This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 001891 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/31/2015 
TAGS: PGOV CE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA FREEDOM PARTY COUNTING ON MUSLIM VOTE 
 
REF: COLOMBO 1853 
 
Classified By: AMB. JEFFREY J. LUNSTEAD.  REASON:  1.4 (B,D). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (C) Campaign strategists for Prime Minister and Sri Lanka 
Freedom Party (SLFP) presidential candidate Mahinda Rajapakse 
told poloff in an October 27 meeting they were confident that 
votes from supporters of the Sinhalese extremist Jathika Hela 
Urumaya (JHU) and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) will 
give their contender the majority he needs to secure the 
November 17 election.  The Rajapakse campaign's math does not 
add up, however, and the candidate will have to do more to 
broaden his appeal among minority Christians and Muslims if 
he is counting on their support to win.  End summary. 
 
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SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE-- 
AS LONG AS YOU'RE SINHALESE 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) On October 27 poloff met with Sri Lanka Freedom Party 
(SLFP) presidential campaign strategists Dulles Alahapperuma 
(a former SLFP MP from the southern district of Matara), 
Kanchana Ratwatte and Vindhana Ariyawanse.  Not surprisingly, 
the trio professed complete confidence in the ability of 
their candidate, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, to secure 
victory at the polls on November 17.  The PM will achieve 
this feat, according to Alahapperuma, because his campaign 
has "gathered all the diverse forces that not been part of 
the peace process" before--like the pro-Marxist Janatha 
Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and the Buddhist extremist Jathika 
Hela Urumaya (JHU)--under the SLFP's commodious banner.  The 
PM has succeeded in convincing these Sinhalese skeptics that 
"devolution is acceptable," Alahapperuma claimed, suggesting 
that the two chauvinist parties now have embraced the peace 
process.  At the same time, he added, the JHU's pro-market 
orientation "evens out" the JVP's statist reflexes, thus 
offering something for everyone on the economic front.  That 
said, Alahapperuma conceded that the SLFP platform guarantees 
"special protection" for certain key sectors, such as energy. 
 The rhetoric in the manifesto notwithstanding, Ratwatte 
explained, the SLFP campaign accepts private university 
education "in principle" and is working hard to bring the JVP 
along.  In general, the "JVP is much more flexible than 
before," he claimed. 
 
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IF IT'S NOT ONE, 
THEN IT MUST BE TWO: 
"UNITARY" VS. "UNITED" 
----------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C) Alahapperuma discounted perceptions that the PM's 
position on the peace process represented a step backward 
from acceptance of federalism and substantial devolution for 
the north and east (Reftel).  The real difference between 
Rajapakse's position (preservation of a "unitary state") and 
that of United National Party (UNP) candidate Ranil 
Wickremesinghe ( a federal structure within a "united" Sri 
Lanka) is semantic, rather than ideological, Ratwatte 
insisted.  Since the Sinhala word for "unitary" ("ekiye") is 
the same  as the word for "one," Sinhalese-speaking voters 
will automatically assume that any system not described as 
"unitary," or "one," must, by force of logic, be "two," or 
divided, he said.  When asked to explain how Rajapakse 
interpreted the different words with respect to whether 
federalism could be part of a permanent settlement to the 
ethnic conflict, his campaign advisors did not answer 
directly, stressing instead that elements of a federal system 
are not new to Sri Lanka.  In fact, Ratwatte went on, a 
federal system existed in ancient Sri Lanka, and a de facto 
"quasi-federal" state currently exists in the country, even 
though "the nomenclature is not there."  (Comment:  Despite 
several allusions to Sri Lanka's ancient Buddhist kings in 
Rajapakse's manifesto, this particular historical fact is not 
mentioned.)  Even some countries with an openly federal 
system, such as South Africa, do not highlight the term 
"federal" in their names, he observed. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  When asked for specifics about how Rajapakse's 
proposed "Jaya Lanka" program would be different from the 
tsunami coordination mechanism (known as P-TOMS) he had 
 
SIPDIS 
introduced into Parliament several months earlier, 
Alahapperuma explained that Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs 
would "negotiate a (aid-coordinating) mechanism" with the 
LTTE.  The TNA MPs would also be "empowered to begin 
immediate relief operations" in LTTE-controlled territory, he 
said, adding that the PM had imposed an April 14 deadline 
(both the Sinhalese and Tamil New Year) for Jaya Lanka to 
begin operation. 
 
