Morning after May Day: Towards Sri Lanka’s first leftwing government?

The first and most important takeaway from May Day 2022 was that President Gotabaya, Prime Minister Mahinda and the ruling party have no political support base left and no capacity to make any moves of political significance which mean anything on the ground

Within the Aragalaya a clear pre-eminence is accorded to Gota’s ouster on grounds ranging from misplaced arrogance in style of governance, through dangerously wild irrationality in decision-making (the fertiliser issue) to allegations of extra-judicial lethality. PsyOps succeeded solely within the governing bloc and the Buddhist hierarchy. It is almost certainly impossible for the Pohottuwa to continue in effective governance and management of the country. It is adding to the overall dysfunctionality. The System is gridlocked and breaking down. The situation is building up to a perfect storm

“It is a very pitiable situation in Sri Lanka…” – DMK MP Elangovan (ANI report)

Though the root of the crisis is economic, the portal to the solution is political. Which country, international institution or corporate conglomerate is likely to readily lend to, assist, or invest in a Sri Lanka led by Gotabaya Rajapaksa whose departure is being demanded by 90% of the island’s citizenry (going by more than one opinion poll), as well as in unprecedented demonstrations by Sri Lankans in all corners of the planet including those domiciled in the 50 states of the USA (and writing to their Congressional representatives)? 

A victory for the Aragalaya, a heroic story in the international media and a desirable model in the global struggle of democracy against autocracy, can romantically re-enchant the world with this island and its people, re-brand Sri Lanka, and ensure much greater goodwill, translated into economic support on easier terms.

This makes early elections the prerequisite for political, social and economic stabilisation, as senior JVP personality KD Lal Kantha has repeatedly emphasised recently. 

The Movement and the Opposition should supplement their Gota Go Home demand, with an insistence on early elections and a legislative amendment that removes impediments to them.   

Whackocracy

The State Government of Tamil Nadu made a gift of rice and medicines to the people of Sri Lanka. It was a commendably generous gesture of neighbourly solidarity which must not be forgotten.

Gota will go down in history (and the constantly updated Mahavamsa) as the disastrous leader whose insane fertiliser ban caused the proud people of this island to be reduced to recipients of a charitable contribution of rice from a (once hostile) neighbouring state unit of a neighbouring country; rice being our staple food-grain that we were self-sufficient in, often had a surplus of, and occasionally sold or gifted to other countries.      

Gota’s gotta go because his administration is not merely an autocracy or even a kleptocracy, but an outright whackocracy.

May Day 2022

Mahinda Rajapaksa and Vasudeva Nanayakkara would recall the ruling United Front coalition’s May Day parade of 1977, two months before the electoral landside of the General Election that buried it for 17 years. It was pretty large. 

This year, the ruling SLPP coalition had a paltry May Day gathering at Nugegoda, with neither President nor Prime Minister on the stage, and at which speakers were heckled by their own followers. Gamani Lokuge mumbled about a Catholic plot manifested in the Galle Face Aragalaya. Dinesh Gunawardena shrieked, defending a downward-spiralling government. 

In 2015 February, mere weeks after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s defeat and in his absence, I addressed a gathering at the same venue, reading out Mahinda’s message. The crowd, suffering the shock of defeat not the benefits of incumbency, was at least 10 times larger than in 2022 and pulsating in its collective spirit. 

The SLFP doesn’t seem to know if it is in a recomposed ‘all-parties government’ or out. It had two May Day manifestations, one at the party headquarters, the other in Polonnaruwa. Why everyone wasn’t in Polonnaruwa, beats me.  

Wimal Weerawansa was on his own, addressing the most modest public gathering of his political career while the JVP, the party he once was the star speaker of, held four events, three of which were massive. Vasudeva Nanayakkara, the LSSP and the CPSL had yet another modest rally. 

Jeevan Thondaman addressing a rally which was nothing like the scale of his grandfather’s (I have a childhood memory of the hills and valleys full of people, shouting “Thonda-maan! Thonda-maan!”), nonetheless made a most significant announcement: he was sundering his relationship with the Rajapaksas.  

The first and most important takeaway from May Day 2022 was that President Gotabaya, Prime Minister Mahinda and the ruling party have no political support base left and no capacity to make any moves of political significance which mean anything on the ground. All they have is control over the State administration and the military. Their stooge MPs may shout in Parliament, but (Roshan Ranatunga’s token gathering in Polonnaruwa apart), they have no capacity for significant political mobilisation. On the ground they are weaker than the UNP of Feb 2018 and becoming the UNP of 2020. 

The irreversible contrast between their political near-extinction on the ground and their numbers in parliament is a dangerous asymmetry which will wreck the entire system unless an early national election is held. 

May Day 2022 constitutes a crucial datum for any ambitious military man or grouping that could be toying with intervention. How can they intervene in favour of, or enter a power-sharing equation with a President, ruling clan or party that has completely lost popularity and political base? The counterview may be that the military can intervene to oust them and then stay on in power as an ‘interim government’ of the usual interminable sort. That wouldn’t really work either, given the massive, diverse Oppositional forces and energetic social commitment on display on May Day 2022. The People and the country cannot be occupied by the military. 

