There are many priorities that weigh on the minds of the people of Jaffna.

The A9 road has to be opened and passenger movements to Colombo and rest of the country normalised, so as to reduce the currently experienced exorbitant costs of travel by air and sea; transport of goods must be regularised with minimal processes of security so as to avoid undue delays and the consequent rise in the prices; clearance procedures for every traveler, coming from and going to the peninsula, are relaxed so as to reduce the hassles and the harassments; and all restrictions on deep sea fishing are lifted.

Most important of all, that their relatives who are now interned in the refugee camps in Vavuniya and Jaffna are allowed to be reunited with them.

Nowhere in this long list of absolute necessities is the need expressed by the people of Jaffna for an elected body for the Jaffna Municipal Council. Yet, they find that this is the first offer on their plate.

It is widely recognised that the local authority elections in the north, at this juncture, in the aftermath of the massive war and the displacement in the Wanni, is being held more for the government’s sake to demonstrate its capacity for electoral machinations rather than filling a void in local governance.

As far as the government was concerned, the functions served by these elections were many. One was to garner votes of the north to prove to the international community their support to the recently concluded war; the other was to lay claim to the return to democracy in the north.

The third factor was the opportunity to be used to decimate all the Tamil parties which could grow in to a formidable opposition. As if to prove this point it arm twisted the EPDP to contest under the banner of the UPFA. Although fully aware that this move will finally all but destroy his own party, Douglas Devananda had no choice but to toe the line.

In that too he was not given a free ride. He was asked to contest along with two other new splinter groups of TELO and PLOTE, which are suspected to owe their origins to the government and possessed no support base in the community. Thus EPDP was successfully stunted, and the political soup further muddled with the entry of the new groups.

There were some who opined that the existing vote base of the EPDP, painstakingly built by Devananda through hard work in his constituency, might be eroded as a consequence of the decision to join the UPFA coalition. However, this is a matter to be seen at the elections due to be held in August.

The third week of June saw the leaders and members of the various political parties descending upon Jaffna to engage in a frantic search for possible contestants as the deadline for the filing of nominations was June 25. It was not easy to find willing candidates, especially those under 35 years of age, whose participation was required under the law. The people seemed to be almost blinded with fear of anything that had to do with politics.

This was no surprise considering how each and every politically active member of their society was systematically eliminated in the past, especially in 2005-2007 years of the reign of terror. This fear, borne out of the helplessness of being imprisoned within a virtual island with no avenue for escape, has to be seen to be felt.

A former candidate of the TNA sat us down for over half an hour to vividly describe how she had to constantly live with the fear of death after the last elections. "Every time I heard the sound of a motorbike stopping in front of my house, I almost fainted in fear. I used to immediately switch off all the lights in the house as if like a reflex action. Even my husband grew weary of me because I was in the habit of chasing him to the front to investigate each strange sound.

"Once I went to the market to buy stuff, but on my way had to quickly jump in to a nearby auto and rush back home because I felt that one fellow was intently staring at me. After that I avoided going out altogether until the situation gradually seemed to clear last year. You know, sometimes I think it is better to die than being forced to live like this in constant fear."

Although a known social worker, she was in no mood to entertain any temptations to enter the fray. "It is more than what we ordinary people can bear…" she concluded. Others recalled a host of politicos killed in the last few years to buttress their argument that no sane person could ever agree to contesting a political seat in the north and east. Not a single person could be convinced that normalcy had returned, or that the era of terror was over.

Even those individuals who were ready for the plunge, succumbed later to the pressure applied by their family members and withdrew their candidacy. There was a mother of a 24 year old girl who even threatened to commit suicide if her daughter ever entertained thoughts of entering politics.

Clearly, the environment necessary to hold elections was not present in the north. There was no faith in the possibility of it being free and fair either. " One does not have to intimidate or go to great lengths to rig the votes. The intelligence units operating here have to merely quietly inform the fishermen that votes against the ruling coalition means the re-imposition of the restrictions on deep sea fishing. That is sufficient to do the trick. This would not come to the notice of any elections monitoring group also..." a priest explained. Within the Jaffna Municipal Council area, the fisher community did have a significant presence.

So it became necessary for the party leaders to conduct individual and group meetings in most areas in order to actually woo the nominees. The fear element drove many keen contestants to give their names to the ruling coalition UPFA/ EPDP more readily than other parties.

In some instances people agreed to contest under the UPFA/EPDP umbrella even though inwardly they wanted to contest under the banner of another party! The hilarious situation aside, people did have serious doubts whether they will be safe contesting as opposition party candidates.

Many others who attended such meetings seemed to be preoccupied with matters other than the impending elections. At the end of one of the meetings one woman was seen to approach one of the organisers to inquire as to how she can get information of her second son who was believed to have escaped the Wanni and entered one of the camps in Vavuniya. Her eldest son had been arrested by the army the previous year, and still to be released. "I have only two sons Aiya.. I want to save at least one…" she begged.

Her colleague was a woman who had lost both her husband and her father in the war 11 years ago, while in her late teens. She left the meeting prematurely because she had just received news confirming the death of her younger brother in an artillery attack while he was escaping the Wanni with a group of families in a boat. All of this seemed to add to the surreal quality of Jaffna.

The dilemma was not only on the part of the contestants, but also on the part of the voters. What are the issues on the basis of which they should exercise their votes? Do they aim for a clean and efficient political leadership in their local body? Or do they vote to please the powers that be in order to effect a much needed speedy return to normalcy?

Do they voice their opposition to the war, or vote to try to get the dividends of development that is being promised to them? The situation of the Wanni refugees, the continuing closure of the A9 road, the restrictions on fishing all were critical issues facing that community.

The supposed testimonies of the Wanni refugees in the camps requesting Devananda to contest along with the government was a favourite story retold several times by him in order to justify to supporters his decision to contest under the UPFA banner. "You have to get us out of this place… No point in you being with the opposition sir…"

As if to prompt what was to come, Basil Rajapakse visited Jaffna just before nomination week, to announce the slight relaxing of the daily curfew and the lifting of fishing restrictions. He also promised to ease the transport problem on the A9 road as quickly as possible. As a result, decision was made to commence the checking of lorries bound to the north in Omanthai instead of Anuradhapura where it was being conducted, leading to inordinate delays. Already the shelves in the shops in Jaffna stood empty. No new stock had been ordered in the expectation of price reductions once transport through the A9 was regularised. The election bonanza had begun.