positioning by the government, they brought in former Eastern commander of the LTT to contest separately who managed to split votes among the Tamil population and because of the Ampara has not returned the Tamil representation after a very long time. So it's a very fractured mandate, it's a very warring mandate. It shows Basil Rajabakshar has gone in public, Basil Rajabakshar, the president's brother, the president and prime minister's other brother has gone in public to claim that their strategy has worked in the Northeast of getting in government MPs from the North and East. So it also shows that while that strategy has worked, it's also true that Tamil nationalist parties have been forced in this election to grapple not just with the national question, quote unquote the national question but also with issues of day-to-day economic issues on development matters so on and so forth. But because 10 years after the war has ended, these issues have not been addressed. So I think this is a major challenge for Tamil parties. Now in that, it is not just enough for them to be seen to be engaging on the national question and accountability when it comes to national politics and internationally that they need to deliver on the day-to-day issues that people face. That's a very resounding message that is coming from the Tamil people in particular. The Muslim parties have done well in alliance with the SJB. Sri Lanka Muslim Congress has done well. ACMC, they're also on Muslim Congress under Rishabh Baduddin who's probably a much more hardliner when it comes to Muslim politics is also doing better. They have opened, they have the first time they won from Ampara, for the first time they won from Phukthalam and it used to be seen as a Northern Muslim party, but they may be brought into Eastern Muslim politics as well which will be challenging for the more sort of apparently moderate Muslim political party in Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. So that is also something to be seen. But overall, because the SLPP will have more engagement with Muslim parties, all of them are at the moment aligned against Sri Lanka, the SLPP and are with the Sajid Premadas alliance. I must also say that the SJB has been disappointing that it has completely ignored the minority parties as a part of its alliance. The Tamil People's Alliance which is an alliance of up-country political parties, the Muslim parties that contested and then wanted national list slots within the SJB which SJB did not consider at all and they're not very happy with Sajid Premadas the lead of the SJB, the breakaway party from the UNP over this matter. So SJB is not exhibiting signs of even accommodating minority political parties that were willing to sail with them. This is very unfortunate in that they don't, they are not putting themselves forward as an alternative as a pluralist alliance to the SLPP. And this is not surprising for a keen observer of Sri Lankan politics, but it's very sad, particularly given also what Bhavani said that the operation is not growing up, it's not going to be anytime soon going up a challenge to the kind of politics of the SLPP. I just want to comment on the kind of victory that the SLPP has won. Let's remember that this is not the first time that post-war that there is a two-thirds majority that the government has won in 2010. On the immediate backdrop of the winning of the war they managed two-thirds, almost similar number of states, 144, 145 this time, but along with their alliance partners they are 149 this time around. They have managed to secure close to the same amount of votes at Votabhai Rajavaksha won in the presidential elections of 2019, it's not more actually, slightly more than what Votabhai Rajavaksha won. So the performance of the Mahindra Rajavaksha-led SLPP has been, was equivalent to what Votabhai Rajavaksha used in 2019, in November 2019. So the key question is as Bhavani says, so it's going to be hyper-executive presidentialism that is going to be the focus. I mean, the central idea of this nationalism that centralization is required for A, keeping the country together, this idea that the country can be united only under a very centralized leadership and to the argument of efficiency which is also being pushed quite strongly this time around that an efficient government is one that centralizes power and that the only way they are going to get Sri Lanka to function again to be economically prosperous is by creating a stable government is what I think delivered. So both economic grievances, let's not forget that both economic grievances as well as the kind of majoritarianism that they were able to develop in the backdrop of how the 2015, 2019 Daman played out, particularly on the questions that they were accommodating the minorities too much is what led the SLPP into power. So it remains to be seen. Now Mahindra Ajavaksha in 2010 to 15, while keeping alive the majoritarian spirit turning on to Muslims now, creating a new enemy in the Muslims and so forth kept the majoritarians and fire going, he flaundered on the economic side of things. So if this government is to remain in power beyond the five years that they're going to come in, I think they have to perform on the economic front for the single East to return them back to power in five years time. And I think what is also going to happen is long with addressing the economic needs of the South, they're going to keep pushing for this nation-state idea, this union-national idea of Sri Lanka being a one nation, one state. So the use of the Department of Archaeology, the Department of Forest, or using task forces, using military particularly, I mean, just yesterday, we've heard now probably confirmed news that there might be a new governor for the northern province who might be an ex-major general. So this is going to be a government that is not going to be accommodated. And what Tamil and Muslim parties and particularly Tamil parties will struggle with is to find the points of engagement with this government. Because