Sri
Lankan Election Produces
A Hung Parliament
And Further Political Instability
By K.Ratnayake
06 April 2004
World Socialist Website
The
Sri Lankan election held last Friday has resulted in an indecisive outcome
that can only lead to further political volatility. While President
Chandrika Kumaratungas United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA)
boosted its position in the 225-seat parliament at the expense of the
United National Front (UNF), no party or alliance has an absolute majority.
On February 7, Kumaratunga
precipitated the elections by ousting the UNF government in order to
resolve the ongoing standoff with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
over the conduct of peace talks with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE). But far from resolving the bitter factional conflict within
Colombos ruling elites, the poll has only served to intensify
the political crisis.
In a desperate bid
to bolster the flagging credibility of her own Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP), Kumaratunga forged a coalition with the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna
(JVP)a party that is based on a reactionary mixture of Sinhala
communalism and populist demagogy. The UPFA was formally registered
as a political party just one day before the government was sacked.
In the election,
the UPFA won 105 seats. The major beneficiary, however, was not the
SLFP, but the JVP. It more than doubled its parliamentary presence 16
to 40 seats, topping the preference lists in a number of electoral districts,
ahead of leading SLFP figures. It is now in a position to demand strong
representation in any UPFA cabinet. The SLFP, on the other hand, lost
grounddropping from 77 seats to just over 60.
The SLFPs
other alliesthe Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist
Party (CP)have no gains at all. These old workers parties were
virtually obliterated at the 2001 election. The CP has won just one
seat, while the LSSP, which contested three, is yet to win any.
The JVPs inclusion
in government for the first time can only heighten political tensions.
Despite the UPFAs claims that it will abide by the ceasefire and
restart talks with the LTTE, the JVPs hostility to any concessions
to the Tamil minority threatens to scuttle the peace process
and plunge the country back into civil war. For months, its speakers
have been denouncing the UNF for betraying the country in negotiations
with the LTTE.
The vote for the
JVP reflects widespread popular alienation with both of the major political
partiesthe SLFP and Wickremesinghes United National Party
(UNP) [the main component of the UNF]. The UNFs vote slumped by
seven percent nationally to just 38 percent and the party now has just
82 seats in parliament, down from 109. The UNF lost all the southern
electoral districts, except for Badulla, Nuwara Eliya, Kandy and Colombo.
Nine ministers lost their seats.
The UNFs unpopularity
stems directly from the sweeping economic restructuring measures demanded
by corporate leaders, who are seeking peace in order to transform the
island into a cheap labour platform for global capital. Over the past
two and a half years, the UNFs policies have resulted in soaring
prices and cutbacks to subsidies, jobs and social services that have
provoked a wave of strikes and protests by workers, farmers, the unemployed
and students.
Two other parties
made significant gains. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA)a grouping
of Tamil parties that act as virtual proxy for the Liberation Tigers
of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)gained 22 seats. The Jathika Hela Urumaya
(JHU)a Sinhala extremist party that fielded Buddhist monks as
candidateswon nine. The result is a parliament strongly polarised
along communal lines.
Having whipped up
Sinhala chauvinism and boosted the position of the JVP, Kumaratunga
now confronts a number of intractable political problems. The JVPs
strong showing in the poll can only sharpen divisions within the SLFP
which was split over forming the coalition in the first place. Moreover,
the UPFA is still eight seats short of a parliamentary majority and
the JVPs strong performance limits which parties it can approach
for support.
In addition to the
UPFAs 105 seats, Kumaratunga can count on one seat from the Eelam
Peoples Democratic Party (EPDP)a Tamil party that collaborated
closely with the military. She may also try to woo the UNPs former
alliesthe Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, the Ceylon Workers Congress
and the UpCountry Peoples Front, based among Muslims and Tamil plantation
workers respectively. But these parties have previously declared they
will not join a government with the JVP.
The UPFA could try
to reach a deal with the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) but any arrangement
with this extreme rightwing formation would make peace talks with the
LTTE impossible. The JHU is adamantly opposed to the peace process
and insists that Sri Lanka become a theocratic state that entrenches
the supremacy of Buddhism and the Sinhala majority. It appealed to disaffected
layers of the middle class by denouncing the corruption of the major
parties and pledging to clean up parliament.
While the vote for
the JHU nationally was 6 percent, it achieved considerably higher support
in the urban districts of Colombo, Gampaha, Kalutara and Kandy. In Colombo
where the JHU won 18 percent of the vote and three seats, the party
pushed the UNP into third place in several divisions, including Kesbewa
and Maharagama, where it received 29.4 percent. These are outer suburban
areas that have a higher percentage of small businessmen, traders and
other sections of the middle class, and where the JHU has focussed a
vicious anti-Christian campaign.
