Presidential election in Sri Lanka in 1999

Chandrika Kumaratunga (2005), the re-elected President

On December 21, 1999 , Sri Lanka held the 1999 presidential election . It was the fourth election of the head of state since the introduction of the presidential system in Sri Lanka . The election was won by the incumbent president and candidate of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Chandrika Kumaratunga . Shortly before the election, the President barely survived a suicide bombing of the LTTE .

prehistory

The 1994 election year saw a fundamental change in power in Sri Lanka. The United National Party , which had ruled uninterruptedly since 1977 , had lost a majority to the opposition People's Alliance (PA) in the general election , and the PA candidate, Chandrika Kumaratunga, had won the presidential election in the same year. In the parliamentary elections, however, the PA did not achieve an absolute, but only a relative majority and was then dependent on the support of smaller parties in parliament.

Initially, Kumaratunga tried to resolve the civil war with the LTTE , which had been simmering since 1983, through negotiations. When this did not succeed, it put everything on the military map and let the army take action against the LTTE. In October 1995 the army captured Jaffna , the capital of the Northern Province previously ruled by the LTTE. Then Kumaratunga tried to pacify the country with constitutional reforms that would have given the provinces greater regional self-government. However, it was unable to implement these reforms because it did not win the support of the UNP opposition. Overall, the army had more casualties in 1995-1999 than in the 12 years 1983-1995 before.

In another area, namely the fight against corruption, Kumaratunga was also not very successful, according to the unanimous judgment of the observers. The People's Alliance won the 1994 election on the promise of "clean government". However, the subsequent PA government was shaken by corruption scandals to the same extent as the previous UNP government.

Kumaratunga started her government with a decidedly “socialist” election program, but under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which threatened to stop further lending, she changed her economic policy and most recently an austerity policy with multiple privatizations of state property and liberalization of the Economy operated. Despite the strains of the civil war, the economy had developed surprisingly positively and grew at almost 5% annually.

Although her term of office would have lasted until November 2000, the president had early elections for the presidency announced towards the end of 1999. She wanted to take advantage of a relative popularity high in which the government was due to its apparent successes (relatively stable economic growth, pushing back the LTTE).

Election campaign

Ranil Wickremesinghe (2005), UNP opposition candidate

The opposition leader since 1994 and the UNP's top candidate in the current election was Ranil Wickremesinghe . The main theme of the election campaign was the civil war. UNP candidate Wickremesinghe made the proposal to bring the LTTE back to the negotiating table, which many voters viewed with suspicion, however, as they doubted the LTTE's real willingness to negotiate. Kumaratunga did not comment on possible new negotiations with the LTTE. In an interview that the BBC held with her a few days after the election, however, it became clear that she had indeed been in secret negotiations with the LTTE for two years.

In the field of economic policy there were comparatively few differences between the two main candidates, Kumaratinga and Wickremesinghe. Both spoke out in favor of further market economy reforms.

Suicide bombing of the president

After the election, it initially appeared that Kumaratunga's victory was guaranteed. The still relatively unknown Wickremesinghe was considered an outsider and was well behind the president in opinion polls. However, in October and November 1999, shortly before the election date, the Sri Lankan army suffered some severe defeats against the LTTE, which resulted in its loss of control of large areas it had gained in 1994/95. This caused the government a significant loss of prestige and resulted in Wickremesinghe beginning to catch up in public opinion polls. In the ten days leading up to the actual election date he was tied with Kumaratunga and most of the press - with the exception of the state-controlled media - predicted his victory. On December 18, 1999, the last day of the official election campaign and three days before the election date, the event took place that brought about a decisive turning point. The LTTE carried out a suicide bomb attack on the president at an election rally in Colombo . The attack killed 15 people in addition to the attacker, including TN Da Silva, the country's highest police officer. More than 100 people were injured, including several ministers, foreign journalists and a Japanese television crew. Kumaratunga survived the attack, but she was seriously injured in her right eye, where she was almost blind.

The LTTE's aim was obviously to use the attack to eliminate the leader of the People's Alliance and thus to behead the PA campaign at the last minute before the election date. In the previous presidential election in 1994 , the LTTE had been successful with this strategy. With the assassination of the top UNP candidate Gamini Dissanayake and other UNP functionaries, she had decisively set back the UNP campaign and contributed to the victory of the then preferred candidate, Kumaratunga. This strategy did not work this time, as Kumaratunga survived the attack and on December 20, 1999 - still visibly injured and blindfolded - made an emotional appeal on television to the voters. Although election advertising was actually prohibited in the three days before the election date according to the election regulations, the state media reported extensively on the event and used it for election campaign purposes in the interests of the government. This gave Kumaratunga, who had already lost her father and her husband in assassinations, a decisive bonus.

