The significance of this election was the rejection of chauvinist, anti-Tamil politics by many of the Sinhala majority people. Even after promising a thousand and one election \u2018freebies\u2019 in his manifesto, Rajapaksa turned to communalism soon after that of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) was published. The TNA called for a federal structure within a united country as a solution to the Tamil national question. With that, Rajapaksa began to play the communal card by accusing Ranil of succumbing to the TNA demand in order to get their support to form a government in the event the UNP not gaining a majority. Voters turned their backs on this dirty manoeuvre by massively voting for the UNP, even in southern areas of the country which constituted Rajapaksa\u2019s vote base. The importance of the Tamil national question was reiterated by the people of the north and east where they voted en masse for the TNA. It obtained close to 70% of the votes especially in the Northern Province where it won 14 seats out of 18. The Peoples Liberation Front (JVP), which once claimed to be Marxist, is nothing of the sort. It vaunted itself as the new force on the brink of gaining power but only managed to obtain 4 seats with a total vote of 543,000 – equivalent to 4.8% of the total votes cast. They have now completely abandoned any claim to be Marxist or socialist, even though a large number of youth who yearn for a better world have been attracted to the JVP\u2019s apparent militancy. They do not see that they have been misled by the JVP leaders who are now pretending to be well-behaved gentlemen. The JVP\u2019s expectations of gaining a sizable share of votes and a corresponding number of seats in parliament fell through. The FSP, which broke away from the JVP in 2012, also had a big youth base but now seems to be not firing on all cylinders, with just a few hundred instead of thousands of members. Both these parties are acting as barriers in the struggle to build a fighting left movement hand in hand with the organised working class. <\/p>\n