Parliamentary General Election 2004 – what happened?
by Shamika Soysa

06 April 2004 - During the period from year 2000 to 2004 this happened to be the 3rd Parliamentary General Election and the 13th General Election of Sri Lanka. The Government of UNF governed the country for 2 years and it is said that they brought the peace to Sri Lanka.

However having joined hands together, PA and JVP formed the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA). Having formed the UPFA the Parliamentary was dissolved with intention of starting a new Chapter in Sri Lankan history.

Movement of Bhikkus
Because of the new formation of UPFA, as people who had got exhausted by voting UNF, PA and JVP separately, began to expect some Golden era in Sri Lanka. But breaking the novelty of UPFA, 6 of the leading Bhikkus in Sri Lanka take over the Party Sihala Urumaya and formed Jathika Hela Urumaya to contest this Election only with Bhikkus. This is for the first time in Sri Lanka History, and it added some more blood and enthusiasm to this Election.

The whole country was shocked from this decision of Bhikkus. People were clueless about this decision and when they came to know the names of these six Bhikkus, it was seen that they are the most popular Bhikkus in this country. Even with the woke up by Buddhist laymen and Bhikkus after the demise of Ven. Soma Thero, no one might have ever thought something like this would happen.

Criticisms against Bhikkus
Major political parties were shocked by this decision of Bhikkus. They got frightened about breaking their votes for the Bhikkus. Even the people who felt very sad about the demise of Soma Thero were shocked by this because they also thought that this might affect the victory of their favourite parties. Therefore all these people were going through the Vinaya Pitaka of the Doctrine of Buddha and were so keen to find Vinaya rules to safeguard their favourite parties from the Bhikkus.

The people against the Bhikkus said that this is the end of Buddhism. They said that Bhikkus will loose this Election for sure and they will not be able to win a single seat and because of that the Buddhism in Sri Lanka will be underestimated in the whole world.

They tried all sort of arguments to prove the inappropriateness of Bhikkus to contest this Election saying that the politics is something corrupt and it is not suitable for Bhikkus. They made their party supporting Bhikkus to make statements against these Bhikkus.

One of the most interesting accusations for the Bhikkus till the last moment is there are NGOs behind this movement of Bhikkus to destroy the Buddhism in Sri Lanka. They were very much sure that UNF is behind these Bhikkus to break the votes of UPFA.

The approach of Bhikkus
The election campaigns of Bhikkus turn a new page in Sri Lankan Election history. I have discussed about this campaign in my article “How to do election? – a lesson from Bhikkus”.

They proved that to contest an Election, violence, harming the environment, telling lies, and other harmful activities are not necessary. That is the first lesson we can get from this Election.

Bunch of Flower to Election Commissioner and Police
This election is recorded as one of the few peaceful Elections in Sri Lankan history. Reported violence is very much less than the previous Elections. But make no mistake. This credit does not go to the political parties contested. The first person is the Election Commissioner and then all the police officers from top to bottom. They were given power to apply the law without any influence from politicians and they did it in a most appreciating manner. What we can learn from this is if someone in this country is allowed to perform his or her duty without any political influence it is not difficult to make our country, a country, which follows the law.

What happened at last?
After a better election with less violence UPFA got the majority of seats but as expected it is not enough to form a stable Government without the support of any other parties. Even by this time these things are under discussion.

Proving that there are real Buddhists in Sri Lanka, Bhikkus were voted massively by the intelligent people in Sri Lanka. Having obtained 9 seats from the Election, they became the most successful political party in history, to obtain such power in a shortest time. This achievement, despite the disgusting criticisms, false propaganda and misinterpretations, proves that this movement of Bhikkus has become an acceptable decision.

While criticizing the Bhikkus till first of April, and even after that, these shameless other political parties now beg the support of the Bhikkus to form the Government. Therefore we have to accept that Bhikkus have become the deciding factor in Sri Lankan politics.

Election Campaigning
When we look at this Election results an unexpected thing has happened. Even though some people said that, JHU was tempted by UNF/NGO forces to break the votes of UPFA, we can see that JHU has broken the votes of UNF. This is something interesting to talk about. However these UPFA supporters must be very happy about this and they will be able have good nights with sweet dreams.

The victory of UPFA from this Election is due to the excellent Election campaigning by them. They were able to get the maximum benefits of the resources they had and succeeded at the end. It was proved by the results of Postal Votes that the Government Servers seems to be very impressed about the salary increase that they are going to get under the Government of UPFA.

UNF was punished by the nature for becoming a threat to Buddhism and the force of Buddhist monks were able to do it. Having done a great Election campaigning now it is the time for UPFA to prove that they are the best. Our most intelligent friends stated that UPFA is the party to safeguard Buddhism and to build the country, and the movement of Bhikkus will make UNF again into power and destroy Buddhism. But now they do not have that fear. As they wanted UPFA has obtained the victory. So we’ll keep our eyes open about the future.