Candidates

Candidates could be nominated to the Central Election Commission on November 16, 1999. A total of 13 candidates were nominated. This was the highest number of candidates in any presidential election to date. Chandrika Kumaratunga was the only woman among the candidates. The candidates were given simple symbols by the Central Election Commission, which were later printed on the ballot papers so that illiterate voters could also vote.

Candidate name	Political party / candidate nomination	Abbreviation	symbol
Abdul Rasool	Sri Lankan Muslim Katchi	SLMK	Libra
Alwis Weerakkody Premawardhana	People's Freedom Front	PFF	butterfly
Ariyawansha Dissanayaka	Democratic United National Front	DUNF	Eagle
MD Nandana Gunathilaka	Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna	JVP	Bell jar
Kamal Karunadasa	People's Liberation Solidarity Front	PLSF	Lantern
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga	People's Alliance	PA	chair
Tennyson Edirisuriya	Peduru Hewage Priyantha Arunakumara	IND1	scissors
WVM Ranjith	Sunil Nandana Amarasinghe	IND2	Almirah (closet)
Ranil Wickremesinghe	United National Party	UNP	elephant
Rajiva Wijesinha	Liberal party	LP	book
Vasudeva Nanayakkara	Left and Democratic Alliance	LDA	Alarm clock
Hudson Samarasinghe	Sagarika Mathavi Kaluarachchi	IND3	radio
Harishchandra Wijayatunga	Sinhalaye Mahasammatha Bhoomiputhra Pakshaya	SMBP	plane

1. ↑ ^{a b c} IND = individual candidate

Results

The nationwide overall result is shown in the table below. Of the 11,779,200 registered voters, 8,635,290 (73.31%) took part. 199,536 votes (2.31%) were invalid.

Results nationwide

Candidate name	be right	%
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumarathunga	4,312,157	51.12
Ranil Wickremesinghe	3,602,748	42.71
MD Nandana Gunathilaka	344.173	4.08
Harischandra Wijayatunga	35,854	0.43
WVM Ranjith	27.052	0.32
Rajiva Wijesinha	25,085	0.30
Vasudeva Nanayakkara	23,668	0.28
Tennyson Edirisuriya	21,119	0.25
Abdul Rasool	17,359	0.21
Kamal Karunadasa	11,333	0.13
Hudson Samarasinghe	7.184	0.09
Ariyawansa Dissanayaka	4,039	0.05
Alwis Weerakkody Permawardhana	3,983	0.05
total	8,435,754	100.0

Results by constituency

The abbreviations for the candidates correspond to the abbreviations for the parties supporting them.

