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| Sunday, 18 January 2004 |
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Back to the social democratic middle ground Sunday essay by Ajith Samaranayake
The alliance between the PA and JVP which is to be sealed on January 20 will introduce a new configuration of political forces into Sri Lanka's already confused and befuddled political scene. This alliance will be politically significant for two reasons. For one it will continue the tradition of coalitions between the SLFP and left parties begun by the late Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike in 1956 and continued by the late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. For another the PA-JVP alliance will hopefully convert this kind of coalition politics in a different direction. In the past, the alliances between the SLFP and the LSSP and the CP were viewed by suspicious foreign commentators as leading to a socialist control over Sri Lanka and therefore anathema to western liberal democracy. However, the present alliance holds out hopes of a return to social democracy and the incorporation of the JVP, the most hard-line Sinhala based radical political party of the South, into the mainstream of national politics. The history of Left-liberal coalitions itself offers an interesting case study. Just before the General Election of 1956 Prime Minister Bandaranaike came to an alliance with several forces primary of which was the VLSSP of Mr. Philip Gunawardene. That was basically an alliance between the emerging Sinhala nationalism personified by Mr. Bandaranaike and the socialism represented by Mr. Gunawardene. Whatever the critics might say that combination ushered in radical social and political changes and history will judge whether it was for good or bad. That alliance between Mr. Bandaranaike and Mr. Gunawardene was wrecked by unseen forces which finally led to the assassination of the Prime Minister himself. So charged with emotion was the political scene of that time, that Mrs. Bandaranaike contesting the 1960 July general election as the SLFP's candidate for Prime Minister charged that Dr. N. M. Perera, the LSSP leader had all but killed her husband. ("Mage Samiya Nomara Maruwe NM"). But by 1963, Mrs. Bandaranaike was compelled by the rightwing assault on her government to enter into a coalition with the LSSP with that same Dr. N. M. Perera as her Finance Minister. After the defeat of that coalition government in March, 1965 by Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake, Mrs. Bandaranaike went on to consolidate a United Front with her own SLFP, the LSSP and the CP which swept into power in May 1970 with a two thirds majority in Parliament. That was again an alliance between the SLFP, widely perceived to be a nationalist, left of centre political party and the two socialist parties, the LSSP and the CP. This government however, was widely misinterpreted in western political circles as a radical socialist government whereas its intention was to push through a Social Democratic agenda which was in consonance with the aspirations of the Third World of that time. What is more this monster of a so-called Socialist Government came under challenge for the first time in Sri Lanka's history, from an armed group styling itself as Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna and it is a historical irony that this same JVP should now, 33 years later enter into a formal alliance with the SLFP against which it once took up arms. There are some more ironies at work here for in 1971, the JVP berated the LSSP and the CP for having betrayed the cause of socialism and forming an alliance with the SLFP. Now 33 years after with the LSSP and the CP being truncated the JVP itself has emerged as the dominant player on the Left political scene and following in the footsteps of its historical predecessors entered an alliance with the same SLFP. However, times have changed. The 1970-1977 period was a time when there was still hope on the Left that socialism would triumph. That was the time when Dr. N. M. Perera as Finance Minister could talk about taking over the commanding heights of the economy and Dr. Colvin R. de Silva could nationalise the British-owned tea plantations. But came 1977 and President J. R. Jayewardene's open market economy which irrevocably incorporated Sri Lanka into the global capitalist system to which every government since including President Kumaratunga's has had to defer. It is in such a conjuncture that the JVP joins the SLFP in an alliance. There are two possibilities here. For one thing, the JVP will be called upon to re-examine its economic thinking and attune it more to the dominant economics of the time just as it will be called upon to rethink its rigid outlook on the ethnic problem. At the same time, the SLFP which could well have got rather complacent and flabby in government will be called upon to take up a more rigorous approach to politics particularly in the area of political agitation and mass education. Interesting as these developments are in the New Year what do they denote for the country as a whole? With the power relationships between the President and Prime Minister still not resolved, this new development will also call upon the United National Front Government to rethink its own positions in relation to several key areas of national life. But most important it will represent a new balance of forces which hopefully will take Sri Lanka back to a social democratic middle ground and it will be no exaggeration to say that the country's future during this most crucial period in her history will depend on how the dominant political forces will respond to the unfolding scenario. |
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