Tensions in the SLFP have come to a head, and a purge of sorts has begun. Some dissidents including former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK) have been suspended from the party, others being Nimal Siripala de Silva (former Senior Vice President), Mahinda Amaraweera (former Senior Vice President), Ranjith Siyambalapitya (former Vice President), Shantha Bandara (former Propaganda Secretary), Lasantha Alagiyawanna (former Treasurer), Suren Ragawan (former Vice President), Chamara Sampath (former Vice President) and Jagath Pushpakumara (former Deputy Secretary). All of them save CBK are MPs, and they have defied the party leadership and thrown in their lot with the SLPP-UNP government. They are currently holding ministerial posts.
MPs Shan Wijayalal Silva and A. Ramanathan, and former Minister Fiaizer Mustapha have been appointed Senior Vice Presidents of the party, according to SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera. Former MP Thilanga Sumathipala has been appointed the General Secretary of the SLFP-led United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA).
The SLFP’s next move is not difficult to guess. Earlier, it took a long time for disciplinary inquiries against SLFP members to be concluded and action taken, but thanks to some radical changes that former President Maithripala Sirisena introduced to the party’s constitution a couple of months ago, the party can now make short work of its dissidents. So, the SLFP is likely to expedite disciplinary inquiries against the suspended dissidents with a view to sacking them and thereby depriving them of their parliamentary seats. This, however, is a tall order because the rebel MPs can make use of a judicial precedent, which has stood crossovers in good stead over the years.
Sirisena learns from Ranil
Ironically Sirisena, who successfully ran for President in 2015, claiming that his mission was to restore democracy and law and order in the country, among other things, now stands accused of having throttled the SLFP’s internal democracy and running the party with an iron fist. He and his erstwhile Yahapalana partner, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is also the leader of the UNP, may not see eye to eye on many things, but the former has taken a leaf out of the latter’s book on how to control the SLFP. Wickremesinghe keeps the UNP Working Committee under his thumb and uses it as a rubber stamp. That is how he has retained the party leadership all these years despite numerous setbacks the UNP has suffered under his stewardship, and attempts to oust him. Having changed the party constitution, Sirisena can make the party’s Central Committee do his bidding.
CBK is sure to fight back. This is not the first time she has been removed from the party, which her late father founded. In the early 1980s, she and her late husband Vijaya Kumaratunga were smoked out of the SLFP; they voted with their feet and formed the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP). Subsequently, she had to leave the SLMP following her husband’s assassination in 1988. She formed the Bahujana Nidahas Peramuna in 1991 before returning to the SLFP’s fold two years later. She became the Chief Minister of the Western Province in 1993, Prime Minister in August 1994 and President, three months later. She led the SLFP until 2005.
It was not easy for CBK to let go of the SLFP membership. In fact, she would have held on to it if not for the election of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President in 2005. After being installed as the President, Mahinda ousted her and had himself appointed the party leader by amending the SLFP’s constitution. The constitutional amendment he introduced stipulated that if an SLFP member secured the Executive Presidency he or she should be the party leader. Sirisena, who benefited from that amendment after winning the presidential election in 2015, changed the party constitution, in September 2022, to consolidate his hold on the party. Thus, he outmanoeuvred those who tried to remove him as the SLFP leader on the grounds that he was no longer the President.
Sirisena’s battles with CBK
Sirisena has scores to settle with CBK, who, he says, short-changed him when she was the President. He was denied his due place in the party, as he says in his biography, Aththai Saththai, where he reveals that in 2000, CBK had him believe that he would be appointed the General Secretary of the SLFP, but went back on her word; initially, there were no contenders for that post, but at the eleventh hour, S. B. Dissanayake threw his hat into the ring, and with the help of CBK became the party’s General Secretary. But the following year, Dissanayake defected to the UNP, and Sirisena was appointed to that post.
There are said to be neither permanent friends nor permanent enemies in politics. In 2014, CBK capitalized on differences between Sirisena and the then President Rajapaksa, whom she wanted to remove from power in retaliation for his hostile actions against her. She together with UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, several other political leaders and civil society activists such as Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera persuaded Sirisena to come forward to challenge President Rajapaksa in the 2015 presidential race. CBK’s plan was to oust Mahinda with the help of Sirisena and regain the SLFP leadership. She and other Yahapalana leaders expected Sirisena to maintain a very low profile and fade away after realizing his presidential dream, but they were in for a surprise. In a turn of events that they never expected, he grabbed SLFP leadership and refused to be bossed around by those who had helped him secure the presidency. Sobitha Thera went so far as to criticize him in public.
SLFP dissidents’ options
CBK has found a trusted ally in SJB MP Kumara Welgama, who is against both the Rajapaksas and Sirisena. He has founded the Nawa Lanka Freedom Party (NLFP) as an alternative to the SLFP. Welgama is launching scathing attacks on Sirisena, and calls himself a real SLFPer. He is likely to rejoin the SLFP, given half a chance. He and CBK are all out to undermine Sirisena in the SLFP and oust him from the party. Now that CBK and other SLFP dissidents have been suspended, they will have to change their strategy.
The SLFP MPs who have been suspended pending disciplinary inquiries will be in a dilemma come the local government elections, which are expected to held early next year; they will not be able to have candidates of their choice fielded, and that will affect their support bases with their loyalists siding with new organizers to be appointed in a bid to secure nominations. This seems to be Sirisena’s game plan. The suspended MPs cannot join any other party because if they do so, there will be enough legal grounds for Sirisena to have them sacked. They may opt to support the NLFP unofficially for want of a better alternative.
Future of the SLFP
The SLFP is no stranger to internecine conflicts and crippling splits. No political party has been free from internal disputes and breakaways in this country. In fact, the SLFP was born out of a conflict in the UNP; S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and several others including D. A. Rajapaksa broke away from the UNP in 1951 to found it.
The first leadership struggle in the SLFP emerged in the early 1980s, when the party suffered a rift with Anura Bandaranaike leading the right-wing faction. CBK held leftist views. SLFP leader and former Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike favoured her. Anura had been fighting with his mother, Sirimavo, over the party leadership. He was supported by Mahinda who was a defeated MP at that time. When CBK rejoined the SLFP in 1993, Anura defected to the UNP and became a Cabinet minister under President D. B. Wijetunga, who had succeeded President Ranasinghe Premadasa, was assassinated by the LTTE on May 01, 1993.
Sirisena, who entered the parliament for the first time by contesting the 1989 general election sided with Sirimavo, and then CBK. He was among the SLFP MPs who were instrumental in bringing CBK back to the SLFP’s fold amidst protests from Mahinda and other SLFP stalwarts, who had fallen out with CBK and were close to Anura.
The suspension of so many MPs and CBK is bound to adversely impact the SLFP. Sirisena is accused of trying to establish a political dynasty with his son, Daham, being groomed as the next party leader. Politicians are ambitious by nature and that is why they have taken to power politics. Sirisena fell out with the Rajapaksas in 2014 because he had failed to realize his prime ministerial ambitions. Likewise, there are other SLFP seniors who are eyeing the presidency or the premiership. If they feel that their path is blocked, they will be frustrated; they may even rebel against Sirisena.
