Despite General Secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Duminda Dissanayake and his United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) counterpart Mahinda Amaraweera saying that the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his loyalists had been invited for the 65th SLFP convention scheduled to be held on September 4, supporters of President Maithripala Sirisena would prefer the invitees would not attend
the event.
Likewise, former President and his supporters might have hoped their adversaries not to invite them as it would save them from facing embarrassment at the convention and would give them ammunition to create another issue by accusing the Maithri loyalists for not inviting them.
Though Amaraweera told media that seats at the stage at the convention would be arranged in a manner that the two former Presidents, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa would be seated either side of incumbent President Maithripala Sirisena, that very announcement might prevent MR from attending the event. Also President Sirisena, just two weeks prior to the convention has further provoked MR and his loyalists by removing 13 of them from party’s district and electorate organizer posts while appointing 44 new organizers loyal to him to the party.
He had removed another five; Prasanna Ranatunga, Dilum Amunugama, Salinda Disanayake, S.M.Chandrasena and Geetha Kumarasinghe from the organizers’ posts on the eve of this year’s May Day on which the MR group had held a separate rally in Kirulapona. He does not seem to be in a haste to take action against those who challenge him within the party. Rather he apparently applies Kautilya’s four upayas or the diplomacies found in the Hindu epic, Sama, Dana Bheda and Danda for containing adversaries.
Former Hambantota Mayor Eraj Fernando who had threatened the UNP MPs at gunpoint at the Mattala airport and Hemal Gunasekara had been offered the “Dhana”, and it seems to have worked. The 13 MR loyalists removed from organizer posts this time and the previous five persons have been served with “Danda” in order to send a message to others in the MR camp. He is very careful not to put so many opponents in one basket by offering them all either Dana or Danda at once.
Therefore, he removed only Anura PriyadharshanaYapa and Susil Premajayantha from their secretarys’ posts of the SLFP and the UPFA on the eve of the general election last year, despite many MR loyalists insulting him on the election platforms. Then he offered the duo with a Dana in the form of two cabinet portfolios whereupon both were tamed. It was interesting to see Premajayantha who branded Maithripala Sirisena as an agent of the West and a conspirator attempting to resurrect the separatist forces soon after the latter had announced his Presidential candidacy in November 2014, assisting the same “conspirator” at a recent TV interview.
The President applies the Bhedaupaya by taking one adversary to task while
sparing another.
Had any group within the SLFP rebelled against MR when he was in power in the party as well as in the country as happens now, his approach towards them would have been totally different. In such a scenario there might have been so many Sarath Fonsekas and Shirani Bandaranayakes.
However, it is interesting to note that no policy matters are involved in the current infighting within the SLFP. Many members of the MR camp argue that they could not support President Sirisena since he had teamed up with the UNP. But in fact there is no basic policy difference between the two major parties to fault the Maithri camp for forming a government with the UNP.
Politicians would not cross over back and forth between these two parties had there been any major policy differences between them. S.B.Dissanayake, Rajitha Senarathna, G.L. Peiris, Mahinda Samarasinghe, Keheliya Rambukwella, CBK, Karu Jayasuriya and Udaya Gammanpila are some of those who can attest to this point as they had see-sawed between political parties. Besides, the Central Committee of the SLFP would not have appointed Maithripala Sirisena as the party’s Chairman soon after he was elected President of the country mainly by the UNP voters, had there been any major policy difference between the two parties.
In fact, there were many policy differences between these two parties during the first two decades after the SLFP was formed by the late S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike in 1952. The UNP then represented the interests of the traditional upper class that was still allegiant to the colonial past while the SLFP had its base in the newly- emerged local capitalist class and other local forces. Thus, came forward the slogan “Panch Maha Balawegaya” (the five major forces) which denoted Sangha (monks), weda (local physicians), Guru (teachers), govi (farmers) and Kamkaru (workers). Bandaranaike and his widow Sirimavo who came to power at the 1960 July election after Bandaranaike was assassinated in 1959, strengthened ties with the socialist bloc, while the UNP preferred to be aligned with the West.
Hence, Bandaranaikes started and strengthened the public sector enterprises nationalizing some of the private sector industries such as the public transport and petroleum whereas the UNP followed an opposite policy. It was with the help of the socialist countries such as China and the United Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) which had then included Russia and 14 other States, Sri Lanka built the tyre factory in Kelaniya, Sugar factory in Kantalai and Steel factory in Oruwala. Thus, the SLFP branded the UNP as a party representing a class more aligned to the Western imperialist countries while calling itself a patriotic party representing the local forces. The Sri Lankan leftists who practically followed the Stalinist-Maoist policy of teaming up with the local capitalists against the pro-imperialist capitalist class thus chose to collaborate with the SLFP since the latter’s inception.
Even the Trotskyite have been following this Stalinist practice up to date. However, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), after its first insurrection in 1971, argued that both the major parties had shed their policy differences in the later years and the economic policies of both the parties are framed by the international monetary giants such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Vindicating this contention the SLFP-led People’s Alliance (PA) government of president CBK which came to power in 1994 continued the privatization policy of Presidents J.R.Jayawardene and Ranasinghe Premadasa during her tenure as well. After 2005, MR also trod the same path.
The collapse of the socialist bloc in the early 1990s also contributed to the SLFP’s economic and the foreign policy change. As far as the ethnic issue is concerned, both parties had been following a policy of attempting to be moderate when they are in power and being racist while in the Opposition. This was very clearly manifested during the conflicts over the Bandaranaike- Chelvanayagam Pact of 1957 and the Dudley-Chelvanayagam Pact of 1966. However, from 2000 to the regime change in 2015, both parties maintained a policy of restraint. But the MR camp seems to have chosen now to resort to the old racist policy again. All in all, there are no policy differences between the two parties.
The conflict within the SLFP has also got nothing to do with any policy. It is the manifestation of the struggle of certain groups such as the two groups of the SLFP and the six minor parties hanging on to the MR group for their political survival. The 65th convention of the SLFP would be so vital in that it might decisively divide the party into two. If it breaks the party right in the middle, that would be the end of the two party democracy in the country for a long time, a situation the UNP and the JVP