Mahinda Rajapaksa went from Lion King to Mynah all by himself, thanks to his uncharacteristically confrontational address to the nation and wicked treatment of the demonstrators camped outside Temple Trees. But there is a mystery as to how Mahinda and Basil became the main targets within the governing bloc itself while Gota remained and still remains the main enemy as far the people and the Aragalaya are concerned

Mynah matter 

Mahinda Rajapaksa went from Lion King to Mynah all by himself, thanks to his uncharacteristically confrontational address to the nation and wicked treatment of the demonstrators camped outside Temple Trees. But there is a mystery as to how Mahinda and Basil became the main targets within the governing bloc itself while Gota remained and still remains the main enemy as far the people and the Aragalaya are concerned. 

The all-parties/interim administration idea is a lead balloon because the Street wants Gota gone, and that is because everyone beginning with millions of farmers and extending to the global media knows that the economic catastrophe is primarily Gota’s fault. 

Basil’s place in history is assured by his ‘kaputas’ tale and the musical chant turned instantly recognisable car-horn toot that followed it. After the kaputas, he was kaput. 

The protests did not abate but only grew after Basil’s ouster and the induction of a new economic team. That is because the Movement knew that without Gota—who was primarily responsible—gone, nothing could really change, improve.

Given that the Aragalaya which keeps growing, primarily wants Gota gone, how come that within the Pohottuwa, its erstwhile allies the SLFP led 11 party Group of 40, and influential circles of the Buddhist clergy, the main slogan became the replacement of Mahinda Rajapaksa as PM? 

We witness the surreal sight of a few political parties seated around the table, discussing with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa – the Aragalaya’s Public Enemy No. 1—the establishment of a new government under him with all his existing powers, but minus his brother, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is a symbol of derision in the nationwide demonstrations, but not the primary hate-figure as President GR is.              

It is almost as if a team whose professional training includes PsyOps—psychological warfare operations—has been in action, diverting the issue away from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, firstly to Basil Rajapaksa and then to Mahinda Rajapaksa. 

Within the Aragalaya a clear pre-eminence is accorded to Gota’s ouster on grounds ranging from misplaced arrogance in style of governance, through dangerously wild irrationality in decision-making (the fertiliser issue) to allegations of extra-judicial lethality. PsyOps succeeded solely within the governing bloc and the Buddhist hierarchy. It is almost certainly impossible for the Pohottuwa to continue in effective governance and management of the country. It is adding to the overall dysfunctionality. The System is gridlocked and breaking down. The situation is building up to a perfect storm.  

FSP 

The May Day mobilisations revealed four effective and dynamic formations. In no specific ranking of importance, the four formations are:

1. The non-party-political space: Galle Face/GotaGoGama, the ‘autonomist’ Aragalaya. 

2. The SJB: the main parliamentary Opposition. 

3. The JVP: the mainstream left; the biggest extra-parliamentary force. 

4. The FSP: the radical New Left.

The FSP has a sincere, effective cadre and leaders but no large mass base, except for the university student base which is more of a ‘shock brigade’. The FSP is “the small motor that sets the large motor going” (Regis Debray). Given the youth-driven character of the Aragalaya, the FSP has a special role in the Galle Face mobilisation due to its solid influence in the Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF) and its courageous leader Wasantha Mudalige. Duminda Navagamuwa is the only political personality with a ready platform there, though the JVP’s Wasantha Samarasinghe addressed the GotaGoGama recently.

If the Aragalaya/GotaGoGama constituency forms itself into a political movement and runs for office (as my wife Sanja has suggested in print elsewhere), and the FSP and IUSF are open-minded enough to fuse with or at least be an important stakeholder in it, the moment is coming for an Autonomist New Left to make a political breakthrough.  

Insofar as the SJB is being twisted to the centre-right by a small coterie, away from its natural social democratic, developmental-presidentialist project, it is more, rather than less likely to be pipped to the post in a parliamentary election by the JVP-NPP. Conversely, to the degree that the SJB returns to its social democratic, Premadasa-ist project, it is the only bulwark against the election to office of an untested leftwing JVP which still holds that the Open Economy of 1977 was the fount of all economic evil

JVP-NPP vs. SJB

This leaves the two obvious mainstream rivals for governmental power: the SJB and the JVP-NPP. Electoral politics – please note ‘electoral’ –today, is not between an SLPP/Pohottuwa and the SJB, as the SJB seems to think. The ruling party is in inevitable, accelerating decline. The upcoming fight is between two rising forces: the SJB and the JVP-NPP. 

The JVP-NPP’s mobilisation on May Day 2022 was quite an achievement. It staged four events, three being massive and the fourth being a symbolically significant indoor event at the Veerasingham Hall, Jaffna. It takes an organisational and logistical capacity that no other party on the island has, to simultaneously pull off the three demonstrations in Colombo, Matara and Anuradhapura. Anuradhapura was especially impressive. 