Encouraged by its
overall result, JHU leaders told a press conference on Sunday that they
anticipated becoming the main party in the country. Having
denounced the existing political parties for corruption, the JHU insists
that it will not be part of any coalition, but will decide its position
on a case by case basis. According to JHU organiser Athuraliye Rathana
Thera, the party will insist on new parliamentary seating arrangements
so JHU members will be neither on the opposition nor government benches.
After denouncing
the UNF for its soft approach to the LTTE, it is unlikely that the UPFA
would turn to the LTTE-backed TNA for support. The TNA won over 90 percent
of the vote in the northern districts of Jaffna and the Wanni, and lower
votes in the eastern districts. The TNAs high vote was due, at
least in part, to the LTTEs harassment and intimidation of other
Tamil political parties in the North and East. Voter turnout in both
Jaffna and Wanni was low47.3 and 66.3 percent respectivelyafter
the election commissioner refused to establish polling booths in LTTE-held
areas.
The TNA is itself
split, after the LTTEs military commander in the East, V. Muralitharan,
also known as Karuna, broke away and set up his own command in early
March. Of the seven seats won by the TNA in the east, five MPs are loyal
to Karuna. The split threatens to lead to an armed confrontation between
the two LTTE factions and to undermine any renewal of the peace talks.
It also compounds the difficulty facing the UPFA or the UNP in forming
a government.
Even if Kumaratunga
does manage to get a parliamentary majority, it will be highly unstable.
No agreement exists between the SLFP and the JVP on the basis for talks
with the LTTE. The JVP has previously rejected the SLFPs plans
for a limited devolution of powers to the North and East. At the same
time, a UFPA government will be under pressure from big business and
the major powers to push ahead with privatisation and economic restructuring.
JVP leaders have already strongly signalled their support to the corporate
elite but such policies would rapidly alienate many of those who voted
for them.
Not surprisingly,
the election result has been greeted with pessimism by commentatorsboth
local and foreign. An unnamed Asian diplomat told AFP: I dont
think you could ask for a more militant parliament in Sri Lanka than
this. Looks like we are losing the middle ground here. It would be a
challenge to get anything done in this new House. Warning of possible
anarchy, a western diplomat said: What is important is to see
what kind of life expectancy the next parliament will have.
An editorial in
the Sunday Island editorial repeated its long-held view that the SLFP
and UNP should come together in a grand coalition. The best thing
Kumaratunga can do for this country is to work towards a national government
that she sought not so long ago from weakness, it declared, warning
the global support and the $US4.5 billion available to underwrite
a fair and just settlement [to the war] must not be lost as the southern
mainstream parties jockey for self advantage.
The Sunday Leader,
which has backed the UNF government, declared gloomily: Within
just two years a nation looked at as promising internationally that
was capable of ushering in peace after 20 years of war and an economic
upsurge was by Saturday teetering on the brink of chaos. The commentator
could offer no way out of the political impasse and concluded that the
UNF will rue the day they decided to go soft on the President
after the 2001 election victory in the name of cohabitation and thereby
aided and abetted Kumaratunga to make Sri Lanka a basket case.
As the Socialist
Equality Party (SEP) warned throughout the election campaign, the present
situation holds great dangers for the working class. Kumaratunga is
increasingly resting on the military, the state apparatus and Sinhala
extremist layers. Incapable of resolving the deepening social and political
tensions, she will not hesitate to resort to autocratic forms of rule,
directed against workers and the oppressed in particular.
The SEP was the
only party to advance a socialist program in the elections based on
the independent mobilisation of the working classSinhala, Tamil
and Muslimto fight for its common class interests. Its candidates
campaigned for the immediate withdrawal of all Sri Lankan military forces
from the North and East to lay the basis for unifying workers in a common
fight against the worsening conditions created by capitalist exploitation.
The SEP fights for the establishment of the United Socialist States
of Sri Lanka and Eelam as part of a United Socialist States of South
Asia and internationally.
The SEP received
159 votes for its slate of candidates in the Colombo district, coming
14th in a field of 28 slates. The vote indicates that an important layer
of workers and young people, while still very small, is prepared to
consciously reject the communal politics that dominates every aspect
of official political life in Sri Lanka. But it also sharply reveals
the political confusion and crisis of perspective among broad layers
of working people. While deeply hostile to the major parties, most voters
saw no alternative but to register a protest vote for parties based
on programs that are fundamentally opposed to their class interests.
We urge the many
workers, youth and intellectuals who read the SEPs manifesto,
attended SEP meetings or followed the SEP campaign to draw the necessary
conclusion by seriously studying the partys program and perspective,
and applying to join its ranks.