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CAMPAIGN OPERATIONAL TEMPO ON STEADY RISE 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C) When asked for an assessment of how the SLFP was 
faring, Ratwatte proudly produced a graph purportedly showing 
the respective "intensity" of the SLFP and UNP campaigns 
since August.  While SLFP "intensity," according to the 
graph, lagged somewhat behind the UNP's in August and much of 
September, the SLFP campaign rises meteorically in 
mid-October (at a point intended to represent the October 18 
release of the Rajapakse platform) and continues its 
relentless ascent until November 17.  UNP "intensity," on the 
other hand, flat lines after mid-October.  When asked what 
data points (e.g., number of rallies conducted, houses 
visited, leaflets distributed, interviews broadcast, etc.) 
were used in constructing the graph, Ratwatte was unable to 
offer any illumination, reiterating instead that the graph 
represented campaign "intensity."  He acknowledged that the 
unimpressive graphic depiction of UNP activity after 
mid-October did not take into account possible plans by the 
competing campaign for a similar increase in "intensity." 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Before Rajapakse's formal nomination, Ariyawanse 
reported, the party canvassed house-to-house to identify the 
issues that weighed most heavily on voters' minds.  (The 
answers:  cost of living increases; peace process; 
corruption.)  Rajapakse has constructed his campaign to 
respond directly to these concerns, the advisor said. 
(Perhaps in tacit acknowledgment of Rajapakse's potential 
vulnerability on the last issue, Alahapperuma noted that the 
JVP's "clean" image would help the campaign.)  Another 
national door-to-door campaign is scheduled for November 4-6, 
Ariyawanse said, to check voters' reaction to the "Mahinda's 
Vision" manifesto (Reftel).  The SLFP campaign will hold a 
total of 140 major rallies across the nation (except in the 
north) by November 17, Ratwatte said, and is now averaging 
four a day, with the candidate appearing at one rally daily. 
The UNP, in contrast, plans to hold 83 major rallies over the 
same amount of time, the SLFP'ers asserted.  In addition to 
rallies, the campaign is capitalizing on Rajapakse's 
good-old-boy image by organizing a mobile exhibition of 
political cartoons featuring the candidate that will tour 
major cities. 
 
 
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OLD MATH: 
SLFP COUNTING ON JHU VOTE BANK 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) Acknowledging that Rajapakse's alliances with the JVP 
and JHU and his rhetoric on the peace process may have 
alienated Tamil voters, the PM's advisors asserted that he 
could still win the election without them.  Ratwatte said 
party strategists were taking the 46 percent of votes won by 
the SLFP and JVP together in the 2001 general elections--when 
the Alliance lost--as the combined SLFP/JVP core vote bank. 
With that 46 percent in hand, Rajapakse would need only 
another five percent of total votes cast to win, Ratwatte 
said confidently, which the party believes he can easily get 
now that the  JHU is supporting him.  If Rajapakse wins only 
half of the almost six percent of votes garnered by the JHU 
in the 2004 general election, the campaign advisor explained, 
the SLFP will be just two percentage points shy of a victory. 
 Pointing to the two percent of the vote captured by the Sri 
Lankan Muslim Congress (SLMC) in the 2004 election, Ratwatte 
declared triumphantly that the Muslim-friendly policies 
espoused in the Rajapakse platform, as well as his unflagging 
support for the PLO (the PM is founder president of the Sri 
Lanka Palestine Solidarity Committee), are sure to entice 
that critical swing vote.  (Comment:  SLMC Leader Rauff 
Hakeem's decision to support Wickremesinghe apparently was 
not a factor in these somewhat optimistic calculations.) 
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POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: 
JHU TO "REASSURE" THE CHRISTIAN VOTE 
-------------------------------------- 
 
 
¶8.  (C) The campaign advisors did not belief Rajapakse's 
support among Christian voters would be undermined by his 
electoral alliance with the extremist JHU, claiming instead 
that "we're using the JHU to reassure the Christians" that 
their interests would not suffer in a Rajapakse government. 
When asked how the JHU (which has proposed constitutional 
amendments to criminalize "unethical" religious conversions 
and to make Buddhism the state religion) would be viewed as 
reassuring by Christians, Alahapperuma said that the SLFP was 
considering giving air time to JHU monk MPs to explain that 
they are not really anti-Christian.  It is not enough that 
the conversion issue did not appear in the manifesto, 
Ratwatte acknowledged; the SLFP is also holding discussions 
with the JHU aimed at persuading the monk MPs to take 
"irritants" like the anti-conversion bill out of their 
agenda. 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶9.  (C) The Rajapakse campaign's math does not add up.  The 
JHU no longer commands six percent of the vote; most current 
estimates put it at less than one percent.  The SLMC, 
moreover, has already endorsed Wickremesinghe, and non-SLMC 
Muslim voters in the east are unlikely to support the Prime 
Minister of an administration they believe did too little to 
expedite tsunami reconstruction.  (The alleged involvement of 
Anuruddha Ratwatte, a former SLFP minister related to 
President Kumaratunga, in the murder of 10 SLMC supporters in 
the aftermath of the 2001 general elections may also dampen 
support.)  Rajapakse's advisors' attempts to depict his 
campaign as an umbrella broad enough to accommodate a wide 
range of voters' competing interests ring hollow.  Bringing 
the JVP and JHU along to accept devolution of power--a right 
hypothetically already granted to the north and east by the 
Thirteenth Amendment--could hardly be described as a critical 
step forward in the peace process.  His campaign advisors' 
disquisitions into the subtle semantic differences between 
"united" and "unitary" notwithstanding, Rajapakse has never 
publicly endorsed a federal solution in this campaign, nor do 
we expect him to so as long as the JVP and JHU are sharing 
his stage. 
 
LUNSTEAD