It was the party’s founder Rohana Wijeweera who introduced the model of ‘diversely distributed yet simultaneous uprisings’, and gave the party the perspective and organisational capacity for such an undertaking even in peaceful politics. The current leaders of the party – especially the mature, experienced KD Lal Kantha—have very ably built the mass movement which makes that model operable. 

The conventional Centre-Right will say that the marchers in left mobilisations do not translate into votes and that the silent majority will vote for the centre-right which can fix the economy rather for the untested left. 

This patronising, complacent liberal elitist establishment interpretation overlooks key factors: 

1. The importance of the JVP’s May Day demonstrations not as ‘marchers equal voters’, but as ‘marchers equal door-to-door campaigners’ in the electoral ground game. No party has the dedicated political army that the JVP-NPP has. 

2. The results of elections in a swathe of Latin American states against the backdrop of economic crisis, described as Pink Tide 2.0. (e.g., Chile)

3. Elections will be against the backdrop not only of current economic pain but of future economic pain resulting from IMF austerity. Voters won’t go primarily with who can bring the macroeconomy back into the world, but who can protect them from the painful measures which may be forced through for economic crimes the people did not commit. Voters will recall gung-ho cheerleaders for the IMF, and they sure weren’t JVP-NPP.

4. The liberal Right forced through a commitment to the abolition of the executive presidency which was the main advantage the SJB had/has—with opinion polls (IHP) showing Sajith Premadasa noticeably ahead of Anura Kumara Dissanayake. 

5. The SJB’s liberal Right also pushed for the adoption of an agenda of ‘economic and political liberalism’ in contrast to President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s ‘economic, political and social democracy’ when the SJB’s comparative advantage over the JVP+NPP is/would be the credible pledge and prospect of the revival of the Premadasa development project and a replay of the rapid economic recovery of 1989 in the midst of civil wars and intervention. 

In a period of normalcy, stability and prosperity especially in the West, liberal-conservative centre-right parties tend to beat leftist or left-liberal ones. The UK which has a disproportionate grip on the imagination of the Sri Lankan centre-right, is a classic example, with the many failures of the Labour Party except for Tony Blair’s interlude, and the many successes of the Conservatives. But Sri Lanka is not the UK. Even in the USA, Joe Biden and the Democrats adopted a Rooseveltian-Keynesian New Deal to win in an economic crisis.

In the political history of the Western hemisphere, the Communist or Marxist-Leninist Left has been beaten electorally or outmanoeuvred by Social Democracy rather than Christian Democracy or the liberal-conservative Centre-Right. (That’s how Kissinger de-radicalised the Portuguese Revolution). 

Even in the case of Greece—and in an about turn which I condemn, in support of the position of Yanis Varoufakis—the implementation of the EU program over the debt crisis took the leftwing Syriza and its young PM Alexis Tsipras. It could not have been done by the conservative Centre-Right. 

Insofar as the SJB is being twisted to the centre-right by a small coterie, away from its natural social democratic, developmental-presidentialist project, it is more, rather than less likely to be pipped to the post in a parliamentary election by the JVP-NPP. Conversely, to the degree that the SJB returns to its social democratic, Premadasa-ist project, it is the only bulwark against the election to office of an untested leftwing JVP which still holds that the Open Economy of 1977 was the fount of all economic evil.       

The politico-electoral question is whether or not, in the vortex of the crisis, Sri Lanka will elect its first ever leftwing administration or its second ever leftwing Opposition (Dr. N.M. Perera in 1960). On present form, the JVP-NPP will either be the Government, or, more likely and more sensibly, the main Opposition. The SJB too will either be the Government, the main party in a governing coalition, or the main Opposition. 

If the Executive Presidency still stands, it is far better to have Sajith Premadasa and the SJB in office than the JVP-NPP, because he can replicate what Prof. Howard Nicholas flags in his important interview given to Kusum Wijetilleke, and Prof. Lakshman Watawala recounts in his recent address to a large conclave of professionals: President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s miraculously swift revival of the economy in the midst of two civil wars and firm adoption of an export-led industrialisation strategy/model. 

With the exception of a handful of critical commentators, all discussions of politics in Sri Lanka ignore the powerful Sri Lankan military, which is like discussing – or worse, playing—the Game of Thrones, ignoring the dragon in the cavernous basement. 

In Sri Lanka the outcome will be decided by whether the military intervenes and on whose side, or whether it remains neutral. That decision will not be helped by the injection of opinions into the democratic discourse such as that of Dr. Paikiaysothy Saravanamuttu who writes in these pages that “…military…De-mobilisation is long overdue.” That’s exactly the kind of liberalism that mortally endangers liberal-democracy. 

The SJB’s Chairperson, Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka, a heroic figure who has earned national respect for a historic contribution, may succeed in keeping the military neutral and buffer Sri Lankan democracy from a Myanmar fate. A Sajith Premadasa-Sarath Fonseka ticket can give the SJB the strategic edge.