'Tamils Are Disappointed As The Govt. Gave Hope And Then Failed To Deliver'

Jaffna district MP and Tamil National Alliance spokesman on the national unity government’s performance, the 13th Amendment, and India’s relations with Sri Lanka

- Meera Srinivasan

In Sri Lanka’s presidential poll in 2015, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), representing Tamils of the north and east, led its constituency in a crucial protest vote against then President Mahinda Rajapaksa. As the country gears up for the next presidential election, scheduled before the end of this year, Jaffna district MP M. A. Sumanthiran, who is also TNA’s spokesman and a senior lawyer, weighs the options before the Alliance, amid mounting discontent among Tamils over the incumbent government’s performance. He also reflects on broader political questions and international dimensions in an interview at his Colombo residence. Excerpts:

In the 2015 polls, the TNA backed the Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wickremesinghe combine that, among other things, promised a constitutional political settlement to the Tamil question. Though the process took off, the constitutional reform process is now stalled. Why couldn’t it succeed?

-- At a certain point during the process, the coalition government wasn’t as strongly knitted together as it was in the beginning. Fissures started emerging and deepened with time, particularly ahead of the local government elections [in February 2018]. The two parties began seeing each other as rivals again. As a result, they were not willing to own even those matters that had been agreed upon after discussion. They started backing out. That happened primarily with the President’s party [Sri Lanka Freedom Party]. Subsequently, when it became clear to the others that they were not going to sail with the consensus of everyone, nobody seemed to want to carry the can by themselves. They also began to back out.

By that you mean the Prime Minister’s party [United National Party/UNP] as well?