Parties form alliances due to political compulsions. While it is not known what kind of political pressure the Ilankai Thamizharasu Katchi (ITAK ) is facing in the current situation, it has appealed to other Tamil parties to come together and work as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) again.

After a meeting of the party’s central committee in the northern city of Vavuniya on November 5, while addressing the media together with the president of the ITAK, C.V.K. Sivagnanam, General Secretary M.A. Sumanthiran conveyed his party’s position to the Democratic Tamil National Alliance (DTNA). If the latter agrees to it, Tamil outfits would be able to function again as the TNA.

The Tamil parties, which at different times have broken away from the TNA, have been working as the DTNA for three years. The Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) are the main members of the DTNA. DTNA contested the 2024 parliamentary and 2025 local government elections without an alliance with ITAK.

Sumanthiran said that it was decided in the Central Committee to invite other Tamil parties to work together again and that President Sivagnanam and he had already discussed the matter with the leaders of the DTNA, adding that if they accept the position of the ITAK, there will be  a possibility of functioning again as the TNA. 

However, the  spokesman of the DTNA and EPRLF General Secretary Suresh Premachandran said that he did not know about conditions put forward by the ITAK  for working together, but added it would not be proper to put forward preconditions for talks.

The DTNA has its own constitution and symbol and is recognised by the Election Commission. The alliance has recently been working on the basis of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF ) led by Parliamentarian Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam. But the latter  has recently expressed discomfort with the alliance’s position that the 13th Amendment to the Constitution should be fully implemented and the provincial council  system should be preserved. Premachandran’s welcoming the ITAK invitation is likely to further strain the MOU between the two sides.

At the same time, Premachandran put forward a few preconditions on account of the bitter experiences in the past.

“The TNA was neither a recognised organisation nor had any constitution.  In order to function as the TNA again, a separate constitution must be drawn up and the individuality of the constituent parties must be respected. ITAK leaders should adopt an approach that embraces all the member parties and work together with understanding, even if they call themselves the flagship party or the primary party,” Premachandran told at a press briefing in Jaffna.

The TNA, formed in late 2001 under the leadership of the late veteran Tamil leader Rajavarothayam Sampanthan, was unable to function independently during the war.  It had to act  like a movement formed to voice the stand that the LTTE was the sole representative of the Sri Lankan Tamils. 

The failure of Tamil politicians, including Sampanthan, to build the TNA as a powerful democratic political movement of the Tamil people in the absence of a cohesive polity among them after the end of the civil war, was severely criticised.

Gajendrakumar’s All Ceylon Tamil Congress left TNA during the April 2010 General Election and Premachandran’s EPRLF pulled out of it in 2017. Although both parties put forward their respective reasons for quitting, electoral politics was also one of the reasons.

PLOTE and TELO left the Alliance  in 2023. These parties objected to the idea put forward by the ITAK leadership that since the local government elections were held in a mixed electoral system, the constituent parties of the alliance could win a substantial number of seats if they contested separately and jointly form the administrations in the local bodies after the elections.

However, local elections were not held during the regime of President Ranil Wickremasinghe. It  was the current National People’s Power (NPP) government that held those elections last May.

It is well known how the Tamil parties in the north and the east behaved acrimoniously in the formation of local administrations. At present, amid questions about whether or not the government will hold provincial council elections next year, the ITAK has announced its desire to function as TNA again. 

Stressing the need for all Tamil parties to work together, Sumanthiran said the question was whether the Tamil parties would take a unified stand on a political solution to the national ethnic problem. He added that he has decided to share the ITAK proposals presented by his party to the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government with the other Tamil parties, and if they agree to those, it can be submitted to the present government as the common proposal of the Tamil polity. 

Be that as it may, it is practically not possible to bring all Tamil parties under one umbrella. But even if the majority embrace the TNA again, it is important for the ITAK to ensure that the factors that created discord within the alliance in the past are not repeated. 

There was no immediate reaction from Sumanthiran to Premachandran’s comments. He also needs to take into account the alliance’s past experience and ensure that unnecessary contradictions do not arise again. The main complaint of the other Tamil parties was that the ITAK was behaving in a dominant manner. 

In any case, the interest shown by the ITAK in rebuilding the TNA and the positive response it has received from the DTNA spokesman must be appreciated. The leaders of the Tamil parties should commence negotiations on working together as soon as possible, without delay.

The Tamil people have long been concerned about their parties being divided into factions, unable to take a common stand on strategies to finding solutions to their problems. This was one of the reasons why they substantially voted for the NPP in the North and East in the last parliamentary elections.

The main grievance of the Tamil people is the lack of interest shown by the Tamil parties in adopting a sensible and pragmatic political approach to suit the international and domestic situation in the period following the end of the civil  war. 

Merely working together is not enough. Tamil parties  should not only talk about long-term political goals but also focus on dealing with the immediate problems of the Tamils. 

According to Sumanthiran, the basic aim of the ITAK is to bring together the Tamil parties to propose a political solution to the ethnic issue. As all Tamil parties are opposed to the unitary constitution and have as their policy a political solution based on the federal system, there is no problem in taking a unified stand. 

In the event the Government proceeds with the process of drafting a new Constitution, the Tamil parties, apart from coming together to propose a lasting solution to the ethnic problem, should also work towards a consensus on an interim solution, in particular on the use of the Provincial Councils system.

The recent growing interest among many Tamil parties in preserving the system of provincial councils will certainly facilitate ITAK’s desire to work together again as an alliance. 

The immediate launch of a popular democratic political movement that will crank up pressure on the government to hold early provincial council elections and fully implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution will give a huge impetus to the mobilisation of Tamil parties and groups. 

It is important that the Tamil polity eschew the entrenched negative political culture that does not care about viable interim solutions to the problem.