very clearly, Gottabai Rajabakshar has said that on the question of engaging on the national question, he's saying there is nothing of that sort, development is the only thing, there is no need for a political solution, the only thing that needs to be engaged with is the north and east, is development. And with accountability, he's ravishing it aside, right? He might say, yes, of course, we'll deliver on the obligations that was undertook in Resolution 31, but we know for a fact that he's not going to engage on any matters. So the real question is, when it comes to, I think the struggle in the next five years is as together you can keep what is already there, which is the 13th Amendment in the Brownshire Council system. So India will play a key role. There is expectation that India will resist any attempt to do away with the 13th Amendment or to vigil down powers under the 13th Amendment. I think Gottabai Rajabakshar would try to engage with India on the question of trying to reduce what is there already in the amendment, which Tamil parties are complaining right throughout is insignificant and what has been in series too little too late. And it also remains to be seen whether in terms of the economic woes, the problems that the current government has, whether they are reliant on China is going to be enough. Now, if going back to the West and particularly the IMF is going to be something that the government cannot avoid, that is something that will be an interesting factor in terms of navigating how we understand the S&P government. I just want to conclude by saying this. I mean, one of the differences between the 2010, 15 government and the 2000, the government that has been elected in right now is that there are a number of marginal, very radical single about this forces who are now aligned with Gottabai. There was this group called Uthukamma who fielded candidates in the elections who have done well. There is Vietmaga also Gottabai as a think tank who are also very close to the president. And these people have very, really radical ideas about what constitutional reform is needed to explicitly moving towards a single about this state to strengthening the executive presidency to almost making the parliament irrelevant to making a single of the official language of the country. So it remains to be seen as to whether the forces, the so-called, I mean, I say this is relatively moderate forces under the mind of Rajabakshar are able to contain and resist the growing influence of the radical wing of the SLTP who have the precedence here in particular. So I think the next five, two to three years we'll see this struggle. And I think the SLTP's own internal struggles in terms of how they are going to poise themselves in the next couple of years will define the direction of Sri Lanka not the opposition, but by the SLTP itself in terms of how it plays out internally. Thank you. Thanks so much, Guru. That was fascinating. These are really some troubling developments for I think minorities in Sri Lanka. Next, we'd like to turn to Alex Keenan, Alan Keenan, sorry who's a senior consultant with the International Crisis Group covering Sri Lanka and he's been doing research in and on Sri Lanka for more than 20 years focusing on conflict dynamics and the politics of human rights and international justice. He's also a visiting fellow at the Center for Women, Peace and Security at the London School of Economics. Alan, I'd like to turn to you to discuss potential flashpoints for conflict and violence because of this election and the impact of the new government. And also how will this new government either deal with or exacerbate the already existing tensions? I mean, all our speakers have outlined what a complicated situation this election takes place in the COVID crisis, the economic downturn in the aftermath of the Easter bombings from last year and still in the larger scale midst of reconciliation within the country. That being said, from the outside you're seeing India and China competing for influence in Sri Lanka and most Western countries congratulating the Rajapaksas and not really noting much else. So I turn to you to really give us in what is the impact what do you see as the overall long-term results from this election? Okay, thanks. Yeah, well, thank you for inviting me. It's nice to see all my friends and some of my friends in Sri Lanka with me here and it's good to have this opportunity. Yeah, I mean, I think the last point that Guru just made is a really important one. And I just add that I think I agree that the internal dynamics in the SLPP will really be where the action is but the question and that raises for all of us who are outside the SLPP whether that's in Sri Lanka or people like me is whether there's a way to influence the internal SLPP discussion. So I just wanna get that out there to begin with but from the perspective of someone who works for a conflict resolution organization in the international crisis group I think the most worrisome aspect of the current situation is the increased concentration and centralization of power in the very small group in the Rajapaksa family in their sort of long-time supporters in the military and the Buddhist clergy and the lack of safety valves and opportunities for the opposition and ethnic minorities to affect changes in policy through peaceful protest, dissent engagement. So we've seen in Sri Lanka's history as well as of course many other countries that these lack of safety valves, this sort of marginalization to such an extent that various important constituencies don't have really any sale for policy. This is very dangerous. We've seen it contribute directly to the two uprisings by the leftist then very nationalist JVP in 1971 in the late 80s. We saw it as a major contributor to the growth of the of Tamil militancy when so many young Tamil people felt that they were excluded that they weren't represented by their older political parties who had no influence and they turned it to violence. So with this history