Minority Electoral Politics: A Sri Lankan Case Study

Abstract

The two major parties in Sri Lanka are putting forward an increased number of minority candidates in order to prevent the minorities from voting for ethnically-/religiously-based minority parties. The proportional representative (PR) system that was introduced in 1989 was initially considered as a disadvantage to the minorities. However, the PR system has benefited the minorities and has not brought any expected benefits to the major parties. More minority candidates are getting elected, but the votes of the minorities are getting split, and therefore there is no net gain to the two major parties. In fact, there is evidence to say that parties that are taking a more nationalistic approach are doing better than the parties that are projecting a more inclusive image. Appealing to the minorities has alienated the majority, Sinhalese, so the major parties are moving towards more radical extremist nationalistic platforms. Wilcoxon Rank Sum test was used for this analysis, the samples that were taken were independent and no assumptions were made on the probability distributions other than the fact that they are continuous.