“Nimmi Gowrinathan”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nimmi-gowrinathan, the Director of South Asia Programs at Operation USA and a Phd Candidate in the Department of Political Science at UCLA, will be writing a post-election guest post for us in our election reports series later this week. In the meantime, she has a preview of the election at “The Huffington Post”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nimmi-gowrinathan/the-space-between-politic_b_434321.html. It begins as follows:
bq. On May 19, 2009 the Government of Sri Lanka announced that it had defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ending one of the longest civil wars in South Asia. The legitimacy of this victory for President Mahinda Rajapaksa could only be measured in the ability of the ethnic Sinhalese majority to address the political grievances of the ethnic Tamil minority (300,000 of whom were isolated in internment camps). In late November, when then-Army Commander General Fonseka announced his bid for President, credit for the victory (and responsibility for its aftermath), was suddenly divided. It is within the slim cracks of this divide that a new political space has emerged, offering some hope for the articulation of minority interests at the national level.
“Continue Reading The Space Between Politics and Reality: A Minority View of the Sri Lankan Elections”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nimmi-gowrinathan/the-space-between-politic_b_434321.html