in mind we can see already very worrisome developments some of which have I think been sketched out quite well by my colleagues. We have a strong government that came into power on a platform that gives clear privilege to one community over others that has a weak opposition that has already made clear to civil society, to NGOs and to liberal critics that they are going to be under a lot of pressure and that they should be basically be quiet or else. And I think we've already seen just in the last year a growing repression of dissent, of lawyers, of questioning, surveillance, intimidation of NGOs. People already known to the government as potential troublemakers have been under surveillance and sort of various harassment efforts. And there are real protection issues I think that this raises for a lot of people, some of our friends. I think in terms of potential sources of actual violent conflict I think there's three main ones and they're kind of obvious I think but I'll sketch them out and this is not a prediction. This is just sort of if we wanna think ahead where could real trouble be brewing and ultimately what can be done to limit its chances and to sort of channel the sort of political energies in political ways as opposed to ultimately sort of violent ways. So with regard to the status of Sri Lanka's Tamils we see that their regions of their historical, where they're historically the majority in the North and the East remain heavily militarized. Real dangers of possible new land grabs either for the military, for Buddhist temples or for commercial or other forms of development. We've seen that already happen over the years, over decades indeed, could well happen again. Now the government is promising increased economic development but it remains unclear how consultative they will be. The odds are not very, so it's unlikely that the local Tamil communities will be very involved in where development happens, how it happens, who benefits and it's certainly clear the government has no interest in addressing the longstanding grievances of Tamils at their political marginalization. In fact, as Guru and I think Bhavani just mentioned some in the new government are pushing for the limited provincial powers that are there under the 13th amendment to be done away with. And finally, there's absolutely no interest in addressing any of the human rights abuses or the war crimes or possible crimes against humanity or what some many Tamils believe were a sort of evidence of genocide. Accountability for any of that is completely off the table and those activists and politicians who are pushed for for those issues to be addressed and for there to be some form of accountability are at increased risk. Now I think there's not much resistance, so certainly no violent resistance is on the cards anytime soon. I think political resistance will be very difficult to mount due to fear, surveillance, heavy militarization. But I think we have to be worried that eventually as long as the underlying issues are not dealt with and new grievances are added and there seems to be no way to affect change from within the political system, it's not hard to see how a cycle of sort of peaceful resistance being met by violent repression and sort of ultimately turning into violent resistance. That's quite possible. So I think we just have to be very worried and if the government doesn't change its course or begin to sort of address these issues in a more nuanced way. In terms of the status of Sri Lankan Muslims, I think we've seen years of anti-Muslim campaigning based on rumors, myths, especially about alleged extremism among Muslims, which was often I think has been a misleading word just simply to name there the growing religiosity of the community. But the Easter bombings last year by a small group of Muslims with virtually no support in the wider community, those attacks which were deadly and devastating for those affected in for the whole country seemed to confirm for many Singaporeans, Buddhist and Christian as well as some Tamils that Muslims were a problem, that they were dangerous, that they pose a threat as a community rather than just as a few individuals. And in the wake of that I think we've seen the government even before they took power in through the election of Kotabia, but certainly since has basically taken on the agenda of these militant Buddhist groups. So all the things that used to be marginal I think have been increasingly and will probably likely be increasingly incorporated within government policy. So I think we're likely to see laws to regulate Muslim religious practices. We're likely to see economic pressure on Muslim with businesses continue and perhaps increase. We're likely to see land grabs of Muslim land in the East particularly in the name of preserving heritage which really means preserving Buddhist heritage. Now, right now I think the government has in terms of potential violence. The government has things I think very much under control. Any violence that would happen would be with government acceptance as I think was the case under Mahindra Rajapaksa's government when there were periodic anti-Muslim violence in 2013-14. But I think it's possible that at some point Muslims might be a useful state coach either for the economic crisis or just as a way to let off steam if there's growing discontent about government policy on any number of possible lines or there's also the possibility. I mean, what we saw, what we've learned since the Easter bombings as more evidence has come out is that some of the energy, the negative energy that propelled the small group of Muslims to turn to jihadi violence was born of their sense that Muslims in Sri Lanka were at risk from militant Buddhists and that their identity and culture was under threat. So I think there remains a potential that if the policies of humiliation, intimidation, pressure, demonization continue there might well be another small group of Muslims who could react violently. So I think that needs to be, that