Nationalistic forces clawing their way up
by Vishvanath
The JVP-led NPP government has chosen to tread cautiously although it was expected to get off to a flying start. This may be due to the steep learning curve it is facing, among other things. It seems to have realized that the going is tougher than expected, and navigating issues of governance is much more difficult than backseat driving it practiced for decades. However, it has not experienced the problems all its predecessors faced over ministerial appointments; some NPP MPs who failed to realize their ministerial ambitions may be disgruntled, but they are not grumbling. President Anura Kumara Dissanayake is firmly in control of his party. The JVP may not be as Marxist as it used to be, but its centralism and rigid discipline have stood the NPP government in good stead. The other political parties represented in the parliament are not that lucky; they are experiencing internal problems over their National List (NL) appointments.
The allocation of 29 NL seats in the current parliament is as follows: NPP – 18, SJB – 5, NDF – 2, SLPP – 1, ITAK – 1, Saravajana Balaya – 1 and the SLMC 1. The SJB and the NDF have been struggling to finalize their NL appointments due to their defeated candidates and constituents demanding slots. Ravi Karunanayake (UNP) has grabbed one of the UNP-led NDF’s two NL seats amidst protests from other UNP seniors. NDF General Secretary Sharmila Perera and Karunanayake have been friends since they were on the staff of the late DUNF leader Lalith Athulathmudali, and the UNP has turned hostile towards Sharmila, whom it accuses of having submitted Karunanayake’s name to the Election Commission as a DUNF NL MP, without the concurrence of the other constituents. Sharmila says she informed UNP leader and former President Ranil Wickremesinghe of Karunanayake’s appointment and there has been no wrongdoing. Now, even the SLFP is staking a claim to the remaining NDF NL seat on the grounds that it is a coalition partner. Former Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva is among the SLFPers eyeing that post.
The NPP and the ITAK have appointed defeated candidates to the parliament via the NL, and it is being argued in some quarters that the NDF should appoint its defeated candidate, Kanchana Wijesekera, as he is capable of standing up to the government in the parliament.
The SJB is wavering, unable to appoint its NL MPs. It has been able to appoint only its General Secretary Ranjtih Madduma Bandara to Parliament. Dozens of its seniors are jousting for the remaining four slots, and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa finds himself in an unenviable position. He is under pressure to make a firm decision without dilly-dallying. His indecisiveness is likely to be used against him. Some political commentators have argued that there is a cold war in the SJB over the post of the Opposition Leader, and it is likely to come to a head with the passage of time.
The manner in which NL appointments have been made over the years is one of the reasons for the erosion of public trust in the parliament. Almost all political parties have misused the NL to appoint their leaders’ favorites to the parliament, and this practice has met with public disapproval because some of those whom electors do not consider fit enough to represent them become NL MPs.
The purpose of the NL, as spelt out by its proponents, is to accommodate in the parliament eminent persons with experience and expertise in their chosen fields, who are averse to hustings, and ensuring representation for groups who lack the numerical strength to elect their own MPs. Today, it is used by political parties to appoint their senior members who are wary of facing elections, defeated candidates, and other favorites of party leaders, who even engineer NL vacancies to circumvent Article 99A of the Constitution, which allows only NL nominees and defeated candidates to be appointed as MPs.
There has been a split in the nationalistic forces, and a vast majority of those who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa in the 2019 presidential election and for the SLPP in the 2020 parliamentary polls, have thrown their weight behind the NPP, making its stunning electoral victories possible. However, the nationalists loyal to the SLPP and the Rajapaksa family, seem to have found a rallying point despite their recent defeats.
The ongoing uproar over the commemoration of slain LTTE leaders in the North and the East is not something the NPP may have bargained for. Such commemorative events were held under previous governments as well but on a low key due to police action against them. This year their organizers of thoseceremonies amped up their activities maybe in the hope that the new government would be lenient. The SLPP members and dissidents, such as Wimal Weerawansa, have seized the opportunity to accuse the government of leniency towards separatists and call for action to prevent what they call the revival of separatism. They have also used the removal of an army camp in the North to buttress their argument that the NPP has subjugated national security to its political agenda. Whether they will succeed in rallying adequate popular support for their campaign significantly remains to be seen, but they are sure to use it to boost their efforts to recover lost ground. They have stepped up social media attacks on the government, claiming that national security is in jeopardy.
The NPP government finds itself on a kind of sticky wicket in respect of the activities of some pro-LTTE groups in Sri Lanka. It cannot go all out to prevent the LTTE events camouflaged as commemorations lest it should be lumped together with the UNP, the SLFP and the SLPP and branded a party of Sinhala hardliners; at the same time, it cannot say anything openly in justification of why it has opted to act with restraint in tackling the issue at hand. Its vote bank consists mostly of those who voted for the SLPP in the 2019 presidential election and in the 2020 parliamentary polls, and two more elections are slated for 2025. Unless it handles issues concerning national security and separatism carefully, it might experience an erosion of its vote base, depending on the effectiveness of the SLPP’s campaign to catapult national security to the centre state of politics again.
