The UNP did worse than I thought they would... this should have been a very close election but wasn't.
Apparently the UNP's support collapsed in the Sinhalese villages near Tamil country, where the UNP had won by big margins last time around.
I was also very surprised at the poor showing of the UNP -I knew that Kumaratunga was gaining increasing momentum during the course of the election campaign but I was still expecting the UNP to be in a strong position to form a government after the election.
In my opinion this does not bode well for the peace process. Kumaratunga has had to make some alliances with some parliamentary parties that may be very antagonistic toward any concessions that the government may choose to make toward the Tamil Tigers. I think the talks will remain deadlocked and I fear that the violence will resume.
Having said that, I do not consider that circumstances would have been much better had the UNP been victorious in the parliamentary elections. The infighting and bickering between the President and the Prime Minister would have continued and this would have continued to derail the peace process.
So perhaps it was a no win situation after all. I wonder
(1) How long this present parliamentary government will survive
(2) What the eventual impact of this election result will be on the presidential election in a few years time
