Rauff Hakeem, the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SBW) candidate for the Kandy district and leader of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) described the proportional representation system as advantageous to Muslims on the island at an election meeting in Gampola.
Numerically smaller political parties which represent the different ethnic groups on the island have called for maintaining the current electoral system rather than making the return to the first-past-the-post-system previously employed in Sri Lanka. Hakeem argues this is because certain parties are trying to change the system in an effort to bend the electoral system and legislations to a party’s whims.
This change could have worrying implications for Muslims and others who are already deferred to the sidelines by a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist government.
Hakeem’s comments come after current Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa attacked “communal political parties” last year, having previously attempted to introduce amendments that would raise the threshold of votes political parties would need to secure from 5 to 12 per cent. The move would effectively silence the numerically smaller parties that represent the island’s different nations.
The Sri Lankan government has a long-standing history of Islamophobia, and has more recently persecuted Muslims through arbitrary arrests and detainments under counterterrorism and emergency laws in the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks last year.
Taking after India, sections of the Sri Lankan media are also using COVID-19 to stigmatise Muslims, using them as scapegoats for the spread of the pandemic, warned Hakeem. Claims have been made which insist on re-investigations and re-inquiries of Muslims, leading to criticism that the Special Presidential Commission failed to conduct proper procedure.
Despite these challenges imposed by the state, Hakeem has allied his party with Sajith Premadasa’s SJB. He claimed that with a proportional representation system, the SLMC can purchase bargaining power.
“The SLMC this time around is contesting under three different symbols and at different electoral districts. In many of the electorates, it contested as an ally of the SJB under the ‘telephone’ symbol, in Puttalam under the ‘Scale’ symbol and in Batticaloa under its own party symbol ‘Tree’”, Hakeem said.
Though Hakeen has allied his party with the SJB, Premadasa too has pledged to work with current president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to bring about a “disciplined society” if Rajapaksa wins the upcoming parliamentary elections.
In the past, Hakeem and the SLMC have allied themselves with both the UNP and SLFP, having held the post of Minister of Posts and Telecommunication in 2007 under Mahinda Rajapaksa.
