Kumaratunga's dilemma

Though she had won the election, Kumaratunga was not inclined to take on the Tigers. On the one hand, she was anxious for international support for her government. With the Tigers endorsed internationally as the representatives of the Tamils, through Norwegian leadership which the Europeans in particular tended to follow, she was determined not to rock the boat. With her narrow control of parliament she also hoped in time to rebuild her pluralistic support base of the nineties that had included all the Tamil parties.

She was the more anxious to do this, in that the election results had significantly increased the parliamentary strength of the JVP. When nominations for the election had been decided on, the JVP, apparently magnanimously, asked for at most three nominees in each District, the SLFP and its less important allies of the old Marxist parties having the rest. In fact this benefited the JVP, since its supporters concentrated their three preferences on JVP members, whereas the SLFP vote was divided amongst several candidates. Thus in almost all Districts the JVP candidates topped the lists of preferences and were duly elected to Parliament. The JVP thus had nearly 40 of the UPFA's 107 seats, which was a massive increase from the 16 seats they had had earlier.

The JVP had accepted four ministries, but these were not taken by their most senior parliamentarians, amongst them the charismatic Propaganda Secretary, Wimal Weerawansa.