NPP vs. NPP

by Vishvanath

Leader of the House and Minister Bimal Ratnayake was at his oratorical best in the parliament on Tuesday, lashing out as he did at the Opposition. In his address replete with banter, rhetoric and barbs, in equal measure, he said the parties in the Opposition would never be able to return to power at least for the next 10 years, and the NPP considered its rivals in the House an asset paradoxical as it sounded, for they posed no challenge whatsoever to the government on any front. Tainted as his claim was with hyperbole and rhetoric, it was not without some truth. The JVP-led NPP government secured the passage of its maiden budget at the second reading vote with a two-thirds majority. The Opposition could muster only 46 votes against it.

It may be argued that supermajorities alone do not ensure the stability of governments, and nothing is so certain as the unexpected in politics. In 2022, the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government became a lame duck two years after its formation despite having a two-thirds majority in the parliament. The NPP, which had only three parliamentary seats, rose to power a little over two years later. However, the present government is not facing the same challenges as the Gotabaya administration. Its mammoth victory in last year’s general election is still fresh.

The Opposition has been able to make the government squirm by winning a considerable number of cooperative societies by defeating the NPP in elections to them, and is carrying out an effective propaganda onslaught against the government, but much more needs to be done if it is to turn the tables on the NPP. It is not clear whether the propaganda mileage the Opposition, especially the SJB, has gained, will translate into an increase in popular support for it to improve its electoral performance. Only the outcome of the upcoming local government (LG) elections will reveal whether the government is losing ground and the Opposition is regaining popular support.

Minister Ratnayake said in the parliament, tongue in cheek, the Opposition parties would have to emulate the NPP and beat the latter at its own game if they were to make a comeback. They were forging ahead in the wrong direction, he said. He cannot be expected to be truthful, and the strategy the NPP adopted to capture power is not without problems. It worked owing to public disillusionment with the parties that had been in power since Independence alternately and their offshoots. The biggest challenge before the NPP government is to live up to the people’s expectations it raised immeasurably to win elections, last year, and justify the numerous ideological contradictions its policy U-turns have resulted in, and its unfulfilled campaign promises. In fact, what the NPP said and did, while in opposition, is boomeranging on it thanks to the digital realm, where everything gets stored and becomes easily accessible.

The most formidable threat to the NPP on the political front emanates not from the Opposition, which is still in disarray, but from its own past, especially the pre-presidential phase of it. This could be considered the political version of an autoimmune disease. Social media is full of videos containing speeches made by the NPP/JVP politicians, enunciating their policies during their Opposition days, and they run counter to what they are doing at present. Some anti-government activists recirculate those old video clips to mislead the public into thinking that some NPP MPs are criticizing their own government. A video where NPP MP Nilanthi Kottahatchchi berates the previous government for a surge in crime, without naming it, when she was in the Opposition, has been re-posted to give the impression that she is being critical of the present administration for its failure to stem the rising crime wave. She says a government which cannot ensure public security is not worth its salt. Another video where Anura Kumara Dissanayake, as an opposition politician, flays the leaders of the previous administrations mercilessly for visiting places of worship, such as the Dalada Maligawa, Sri Maha Bodhi, and religious prelates, with camera crews in tow, has been coupled with a video of Dissanayake visiting the same places and the same prelates and speaking to the media after such visits. Videos of JVP/NPP leaders lambasting the IMF and vowing to upend its programs, during their opposition days, are also doing the rounds on social media these days. In another video of a pre-election social media interview Sunil Handunnetti, tells his interviewer that under an NPP government the MPs would not be provided with houses and vehicles by the state and they would have to find their own accommodation and travel in buses and trains like the public. He says the MPs must not be given anything that the public did not have and asks his interviewer to play the video back if the NPP reneged on its pledge! The NPP MPs are staying in the MPs’ housing scheme, Madiwela, all MPs are to be provided with vehicles. And, the video in question is being recirculated; it is attracting many hits.

It is as certain as the night follows the day that the government will have its budget passed with a two-thirds majority next month after the committee-stage review. The NPP is also very likely to bag a majority of local councils in the upcoming LG polls. But whether it will be smooth sailing for the government thereafter depends on multiple factors, the main being its conduct, economic management, and the fulfilment of its key campaign promises. Politics is like Snakes and Ladders; it is full of ups and downs, which are unpredictable. Whoever would have thought a party with just three seats would turn tables on the SLPP government which had a two-thirds majority and was led by a popular President?

Fatal accidents are said to occur when roads are empty because motorists become complacent. Mighty governments tend to act similarly when they do not see their political rivals in their rearview mirrors, and the going is smooth. When they lose self-control and act recklessly, owing to overconfidence and the arrogance of power, the way the Rajapaksa governments did, they become their own enemies. They throw caution to the wind, make blunders, antagonize the public, underestimate the strength of their political rivals, flounder and collapse, with or without Opposition pressure. One may recall that the UNP could win a meagre 17 parliamentary seats in the 1970 general election as opposed to the SLFP-led United Front’s 118 (a two-thirds majority). But seven years later, the UNP obtained a two-thirds majority in the Parliament and its rule lasted for 17 years from 1977 to 1994. That was because the SLFP led front ruined things for itself big-time. This is a testament to the fickleness of politics and the surprises it throws up.