small chance needs to be sort of kept very small and reduced ultimately to nothing if possible. Then I think there's a third possible line of violent conflict, which would be the possibility of public protest among Sinhalese, most likely on economic lines if the economic crisis, which is already severe and was a serious set of problems even before the COVID-19 pandemic. If the economic crisis gets worse, could it get bad enough that people begin to protest and how will those protests be handled? Now we've seen, I mean, I think it's already been made clear by Bhavani and Guru, voters are expecting to see economic improvement and expecting their lives to be improved. But what happens if their lives don't improve but also actually get worse economically? How will the government respond to their discontent? Now we've seen the past behavior of a Rajapaksa government suggests it could well resort to physical repression. There was one person and many hundreds injured, one person killed and many hundreds injured in a protest in the free trade zone in 2011. There were three killed and many injured in protests about water contamination in Belivaria in 2013. So there's a precedent here. Finally, I think we need to look at the international context. Now Sri Lanka's conflicts, particularly the Tamil sort of the war with the LTTE and the whole kind of the growth of Tamil militancy that was always in part an effect of international dynamics and particularly the role of India which helped train and foster Tamil militancy, exploiting it for their own particular international aims. But I think in the current context, there are obviously growing worries in India and among Western powers about China's growing influence. And their competition for sort of the way in which Sri Lanka is a point of competition for these various foreign powers will affect what kinds of economic assistance is made available to the government, which will in turn affect Sri Lanka's, the Sri Lankan government's ability to handle their economic issues and their economic pressures. And while I think we're a long way from seeing any kind of active conflict, international conflict, I think the international dynamic will have a great impact on the internal domestic sort of dynamics. So finally, I mean, what can be done to mitigate the risks of unmet political demands ultimately taking provoking violence? I mean, I think there's not much in, there are some forms of influence over the government and I think to the extent that they are there, whether domestically or internationally, government needs to be urged not to overreach to use their extraordinary powers not to sort of further marginalize Muslim and Tamil communities and the political opposition, but rather to bring them in, to reach some of these modest sense of consensus rather than exclusion. They should be urged not to go down the route of repression when they're faced with criticism and process. They should be urged to preserve the independence of the oversight commissions and of the constitutional council, which would be at risk if the 19th amendment is in fact abolished. And I think UN and foreign governments need to do all they can to protect human rights defenders and to help in other ways to keep democratic space open so that there is some fluidity and some sense of possibility of change through political means rather than only through violence. I'll leave it there. Thanks very much. Thank you very much, Alan. It is very interesting as you all are talking about the pressures on democracy, that it is actually the democratic process that has brought about this, you could say this growing rise of authoritarianism or one nation, one state ideas. Thank you for all the audience who's sending in comments and questions. You can go to our page on USIP and use the chat function to give us some more questions. We have about, excuse me, 10 minutes and I'd love to turn to Manjula. We have some questions, excuse me, about candidates who were arrested, at least 22 candidates were arrested prior to the elections. Additionally, almost 4 million voters were not able to cast their votes in the elections. Why is this happening? What do you think it means for democracy in the future and what are the ways to fix this? Yeah, as an election observer, I don't see that disaster surprise in every election in this country. At least 20% of people are unable to cast their vote. All these people are ones who have got registered in the annual vote registration process. However, around 2 million Sri Lankan in other countries do not get a chance to cast their vote because there is no out of country voting facility. On the other hand, other than the staff working in government officers who are designed for election work and the ones who work in security forces, other government staff do not get an opportunity to cast their votes. For example, remind prisoners, private security personnel, journalist, election observers, et cetera. Until the election acts are amended to include advanced voting facilities, this issue cannot be resolved. However, this is as an issue over decades, the impact of this on the election results is something to be detailed analysis. Thanks very much, Manjula. I'd like to turn to Bhavani. We've been getting some questions. Guru mentioned Yuthikama and some of the more extreme elements in the ruling coalition. The parliament is set to meet in two days. What are your expectations of this parliament? What are the possible checks? And there's some questions online of what do you think the effect or the impact of Yuthikama and other groups will be on this new government in parliament? So over to you, Bhavani. Thanks, Ramana. I don't think we can go too deep into this in a few minutes, but in the last couple of months, we've seen some of these groups emerging quite prominently, not just Yuthikama, but also Vyatmagar and Elia and a few others that have a particular view in terms of how the vision for Sri Lanka. And there's the professionals, the former military, a very, the