Unpacking Sri Lanka’s Presidential Election

Over at The National Interest, Akshobh Giridharadas has written a timely article about Sri Lanka’s presidential election and Sri Lankan politics more generally. It’s true that Tamils and Muslims are worried about a return to Rajapaksa rule, as he indicates. Unfortunately, the article suggests a thin understanding of both Sri Lanka’s current political situation and broader questions pertaining to the country’s social and ethnic fabric.

Giridharadas writes that “in some ways, those [civil war-related] wounds resurfaced with the recent election of Sinhalese strongman Gotabaya Rajapaksa.” Actually, a lot of Tamils would say that the wounds of war remain unhealed. The root causes of the ethnic conflict haven’t been addressed. There’s been no accountability for horrific wartime violations. The Tamil-majority Northern and Eastern Provinces remain heavily militarized; land issues (including the military’s occupation of civilian land), social problems and more plague those locations. A reasonable power-sharing arrangement is nowhere in sight. And there’s no sign of this changing anytime soon, especially with the Rajapaksas back in power. On the contrary, alleged war criminals continue to be promoted and now a pair of alleged war criminals are running the country (again).

Giridharadas repeatedly references the “Tamil diaspora,” but he’s clearly confused about what those words mean. For example, he writes that “[i]n November, the Tamil diaspora overwhelmingly cast their vote for Gota’s main rival, the former minister…