The wellbeing of a democratic system of government depends on the robustness of political parties, pressure groups, civil society organizations, etc., and, most of all, public trust in the ruling party and the Opposition. A democracy cannot remain healthy in a situation where the political parties which people expect to look after their security, social, political and economic interests are in crisis. These organizations are also the medium through which people exercise their franchise and seek to have a say in state affairs and ensure the protection of their rights.
All democratic societies boast established political parties such as the Democratic Party and the Republican Party in the US; the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in the UK; the Congress and the BJP in India; the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party in Canada, and the Labor Party, the Liberal Party and the Nationals in Australia.
Sri Lanka also has an established political party system, which has helped protect its democracy over the decades. There are as many as 79 registered political parties in Sri Lanka, according to the Election Commission. Most of them, however, are mere nameboards.
The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) was founded in 1935, nearly one and a half decades before the country gained Independence from the British. The Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CP) came into being in 1943, the United National Party UNP) in 1946, and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) in 1951.
There have emerged many other political parties, mostly breakaway groups, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) being prominent among them. The Democratic United Front (DUNF), formed in 1991 by a group of dissident UNP MPs, following an abortive attempt to impeach the then President Ranasinghe Premadasa, also had a meteoric rise in national politics, and then withered away after the assassinations of its leader Lalith Athulathmudali, and President Premadasa.
The SLPP, founded in 2016, by a group of dissident SLFP/UPFA MPs, succeeded in going on a winning streak in 2018, and forming a government the following year by winning the presidency; it obtained 145 seats in the parliament in 2020. The SJB, formed in 2020, by a breakaway UNP group, has become the second largest political party in the country in terms of the number of MPs (54). It reduced the UNP to a single National List MP at the 2020 general election. The JVP, founded in 1965, entered democratic politics much later.
It is the democratic political parties that ensured the survival of Sri Lanka democracy during two JVP uprisings in 1971 and in the late 1980s. They dared contest elections in the face of threats and attacks and thereby kept democracy alive. The post-war recovery of democracy in the North and the East would not have been possible if not for the existence of democratic political organizations such as the Tamil United Liberation Front, and the emergence of parties and groups to fill the pollical vacuum created by decades of political assassinations and suppression of dissent.
Aragalaya as a blow to political party system
Aragalaya or the Galle Face protest campaign began in April this year as a leaderless agitation against the government’s economic mismanagement and people’s suffering due to the soaring cost of living and the shortages of essentials. Later, the JVP and its offshoot, the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) infiltrated the protest and hijacked it to further their interests. It has now been revealed that the UNP also had a presence among the protesters. When the people realized that their protest movement had become politicized and violent, they distanced themselves from it. Their disillusionment with the political parties including the JVP and the FSP, remains, as evident from their denouncement of all politicians, and their demand that all 225 MPs go home, and a system change be engineered.
Most Sri Lankans are demanding a new political culture and a new approach to governance. This is not an unprecedented phenomenon. In 2019, Ukrainians, fed up with the existing political parties and political leaders, elected as their President a professional comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky. He has proved that he is made of sterner stuff by resisting the Russian invasion of his country. In 2017, the French voted overwhelmingly for Emmanuel Macron, a political greenhorn in his late 30s, at the time, making him their President. His party, La Republique En Marche, won 350 seats in the 577-member French Parliament.
Same old faces
However, unlike the Ukrainians and the French, Sri Lankans have been left without a choice. No new leaders have emerged, and the same old faces are offering themselves as alternatives!
Last week saw two significant political events—the formation of a new political alliance, the Uttara Lanka Sabhagaya (ULS) or the Supreme Lanka Coalition, and the opening of the Nawa Lanka Freedom Party (NLFP) head office. The Dullas Group, consisting of about a dozen dissident SLPP MPs is also expected to form a new political party soon.