outlook is for efficient Sri Lanka. And with very little prospect for reconciliation, human rights, all of that. So Yuthikama came up with some proposals that they do have two members now in power, or they will have two members in parliament, one through the national list. And it's to be seen how influential they would be as well as others that are close to the Rajapaksa family and particular Rajapaksas. I think the point made is that there's many Rajapaksas that are going to be in government and there might possibly be power centers that we need to be very, very aware of how that plays in from the president to the prime minister, as well as others emerging very popular Rajapaksas. So this is to be seen. But with parliament, this question of parliament, I think the point that was, I failed to make is we haven't had a parliament since the 2nd of March. So for over five months, we haven't had a function in parliament. We haven't had legislative oversight. And this whole prospect that the government was saying is, they contain the pandemic without the parliament, without having legislative oversight is very, very worrying. That trend that we may be heading to, where they make the case that the executive presidency can run this country without a key arm of government. So when parliament meets in two days, we will have to see the formations. We will have to see who comes in as speaker. In the last few years, the speaker played a key role in maintaining parliament or democracy. Would we have something similar in the future? I'd love to be given that same optimism, but parliament has a key role in terms of legislative oversight, in terms of committees, in terms of scrutinizing bills. Now the government has already said they're going to have key reforms introduced. What would be the role of parliament? Would they be able to play an effective check? Or would it be a rubber stamping operation? We do not know. But what's worrying is the opposition is quite considerably weak. So what role would they play? What role would the minority politicians play? Would they have any bargaining powers? I mean, we saw in the last parliament there were key politicians playing a critical role in 2018 when the constitutional coup happened. There were people who stepped up in terms of protecting democracy. Would we have that? So I don't know in terms of who can play these roles, but there are new actors. There are new dimensions. And within the government itself, there are going to be key actors that will play. That all said, Sri Lanka has had a very vibrant society. And regardless of the surveillance threats, possible legislation regulations that will be introduced, it's important for all of us to play a very key role in monitoring and in terms of challenging. And I think that's also something that we have to define for ourselves how we move forward in the future. Thank you very much, Pivani. Very quickly, I do want to turn Guru to you. You mentioned India a little bit earlier this year when Prime Minister Rajapaksa had visited India. At that time, Prime Minister Modi had raised the 13th Amendment and the importance of the rights and justice for Tommels in Sri Lanka. At the same time, the Prime Minister Rajapaksa was non-committal about it, but Sri Lanka is very interested in assistance in terms of loan deferments and other economic assistance from India. So how do you see this playing out in terms of protecting the 13th Amendment and also for protecting Tamil rights and reconciliation in a larger sense? No, I think in 2015, the elections, Prime Minister Rajapaksa openly accused India of playing a role in the regime change. Now, whether that allegation stands on any factual truth at all is a different matter, but I think one of the things that the Rajapaksas are particularly clear is to keep India happy. Now, I think it will come by way of an India-first policy that we will engage with China, we will engage with the rest of the world, but that we will give India priority on matters that India wants us to give priority. So if not be strategic, it might not be necessarily economic. So on strategic matters, on matters relating to Tamil, I think India, they will give India that first priority status. Now, having said that, I also do think that the Indian foreign bureaucracy in particular would want to keep 13th Amendment intact in its current form, but if Modi, I mean, as is sometimes argued, is taking foreign policy, the details of the foreign policy into his own hands, and if Rajapaksas are willing to give, to play into and play fiddle to the larger sort of, Hindutva policy that Modi is interested in across the Pog Strait, it will be interesting to see whether Modi will tolerate some amendments to the 13th Amendment which Rajapaksas want to bring in. I think particularly they are looking at curtailing police powers in the 13th Amendment which has never been used by any province actually, but also land powers. So I think they'll be very particular about that. I mean, if the Rajapaksas have their own way, the 13th Amendment will be overbacked entirely and they'll go for some sort of district councils or village councils sort of thing. But I think to keep India satisfied, they will. But I don't think India, I mean, this is my reading and it's a layman's reading, I have no expertise over the economics of these questions, but I don't think India will be able to fully satisfy Sri Lanka's economic needs at the moment. So yes, take money from China as long as you are not touching on our strategy, interest will be in the exposition and I think they have maintained this position in the last four or five years at least. So, but the question is will China be able to still on its own, take care of Sri Lanka's foreign currency needs? Or will that not be enough? Will Sri Lanka need to look further than that? I think these will have an impact. I just also want to say this, if I may add, that I mean, given the two thirds majority that they have given the very centralized figure that go to by Rajavaksha