How the TNA became ‘Tiger Nominated Agents’

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which is the premier political configuration of the Sri Lankan Tamils in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, is currently fragmented. The chief constituent Ilankai Thamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) is on one side while the other two constituent parties namely the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO) and People’s Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) are on the other side. Of the 10 seats held by the TNA in Parliament, six are with the ITAK. The TELO has three and the PLOTE one.

The Local Authority elections scheduled for 9 March 2023 has seen the ITAK going it alone with the party filing nominations separately under its own name. The ITAK symbol is the House. It was under this symbol that the TNA contested elections from 2004 onwards. The ITAK while claiming that the TNA has not broken up, seems to be happy that it is no longer shackled, by its erstwhile fellow constituents the TELO and PLOTE.

The TELO and PLOTE on the other hand have formed another alliance with a former constituent of the TNA and two other parties. The ex-TNA party is the Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). The EPRLF was one of the four Tamil parties which came together in 2001 to form the TNA. It quit the TNA in 2015.

The other two parties in the new alliance are the Tamil National Party (TNP) and the Crusaders for Democracy (CfD). The TNP is a faction that split from the TELO some years ago. The Crusaders for Democracy is a party formed by rehabilitated former members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). 

 Contrary to popular belief the TNA at the beginning was not a tiger creation. It was formed independently with cautious indirect backing by the LTTE. Later the LTTE took it over and controlled the TNA. It is in this context that I venture to relate the story again of the birth, early growth and LTTE takeover of the TNA, relying to a very great extent on previous writings by me in this regard.

The formation of the TNA in October 2001 was the direct consequence of the elections held a year before in October 2000. The factor that caused the TNA to be formed was the 2000 Parliamentary Election results. The anti-government Tamil nationalist parties who contested against each other had together got only eight seats in the North and East.