Former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga opened the NLFP office at Battaramulla on Sept. 05, and made a fiery speech, inveighing against her political rivals. The NLFP is led by SJB MP Kumara Welgama, a former SLFP stalwart, who fell out with the Rajapaksa family and left the SLPP in 2020 to contest the last general election on the SJB ticket. He is trying to rally the SLFP members who are supporting the SLPP and former President Maithripala Sirisena’s SLFP.
The Rajapaksas took Welgama for a ride after the 2015 regime change by indicating that he could be the presidential candidate of the SLFP, given his seniority in the party. He was told that his path was clear as former two-term President Mahinda Rajapaksa was disqualified to run for President again due to the 19th Amendment. He took on President Sirisena in a bid to secure what he thought to be his due place in the SLFP, and in the end had to defect and join the SLPP. In 2019, the Rajapaksa family decided to field Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the SLPP presidential candidate, much to the consternation of presidential aspirant Welgama, who turned against the Rajapaksas and Gotabaya. He has since missed no opportunity to take swipes as President Rajapaksa and condemn the Rajapaksa family. He went on to form the NLFP. Former President Kumaratunga clashed with SLFP leader Sirisena, who refused to obey her dictates, and stuck to the SLFP leadership. Having sided with the SLFP dissidents, she is now backing Welgama and the NLFP.
The ULS consists of the 11 disgruntled SLPP constituents, who have said they will contest future elections as a separate alliance. It is likely to coalesce with the Dallas group and the SLFP to contest elections.
Crossovers from the SJB and the SLFP to the government, and the formation of the NLFP and the ULS are proof of the rapid disintegration of the main political parties.
Nine SLFP MPs (elected from the SLPP) were sworn in as State Ministers on Thursday (08), when President Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed 27 State Ministers. Two SLFP seniors are already in the Cabinet—Nimal Siripala de Silva and Mahinda Amaraweera. The SJB has also lost some of its MPs to the government. Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara have accepted Cabinet posts, and Aravindh Kumar was sworn in as a State Minister, the other day.
The SLPP, which won over a dozen MPs from the Opposition, especially the SJB and the SLFP, to retain a working majority in the House, has lost over 40 of its MPs, who have chosen to remain independent in the parliament. There are two groups of SLPP dissidents; one is now in the ULS and the other is led by Dullas Alhapperuma.
Future of SL political parties
Sri Lankan political parties are no strangers to breakaways and crossovers. All of them have experienced ups and downs including debilitating splits. This is true of political parties across the world.
The SLFP was born as an offshoot of the UNP, and crossovers have brought down governments in this country. An SLFP government fell in 1964 due to defections in protest against the Lake House takeover. The SLFP-led People’s Alliance collapsed in 2001 also due to mass crossovers. The SLFP-led United Front government also suffered a crippling split in 2014, and lost power the following year, as a result. On all those occasions, the main Opposition parties succeeded in offering alternatives, winning public confidence, and forming governments to prevent political instability from setting in. But the situation is different today due to increasing disillusionment of the public with the political parties and politicians. It is doubtful whether any party or an alliance will be able to restore public confidence in the current political system and/or secure a working majority in the next parliament. This augurs ill for democracy and warrants the attention of all political and civil society leaders.
The government has chosen to postpone the local government elections, some of which were due about two years ago, as it fears to face an electoral contest owing to a decline in its approval ratings. Its unpopularity is not likely to translate into votes for the Opposition parties, if public anger at the entire political system is any indication. Voter apathy is likely to be a huge problem at the next election. Speculation is rife that many people will cancel their votes by way of protest against the political parties and their leaders.
In other countries, there have emerged new alternatives to established political parties as in the case of France. How will the Sri Lankan public give vent to their frustration and resentment? Will they overtake political parties and stage leaderless mass uprisings for want of a better alternative? Will either the current administration or a future government be able to act in such a way as to restore the people’s trust in the mainstream political parties? The erosion of public trust is an insidious enemy of democracy, and is fraught with the danger of plunging countries into anarchy. Instead of focusing on this serious problem, the established political parties and their leaders are trying to consolidate their positions either in their parties or in the parliament.
