By Melanie Gouby

Following his decisive victory over Tamil separatists, Sri Lanka’s victorious president Mahinda Rajapaksa is accumulating unprecedented power in what his critics fear is a new war – only this time, on democracy.

Talking about his job with the Sri Lankan government makes Samath uncomfortable. Many times he looks around to check that no-one is listening. His restlessness seems out of place on this peaceful beach on the east coast, not far from Pottuvil. He nervously drinks his arrack, a local liquor, while explaining that he will quit his job soon because he feels threatened.

Samath is a stage speaker who visits Tamil and Muslim villages to promote government policies.

"Propaganda, that is. I don't like what I am doing, it is a constant lie. I don't believe in the government,” he says. “One of my friends, a pharmacist, disappeared because he was suspected of giving medicine to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The government denies they kidnapped him, but I know it is them. And I'm scared because I am suspected of dissent. Leaving the country may be my only option.”

Samath, like many other educated Sri Lankans, fears that the government has become autocratic in recent years. The government’s defeat of the LTTE separatist movement has been welcomed by most Sri Lankans, but the blitz that secured its rapid victory has also restricted freedom of speech and freedom of movement and diminished other civil liberties. In such circumstances, many question whether peace has been gained at the cost of democracy and human rights.

“The president should work with the opposition but I don't think it will happen,” says Chandra, a member of Sri Lanka’s political opposition. “The mentality is petty-minded, they want to suppress the dissent, they are too authoritarian. I don't think they really act in people's interests.”

While most international attention is focused on the refugee camps of Vavuniya, the rest of the country suffers from an insidious, and less visible, terror. Critics of the government, such as the former editor of the Sunday Leader newspaper who was murdered earlier this year, regularly disappear, and although nothing has been proved, it is muttered behind closed doors that disbanded soldiers can be hired for less than 3000 rupees by anyone, for any job. So, why not the government?

“Last year, before the elections, there were many abductions and killings. It went down since, but who did this remains uninvestigated,” says Maria, an international NGO worker. “In fact the subject of the rule of law is a sensitive topic here.”

But the vast majority of Sri Lankans seem unconcerned. Alienated by thirty years of civil war, they see the new government as their saviour despite all they may have to sacrifice for relative peace. “The whole way the war was led, the increased military presence everywhere, it brainwashed people,” explains Jonathan, a local NGO worker. “If you watch the local TV now, it is a lot of propaganda, there is no other alternative voice anymore. You would never see pictures of Gordon Brown everywhere in the UK, but here our president's portrait is on every wall.”

Wearing his usual white tunic and red scarf accompanied by a moustache awkwardly reminiscent of Stalin, President Mahinda Rajapaksa is indeed everywhere, embracing children, talking to soldiers, walking victoriously with his generals. “People here seem to want a dictatorship, a lot of people say they had a democracy for fifty years and it hasn’t got us anywhere. But what people do not understand is that they never gave democracy a chance, because immediately after independence there was the Sinhala Only Act in 1956,” says Jonathan.

After centuries of British rules, the Sinhala Only Act decreed that Sinhalese would become the official language. A root cause of the conflict, it discriminated against Tamils, who faced disadvantage in the education system and were unable to apply for many administrative jobs. With time and terrorism, the people’s need for security has become stronger than the need for democracy.

The government has therefore been able to enact harsh policies in the name of the war. The number of troops has increased by more than 100 per cent in the past two years, from 100,000 to more than 200,000 soldiers, an incredible number for such a small island. Despite the end of the war, more soldiers are still being recruited.

The rising cost also raises questions. “We pay very high taxes and the government justified it with the cost of the war. But now it has been criticised because it has not come down. They say that we have to wait, that it is too early", complains Rithu, a businesswoman.

Samath, the stage speaker, is convinced the government is using that money illegally for campaign fundraising. “There is no reason for the prices to go up. I know that for sure,” he says with a sigh.

Illegal fundraising or not, the presidential elections are due in November and current president Mahinda Rajapaksa is almost certain to win. Elected last time thanks to his promise to crush the LTTE, now he says he “wants a mandate to settle the [conflict] forever, [find] a political solution.”

Many think he genuinely wants to put an end to the conflict and give Tamils more rights, starting with the refugee camps. "It would look so bad on them to leave the refugees in camps interminably,” says Chandra, the political opponent.

But the danger is for democracy in Sri Lanka. Chandra fears that the country will be “governed with an iron hand by a mafia-like elite. To be honest, I think this government is more about corruption than minorities. Everyone will be treated the same from now on, whether Tamil or Sinhalese, and everyone who is outspoken will be equally told to shut up.”

The build-up of a strong military-backed power has never been a good omen for democracy. Whether Rajapaksa’s ambition for the future is to resolve the ethnic conflict or accumulate more power remains to be seen. It will be for Sri Lankans to decide at the next election if they think his government can be as successful at democracy as it has been at war.

All names have been changed for the purpose of this article