On the Sri Lankan and Trinidadian elections

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, elections continue to take place in much of the world, except the United Kingdom even though other countries have shown that both local and national elections can be conducted safely with full postal ballots.

The Sri Lankan election of 5th August (delayed twice due to said coronavirus pandemic) saw former Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose Sri Lankan People's Freedom Alliance surged to 59.1% of the vote, giving them 145 seats and a majority of 65 (very substantial in a parliament with only 225 seats) rise again. By contrast, the United National Party, which had governed Sri Lanka for the last 5 years before splitting in a spectacular fashion, lost all but one of its 106 seats and fell to an ignoble seventh place. The largest party to emerge from the fracturing of the UNP was the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (meaning "Peace and People's Power" in Tamil), a liberal-conservative party which is now the main opposition in the Sri Lankan Parliament, even though it polled only 23.9% and won 54 seats. Another consequence of the UNP split was that the number of political parties represented in the Sri Lankan Parliament increased by nine, from five to fourteen, although only six have more than one seat apiece.

Parties aligned to Sri Lanka's Tamil minority did not fare well, with the Tamil National Alliance losing 6 seats, mainly due to the Tamil vote being more split than in 2015; as many as eight Tamil-majority parties (counting the Tamil National Alliance and Tamil People's front, which ran as an alliance of smaller parties) contested this Sri Lankan election, compared to just two in 2015. The other new parties in the Sri Lankan Parliament include the Our Power of People's Party, Sri Lankan Freedom Party, Muslim National Alliance, All Ceylon Makkal Congress, and the National Congress, the last two of which aligned with the SJB in most districts.

As with all countries that have held elections since March when the coronavirus crisis became a pandemic, turnout decreased, but not to the extent of similar elections in Europe. Although the coronavirus crisis caused two delays of this election, Sri Lanka has fared relatively well during this pandemic, with only 11 deaths and 2,890 confirmed cases of coronavirus as of August 2020, with 2,670 Sinhalese having recovered from it. Lockdowns were also mainly localised and lasted for only a few weeks, with a few exceptions; no national lockdown was imposed in Sri Lanka. Thus turnout only decreased from 77.6% to 75.9%. Of greater importance is the fact that Mr Rajapaksa's party is only five seats short of a supermajority, and there is speculation about him intending to collaborate with some opposition parties to overturn critical constitutional amendments passed during the UNP's time in power, including establishing an independent commission to appoint judges, police chiefs, and public officials.

Coronavirus caused no delays to Trinidad and Tobago's 2020 election, however, partly due to the number of cases being so low (580). It did however lead to a drop in turnout by as much as 8.8%, from 67.2% to just 58.4%, even though the results made it clear that incumbent Trinidadian PM Keith Rowley and his government had handled the coronavirus situation relatively well across those islands. His People's National Movement lost only one seat, which was Morruga/Tableland, to the main opposition, United National Congress, although there the PNM incumbent was retiring and the PNM had selected a former MP who had previously represented a different constituency in Trinidad & Tobago, namely Mayoro. The UNC also gained the constituency of St Augustine from the sole Congress of the People MP, Prakash Ramahar, who also did not stand for re-election. For the first time in the independent history of Trinidad & Tobago, no party polled 50% of the vote or more, partly due to the opposition vote being more fragmented. This is particularly notable given how many Caribbean nations use first past the post for their elections and how almost all of them have no third party of any significance, unlike the United Kingdom; three or four-way contests are very rare in Caribbean nations' parliamentary elections. As many as nine new parties entered the field but only one of these, the Progressive Democratic Patriots, polled more than 1% of the vote and it did not come close to winning any seats. The UNC mainly absorbed extra votes from the Congress of the People's Alliance and its allies (the Democratic Party of Trinidad & Tobago and the Trinidad & Tobago Democratic Front), whose vote collapsed to 0.08%. The Progressive Empowerment Party ensured three-way contests in most of the seats (only three constituencies this time had only the PNM and UNC) but ultimately flopped, polling just 0.9% of the vote and making no impact.


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