is, parliament will have a very, very reduced role. I mean, something to be very worried about because, I mean, JVP, which did play a role in the past in keeping the sectoral oversight companies alive, so on and so forth is also reduced and spent. There are not many within the STB who have that favor to take this on. So there are also, it's going to be interesting to see whether they're going to allow opposition MPs to head up these oversight companies still or whether they're going to impact them with governmental MPs. So I think one of the main issues that is going to be there is that in terms of separation of powers, the parliament is going to be cycling to an extent that we've never seen before. And the problem in the judiciary is that, I mean, so yes, we, for example, anticipate that there'll be changes to laws that impact from the nonprofit sector on NGOs on and so forth. And the problem is whether the judiciary is willing to stand up and be independent or will it drag its feet as it is a normal practice on matters that comes before it when it comes to matters that are part of the bread and butter agenda of the current president. And so in that, I think to be able to, from purely survivalist sort of attitude, I also don't see the judiciary doing much. But I think Bhavani is right. We have to keep up the struggle. We need to keep asking the questions, fighting the fight, but the judiciary and the parliament will come under enormous stress under this regime. Thank you so much, Guru. That's very important that the fight continues in terms of pushing democracy and human rights in Sri Lanka. I'd like to turn to you, Alan, to give you the last word to really think about what are the possible checks on what would be growing authoritarianism or how to protect democracy in the coming government, but also how can others outside and particularly the US and other Western governments exert influence on this new Sri Lankan government, on issues of accountability, rule of law and human rights. And particularly given the US-China competition and the Sri Lanka's intention to turn towards China and other Asian countries, especially for their economic needs. You've asked me a few things. You asked me the easy questions. Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's extremely challenging. I think the first thing is for diplomats and international bureaucrats is to just get up to speed about who the Rajapaksas are, who Sri Lanka is. I mean, what has it been in the past? Learned its history of volatility and of violence and of impunity, which is a word I don't think anyone's used, but we're all quite aware of. The fact that basically human rights, grave human rights abuses, virtually never get addressed legally. To learn about who makes up the cabinet, what all the legal cases against so many of them. Just to learn, get real about the situation. Then of course, there's still very difficult decisions about how to influence that situation. I think Guru's given us a hint. Learn what the, really learn the dynamics within the SLPP. Really try to learn the family dynamics, as Bhavani was saying. There are nothing is ever a monolith politically. There's always disagreements, different agendas. So, but I think also don't, I think already from the beginning of Gotabhya's presidency, there was a sense among a lot of diplomats, well, just give them some time. We don't really know who they are yet. They're a new government. I don't think there's any reason to, yes, we don't know exactly what's gonna happen, but we know the basics. We know the clear drive for concentration of power for a single Buddhist state to be more fully institutionalized. We know that. So the question is, so just sort of, I guess the first work is just to sort of clear all the illusions and then think, it'll be complicated. There'll be geopolitical, economic, lots of factors that various governments and international institutions have to take into account. I think one of the biggest, maybe I might just leave it on this. My biggest, I think one of the biggest questions is, does the Western and Indian worries about China's growing influence? It could take two forms. It could push them in two different directions. One is, okay, if China is giving them lots of money, we have to give them lots of money to compete, right? Stay in the game. The other is at some point, if they realize they can't compete with China or they realize that China can't do it on their own, do these other powers start sort of playing hardball? Is it important enough to them to start sort of putting pressure as opposed to sort of competing with their own competing largesse? I think that would be one of the big issues. But it's going to be very difficult. But I think all those governments and international institutions that say they care about democracy and stability need to look at the very worrisome dynamics that we already can be quite clear about and figure out how to use whatever leverage they have in various ways to sort of prevent the worst case scenario, which I hope we can prevent. Thanks very much, Alan. And on that, I think somber note, it is important. These elections, as we've all discussed, have been very momentous, but I think we are all going to continue to pay attention to Sri Lanka, potential for conflict and further degradation of democracy. But I think with the parliament coming convening in two days, we have a lot to look forward to and continue to see what will unfold. I want to give a very heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all our panelists. I know you're working hard in Sri Lanka and sometimes it's not easy to share these stories with the rest of the world. We appreciate your work and your ability to talk to us about it today. Thank you to all the audience for joining us and we hope to continue this conversation about conflict, reconciliation and democracy in Sri Lanka. And we look forward to you joining us next time we discuss these issues. Thank you very much and on behalf of USIP, have a great day. Thanks.