Constituency	Eligible voters	SLMK (%)	PFF (%)	DUNF (%)	JVP (%)	PLSF (%)	PA (%)	IND1 (%)	IND2 (%)	UNP (%)	LP (%)	LDA (%)	IND3 (%)	SMBP (%)	Invalid (%)	participation supply
Colombo	1,337,083	0.21	0.03	0.03	4.56	0.08	49.18	0.14	0.14	44.08	0.14	0.52	0.04	0.85	2.94	74.32
Gampaha	1228908	0.14	0.03	0.04	4.30	0.09	56.58	0.16	0.16	37.59	0.12	0.22	0.04	0.50	2.16	78.31
Kalutara	682723	0.15	0.04	0.04	4.47	0.11	52.88	0.21	0.24	40.88	0.19	0.19	0.07	0.51	2.17	79.62
Mahanuwara	794453	0.28	0.05	0.04	2.53	0.12	50.29	0.22	0.29	45.10	0.26	0.17	0.10	0.54	2.71	79.28
Matale	286174	0.25	0.07	0.06	3.66	0.16	51.42	0.35	0.44	42.51	0.40	0.14	0.12	0.42	2.77	77.74
Nuwara Eliya	397711	0.17	0.06	0.06	1.87	0.18	46.88	0.36	0.54	48.68	0.50	0.26	0.13	0.33	2.79	81.21
bile	660585	0.13	0.04	0.03	5.32	0.13	54.91	0.19	0.24	38.26	0.18	0.19	0.07	0.31	1.86	78.98
Matara	515847	0.17	0.05	0.05	6.93	0.14	54.32	0.24	0.28	36.89	0.26	0.18	0.09	0.41	2.22	75.07
Hambantota	350809	0.14	0.05	0.06	13.30	0.17	47.41	0.27	0.28	37.48	0.29	0.19	0.08	0.29	2.07	73.84
Jaffna	612770	0.93	0.36	0.30	0.37	0.44	46.65	0.74	1.68	43.03	1.23	3.04	0.49	0.73	5.09	19.18
Vanni	205541	0.49	0.09	0.06	0.77	0.13	25.84	0.37	0.67	69.87	0.73	0.71	0.11	0.15	2.32	31.22
Batticaloa	270197	0.44	0.05	0.05	0.17	0.19	34.66	0.46	0.90	61.19	1.08	0.52	0.14	0.15	2.15	64.35
Digamadulla	343809	0.25	0.03	0.03	1.51	0.19	55.59	0.31	0.47	40.80	0.44	0.18	0.06	0.13	1.66	79.59
Trincomalee	201808	0.48	0.05	0.06	1.83	0.19	44.96	0.38	0.58	50.25	0.57	0.38	0.10	0.17	2.05	63.78
Kurunegala	980725	0.18	0.04	0.04	3.68	0.12	50.77	0.22	0.25	43.89	0.22	0.14	0.08	0.36	2.01	77.37
Puttalam	404050	0.17	0.03	0.03	2.86	0.11	51.47	0.21	0.27	44.17	0.22	0.16	0.06	0.22	2.06	69.57
Anuradhapura	459534	0.19	0.04	0.05	4.18	0.17	54.14	0.28	0.34	39.86	0.30	0.11	0.08	0.26	1.95	77.50
Polonnaruwa	220903	0.14	0.02	0.04	4.66	0.14	51.55	0.23	0.31	42.21	0.32	0.10	0.07	0.22	1.80	79.29
Badulla	464223	0.25	0.05	0.06	3.34	0.15	46.33	0.34	0.42	47.97	0.46	0.16	0.14	0.33	2.96	80.00
Moneragala	230576	0.12	0.06	0.07	5.80	0.19	51.07	0.38	0.45	40.89	0.48	0.16	0.08	0.27	2.26	79.98
Ratnapura	595791	0.16	0.05	0.05	3.43	0.15	52.13	0.31	0.38	42.18	0.35	0.42	0.10	0.29	1.85	82.14
Kegalle	534980	0.20	0.05	0.04	3.66	0.12	51.30	0.28	0.31	43.05	0.30	0.17	0.10	0.42	1.95	78.10
total	11,779,200	0.21	0.05	0.05	4.08	0.13	51.12	0.25	0.32	42.71	0.30	0.28	0.09	0.43	2.31	73.31

Voting cards

• Majorities according to constituencies and constituencies
• 

  Majorities in the 22 constituencies: Kumaratunga Kumaratunga, turnout 19.2% Wickremesinghe Wickremesinghe, turnout 31.2%
  
  
  
  

• 

  Majorities in the 160 voting districts: Kumaratunga Kumaratunga, turnout 2.3% Wickremesinghe Wickremesinghe, turnout 3.8%
  
  
  
  

After the election

Kumratunga's victory was largely attributed to the sympathy bonus she had received as a result of the attack. Inadvertently, the LTTE had promoted her re-election. The election process was viewed very critically by international election observers and non-governmental organizations . In addition to the instrumentalization of the state media for the government's election campaign, intimidation of the voters was criticized and, in some cases, accusations of open election fraud were also raised. In the Northern Province, voter turnout was very low, as the LTTE had called for an election boycott and threatened repression if it was ignored.

See also

• Elections in Sri Lanka

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} K. M. de Silva: Flawed Presidential Election, Harbinger of More Trouble Ahead . In: Economic and Political Weekly . tape 35 , no. 4 , January 22, 2000, p. 178-181 , JSTOR : 4408841 (English).
2. ↑ Amal Jayasinghe: Reds push CBK towards socialist path. September 9, 2001, accessed on November 15, 2016 (English). 
3. ^ Full speed a head for privatization. Retrieved November 15, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Laksiri Jayasuriya: Electoral politics in Sri Lanka (1994-2003). School of Social and Cultural Studies, University of Western Australia ( pdf )
5. ↑ Feizal Samath: POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Local Poll Win A Big Victory For President. Inter Press Service, April 7, 1999, accessed November 15, 2016 . 
6. ↑ ^{a b} Sri Lankan president partially blinded. BBC News, December 30, 1999, accessed November 15, 2016 . 
7. ↑ Jason Burke: Suicide bomber blasts Sri Lanka's woman leader. The Guardian, November 19, 1999, accessed November 15, 2016 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b c} Presidential Elections Results. Retrieved November 14, 2016 (results from the Sri Lankan Electoral Commission).