Dilrook Kannangara

NPP scored a stellar election victory bagging the entire Christian Belt – Wattala, Ja-Ela, Katana, Negombo, Wennappuwa, Naththandiya and Chilaw. 

In addition, electorates with a significant Christian population including Moratuwa, Dehiwala and Colombo West also went the NPP way. 

Colombo North was once a Christian majority electorate but it is now a Hindu majority electorate while Colombo Central is a Muslim majority electorate.

It’s unusual for one party to win them all and even more interesting when the JVP/NPP wins them. The JVP was never popular in the Christian community. It’s communism association and past violence were the main reasons for the intense dislike towards the JVP. However, things had dramatically changed over the past couple of years to make them embrace the NPP/JVP.

The main reason is the absence of tribalism/sectarianism from politics and policy within the NPP/JVP party. As the smallest creed in the island, Christians are sensitive to racist politics. Though some sections were distracted by sectarian politics in the recent past, the vast majority shunned it. NPP/JVP gave them hope.

Shedding old and outdated opposition to open economic policies is another reason. NPP/JVP took a long time to come to the fold of supporting open economic policies. It delayed minority acceptance of the party.

The third reason is the full integration of the Sinhala Christian community into the broader Sinhala community. Whatever that affects the Sinhala broader community affects the Sinhala Christian community too. This was not the case until the late 1990s when the two communities retained their differences coming from colonial times.

This is a promising development not just for politics but also for the nation. Hope the government will leverage this to improve Sri Lanka’s standing in the international community and gain acceptance and investments from world’s largest developed economies, a preserve limited to UNP regimes so far.