Political Realignments and Peace Efforts
[February 3, 2004]

By G H Peiris

[Senior Professor, University of Peradeniya and Senior Fellow, International Centre for Ethnic Studies]
(Reproduced from the South Asia Intelligence Review)

The electoral alliance of January 20, 2004, between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) - the two largest parties in Sri Lanka's present parliamentary Opposition, both with their support bases mainly in the Sinhalese segment of the electorate - has been subject to intense analysis and debate, producing a wide diversity of mutually irreconcilable views on its possible impact on the country's prospects for peace, stability and progress.

To its main architects the alliance represents the 'dawn of a new era' - one that would rescue the nation from imminent disintegration, anarchy and enslavement. The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the SLFP and the JVP commences with the assertion that " … as a result of the wrong policies followed by the ruling United National Front, the country faces the prospect of losing its territorial integrity, (and that) the foundations of a vibrant national economy are being systematically destroyed and a new economic configuration based on crony capitalism, racketeering, corruption and subservience to international financial institutions is being rapidly established." Spokesmen for the alliance have also stressed the need to halt the process of naïve appeasement being conducted by the United National Front (UNF) in the guise of a peace effort.

Propaganda and rhetoric apart, there could hardly be any doubt that the principal objective of the newly forged SLFP-JVP pact, at least in the short run, is to dislodge the UNF Government, beleaguered by the stalled peace process, widespread trade-union unrest, indiscipline in its ranks and, more generally, an all too obvious inability to govern. In that sense, the alliance could, indeed, be seen as a further step in the Opposition onslaught against the ruling party - a continuation of the process that commenced with the presidential take-over of three key Ministries last November. The partners of the alliance will obviously increase the electoral support they had in December 2001 when, as rival contestants, their aggregate of votes amounted to 46.3% of the total poll, against the 45.6% secured by the UNF.

The alliance has drawn endorsement from several smaller political groups. These include the National Unity Alliance (NUA) headed by Ferial Ashroff (widow of the founder of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress), presently having two seats in the legislature and with an expanding vote bank in the predominantly Muslim areas of the Eastern Province; and the Mahajana Eksath Peramuna that has a numerically small but assured support base in Colombo District. Among the Tamil groups that have made gestures of support towards the alliance are the Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) with two seats in the present Parliament, and the People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) represented by one MP, both of which have acquired a measure of prominence in the political scene for their defiance of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). All these parties, along with the SLFP and the JVP share in common a strong antipathy towards the LTTE.

The different strands of response from the UNF to the SLFP-JVP alliance have not been mutually consistent. Interestingly, the posture of the UNF leader, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, has probably been intended to convey the impression of a self-confident lack of serious concern. Some of his senior colleagues, however, have reacted loudly with sarcasm and disdain, highlighting both the contradictions they perceive in the commitments of the alliance partners as well as their past rivalry; recapitulating, in particular, the assassination by the JVP, during the course of their insurrection of the late-1980s, of Vijaya Kumaratunga, whose widow, Chandrika Kumaratunga, is the leader of the SLFP and President of the country. More generally, it appears, UNF activists have also reacted with intense fury, as evidenced, for example, by their crude exercise of violence (including homicide) sporadically targeting participants of the celebrations that accompanied the signing of the memorandum.

The all-important reaction which the SLFP-JVP accord has evoked from the LTTE was, initially, one of unqualified hostility. Anton Balasingham, leader of the LTTE delegation at its peace-talks with the Government of Sri Lanka up to April 2003, condemned the alliance with characteristic bluntness as "a racist Sinhala outfit", and warned that the "…formation of the alliance might create objective conditions for (the resumption of the secessionist) war". Whether the statement reported to have been made about a week later by Thamilchelvan, the head of the LTTE's political wing, to the effect that the LTTE hopes to continue with the peace talks regardless of the transformed political configurations in Colombo, signifies a change of stance following sober assessment of all implications of the new alliance, or whether it represents the usual Tiger ploy of transmitting mixed signals from different places at different times, is not quite clear. What could be said with certainty, however, is that, since both the SLFP and the JVP have categorically rejected the LTTE proposals of November 2002 on an 'Interim Self-Governing Authority' for the northern and eastern provinces of Sri Lanka (the establishment of an interim government for the north-east is a precondition the LTTE has set for the resumption of peace negotiations), the LTTE would prefer the resumed negotiations, if any, to be conducted with the UNF rather than with the new alliance.

The 'Tamil National Alliance' (TNA, a conglomerate of parties operating within the political mainstreams), taking its cue from the LTTE, have voiced strong opposition to the agreement of January 20; and, in order to counterbalance possible electoral gains for the SLFP and the JVP resulting from the agreement, worked towards the formation of a grand alliance of all Tamil parties in the country operating under the guidance of the LTTE. Both the Tigers as well as the leaders of several other Tamil political groups, it must be noted, have generally preferred the leadership of the Sinhalese to remain fragmented on party lines, both for the effect such fragmentation has always had of enhancing the influence of the minority communities in electoral politics, as well as for the fear that a cohesive majority community would be swayed by the more ardent forms of Sinhalese-Buddhist ethno-nationalism.

Among the other prominent responses and reactions 0.to the newly formed alliance is the circumspection shown by diplomatic representatives of the countries that have been associated with Sri Lanka's peace efforts. They, along with Colombo's business elite, and influential city-based civil society organizations (the so-called 'liberal lobby'), perceive in the alliance the danger of enhanced JVP influence on both economic policy as well as ethnic relations. What most of these groups desire, instead, is a UNF-PA/SLFP coalition - one that would provide leadership to a 'national government of reconciliation' which could reactivate the peace negotiations and furnish, with their combined parliamentary strength, constitutional expression to a settlement of the ethnic conflict worked out with the LTTE. In sharp contrast, there is the guarded optimism about the alliance from perspectives of national interests among a fair number of influential Buddhist opinion leaders, including certain prominent members of the Sangha.

