What the Pakistani media is saying about the elections in Kashmir, and are Indians interested in Sri Lankan surveys?

Sri Lanka is set to go to the polls today, two years after the former elected president Gotabaya Rajapaksa was forced to resign and flee as the island nation faced its worst economic crisis. Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over since, is seeking re-election as he claims to have turned the economy around. A total of 38 candidates are in the running with four top contenders, according to opinion polls.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, from the Marxist party Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), leading the polls, was among those who vehemently opposed Rajapaksa’s economic policies. In second place is Sajith Premadasa, of the populist Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB). In third place is current president Wickremesinghe who is also accused of being part of the “elites” who caused the economic meltdown. In fourth place is Namal Rajapaksa, nephew of former president Gotabaya, who hopes to change things and is being looked at as a fresh face. However, with his family’s popularity ratings not particularly high at the moment, he faces a tough battle.

Daily Mirror (September 18) lays out the stakes of this election saying, “The presidential election itself is being held in the backdrop of the economic collapse, food, medicine, fuel shortages, rolling power cuts and spiralling cost of living.” It is wary of “the plethora of false election promises the candidates keep parroting.”

Urging citizens to “vote wisely”, The Island (September 20) says, “Sri Lankans may be famous for many things, but informed voting is certainly not one of them. They made colossal blunders at previous elections.” Bringing into focus the checklist for the next government, the editorial says, “It is crucial for the people to choose a democratic candidate with a competent team capable of managing the economy efficiently and combating corruption, if they are to avoid regrets.”

Columnist for The Morning (September 18), Siva Parameswaran writes that the Indian media “doesn’t really seem to be interested in the Sri Lankan Presidential Election.” Lamenting the lack of coverage from big Indian media houses, Parameswaran writes that most of them “ have preferred news copies from agencies like the Agence France-Presse and Reuters reporting from Colombo.”

For the first time since the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir in 2019, the region is going to the polls. The first phase was held on September 18 and saw a 61.38 per cent turnout. The Pakistan press discusses what this election means for Kashmiris, whether it will guarantee peace in the region and what it says about the Modi government’s J&K agenda.

Dawn (September 20) comments on the “respectable” turnout in Phase 1 saying that it “should not be seen as a ringing endorsement of the BJP-led regime’s brutal policies in the held region. Rather, Kashmiris are likely stepping out to vote to prevent the BJP from capturing their land and wiping out its unique identity.”

Express Tribune columnist Durdana Najam (September 19) discusses the continuing insurgency in Kashmir since 2020 ascribing blame to the “Modi government’s heavy-handed approach… [which] has inadvertently fuelled the very resistance it sought to suppress.” According to Najam, this is, in essence, “an indigenous struggle, rooted deeply in the region’s discontent with Indian policies.”