Sri Lankan Presidential Election 2019 — Guide to winning Nuwara Eliya District
Last week, I wrote about the voter dynamics of the districts in Western Province (Colombo, Gampaha, and Kalutara). This week I’m planning to cover the Central Province, and I will start with the voter dynamics of Nuwara Eliya District.
General Statistics and Past Presidential Election
Nuwara Eliya district is home to 569,028 eligible voters, which accounts for 3.6% of the overall Sri Lankan voter base according to official elector registration statistics of 2018. In terms of ethnicity, more than half of the Nuwara Eliya population (~53%) are Indian Tamils and close to 40% are Sinhalese. Majority of these people live in either estate areas or rural areas. Therefore, the political power in Nuwara Eliya district, especially among the Indian Tamil estate workers lies with the trade union based parties like Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) and National Union of Workers (NUW).
Nuwara Eliya district traditionally has been a UNP strong hold, with J.R. Jayewardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa both winning the elections in 1982 and 1988 with more than 62% of the votes. However, present UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe holds the record for the most dominant victory in Nuwara Eliya, when he won the district in 2005 presidential election with 70.4% of the overall vote.
In 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga became the only SLFP backed candidate to win the district and Mahinda Rajapaksa lost the district in all three occasions that he contested for presidency. In 2015, Maithripala Sirisena received 63.9% of the votes in Nuwara Eliya.
Nuwara Eliya hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for third party candidates. The best performance by a third party candidate belongs to JVP leader Rohana Wijeweera in 1982 when he received 2.6% of the overall votes.
Polling Divisions and Voter Behavior
Nuwara Eliya district consist of 4 polling divisions, however more than 57% of its eligible voter base is concentrated in the Nuwara Eliya polling division (also known as Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya division). In fact, with an eligible voter base of 325,030, Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya is the biggest polling division in Sri Lanka in terms of voter population. When looking at the voter statistics, Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya polling division has 131,000 voters more than the Homagama poling division which is the second largest in terms of voter population. Therefore, any party/candidate that wins this division by a substantial margin will most probably win the overall district.
In terms of the political parties, UNP has a strong base in Nuwara Eliya which is the political home of late Gamini Dissanayake. In addition, former President Ranasinghe Premadasa who was instrumental in providing citizenship to estate workers that migrated from India, is also a popular figure in the district. Backed by these factors, UNP won all four polling divisions of Nuwara Eliya in 1982 and 1988 presidential elections.
In addition to their base vote, UNP also collaborated with the estate worker trade union based parties such as Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC), Up-Country People’s Front (UCPF) and National Union of Workers (NUW) in most cases. When considering these parties, CWC led by Savumiamoorthy Thondaman was the most powerful party among the estate workers in 1980s and in early 1990s. However, in past couple of decades that power has diluted and in present Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA), which is a coalition between Palani Digambaran’s National Union of Workers (NUW) and Velusami Radhakrishnan’s Up-Country People’s Front (UCPF), has emerged as a more powerful party compared to CWC. In the 2019 presidential election, CWC led by Arumugam Thondaman has pledged his support for Gotabhaya Rajapaksa while TPA will continue to support Sajith Premadasa.
Among the polling divisions UNP is expected to win Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya division comfortably. More than 70% of the population in this division consist of Indian Tamils, therefore considering their strong voter base and TPA support, Sajith Premadasa should easily get above 60% of the votes in the division.
In addition, UNP candidate is expected to win in Kotmale and Walapane divisions. Both divisions have 35%-40% Tamil population and UNP candidates have secured these seats in all elections with exception of 1994 (both seats), 1999 (Kotmale) and 2010 (Walapane). However, as witnessed in the 2018 local government elections, CWC has a strong presence in these divisions, therefore we can expect SLPP candidate to perform better in these areas compared to 2015.
SLPP candidate is expected to win the Hanguranketha division where majority of the Sinhalese population live. With the support of SLFP, Gotabhaya can win this division by a significant margin, which might be critical if he lose the Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya division by a significant margin.
Key Success Factors to main candidates in Nuwara Eliya
For Gotabhaya Rajapaksa
Based on the election dynamics discussed above, Gotabhaya has no chance of winning the Nuwara Eliya district. His strategy at Nuwara Eliya would be to minimize the losing margin to less than 75,000 votes if possible.
To achieve this objective he needs to;
· Secure greater than 30% of the votes in Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya division
· Win Hanguranketha with more than 55% of the votes
· Obtain more than 45% of the votes in Kotmale and Walapane divisions.
Challenges faced in achieving these goals;
· Securing full support from CWC voter base. It is possible that a considerable proportion of CWC voters might vote for the UNP candidate irrespective of the party decision to support SLPP candidate.
For Sajith Premadasa
Sajith Premadasa would comfortably win Nuwara Eliya. However, to win the overall election he needs to win Nuwara Eliya by securing more than 65% of the votes. In order to achieve this, he needs to;
· Win Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya division by securing 75% or more votes
· Win Kotmale and Walapane divisions by obtaining approximately 60% of the votes
· Receive more than 45% of the votes in Hanguranketha
Challenges faced in achieving these goals;
· If majority of the CWC supporters vote for Gota, Sajith will not be able to reach the targets he need to reach in Nuwara Eliya. Therefore, he needs to secure a substantial proportion of CWC votes, even without the full backing of CWC leadership. Given the goodwill his father had among Indian Tamil community in the area that might not be an impossible task.
Impact of the third party candidates
Third party candidates are expected to struggle in Nuwara Eliya. Therefore, I would expect the third party candidates to obtain less than 4% of the overall votes.
Predicted result for Nuwara Eliya District
Predicted results of each polling division using past results and current political conditions are given below.
These results were predicted assuming approximately 65% of CWC voter base will vote in favor of Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as he has the backing of CWC leadership. However, as mentioned above Sajith Premadasa has potential get 3% — 4% more if he can get a significant share of the CWC votes. That said, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa also stand a chance of winning Kotmale and Walapane divisions if he secures more than 90% of the CWC and SLFP votes in the area.
What do you think will happen? Like to know more about your opinion on this topic.