In the complex and incoherent mass of opinion and interpretation on the SLFP-JVP alliance, it is possible to discern certain simple but significant facts that are of salience to an assessment of its potential significance. The first of these is that the agreement, reached through prolonged and arduous negotiation, is not unprecedented. It may be recalled, for instance, that, following the departure of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress from the Government parliamentary ranks on June 20, 2001, and the consequent loss of the parliamentary majority held by the People's Alliance (PA, headed by President Kumaratunga), the JVP (then in the Opposition, holding 10 seats) offered conditional support to the PA. The main conditions stipulated were the re-summoning of Parliament, which the President had prorogued in order to avoid likely defeat on an Opposition sponsored no-confidence motion; the cancellation of a national referendum announced by the President to seek a popular mandate to formulate a new Constitution, the specificities of which were kept vague; and the formation of a 'probationary' caretaker Government to function over a one-year period, during which independent commissions should be established for conducting elections, and for the judiciary, police, media and public administration, the political control of which, as experiences of recent memory had shown, facilitates large-scale rigging of elections. Though there was disagreement within the PA on the grant of these conditions, a broad consensus reached by two parties culminated in a Memorandum of Understanding entered into in October 2001. However, since further defections from the PA ranks, once again, eliminated its majority in Parliament, the promised JVP support to the Government became redundant, prompting the President to abandon the JVP link and to dissolve Parliament.

One of the main obstacles in the way of an electoral alliance between the PA/SLFP and the JVP, as the 2001 episode of their collaboration demonstrates, is that of working out either the modalities of a no-contest pact, or the formulation of common lists of candidates to contest in the different electoral districts. There is, on the one hand, considerable overlap in the electoral power bases of these two parties. On the other hand, a common PA-JVP platform would also mean that a fair number of aspiring politicians presently in the ranks of the SLFP would be required to make way for those from the JVP, first, in the selection of candidates, and later, if elected to office, at various levels of Government. Thus, despite the likely overall electoral gains that would accrue from an alliance for both parties in their confrontations with the UNF, the losses at an individual plane for those of the PA would certainly be greater than for those of the JVP. Self-sacrifice is, of course, hardly ever a behavioural trait towards which politicians are readily inclined.

There is, in addition, yet another more formidable 'personal' problem that would persist with the newly forged alliance over the coming months in the form of what President Kumaratunga herself stands to gain and/or lose from the link-up with the JVP. It has been increasingly evident in the recent past that one of her principal concerns relate to her own political future - the fact that she (still only 59 years young) cannot, under the present constitutional dispensation, remain at the apex of Sri Lankan affairs beyond 2006 when her second successive presidential tenure would come to an end. Accordingly, the only prospect of her continuing in a position of supreme authority would lie in a major constitutional reform that resurrects the Prime Ministerial system of government that existed prior to the promulgation of the Constitution of 1978. It is inconceivable that a PA/SLFP-JVP alliance, even with a substantially increased number of seats in the legislature produced at the next elections, would add up to the minimum parliamentary strength (two-thirds) required to initiate the type of constitutional reform personally beneficial to the President, especially in the context of the inevitable loss of support to the President and her party from certain minority political parties that the JVP link would bring about.

This provides an explanation for what is perhaps the most conspicuous feature of the trumpeting and fanfare that have hitherto accompanied the emergence of the alliance - namely, President Kumaratunga's carefully maintained low profile. She was absent from the ceremonial signing of the Memorandum of Understanding on January 20, ostensibly for 'security reasons'. According to Press reports, she declined to grant an audience to the shadowy JVP chief, Somawansa Amarasinghe, who returned to the island from his self-imposed exile in England, apparently for the purpose of strengthening the JVP component of the alliance. The President also kept away from the massive inaugural public rally held in Colombo on January 29, to launch the alliance programme. Apart from what these gestures signify, the President has persisted with her efforts to reach an understanding with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe which, in the unlikely event of culminating in a 'government of reconciliation' the diplomatic corps and the 'liberal lobby' in Colombo have been hoping for, would probably mean the end of the SLFP-JVP link.

If the alliance partners do succeed in overcoming the obstacles and constraints referred to above, and if they win a sufficient number of seats in Parliament at the next elections to form a Government, the PA/SLFP-JVP coalition will still need to formulate a coherent policy vis-à-vis the 'national question'. In this context, what could be observed is that, having pledged (Section 9 of the MOU) to "eliminate discrimination on grounds of race, religion, language or culture"; to … "combat and defeat separatism"; and to seek a negotiated settlement of the ethnic conflict "through a correct dialogue with the LTTE and other relevant groups and communities", they have agreed to 'remain disagreed' on the stance with respect to the secessionist challenge. In this, while the SLFP has reiterated its commitment to the principles of devolution of power within a 'provincial' frame, the JVP has adhered to the view that the objectives of ensuring equality to all ethnic groups and of safeguarding their rights could be achieved through administrative decentralization to the local authority level. While the former is not inconsistent with the basic principles enunciated in the Draft Constitution presented to Parliament by the PA government in 1999 (but withdrawn in the face of fierce opposition to which both the UNP as well as the JVP contributed in ample measure), the latter is in harmony with the proclaimed conviction of the JVP leadership that devolution of Government power to the LTTE over a claimed 'exclusive Tamil homeland' extending over the northern and eastern parts of the country will strengthen the efforts to dismember Sri Lanka. The indisputable validity of the JVP viewpoint notwithstanding, as matters stand at present, it is inconceivable that any compromise could be worked out between such a position and the LTTE demands.

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Last Updated Date: March 30, 2004 .