When Two, Too, Is Too Many

By?N Sathiya Moorthy

If there are two sides to a third coin, it?s this. Or, call it three sides of the same coin, if that?s still humanly or even theoretically possible, like the X, Y and Z axes in graphical depiction of things. But the fact is you have the parent JVP and twin ?kids?, separated by birth by a few year, out there, contesting the presidential polls later this year.

Yes, the parent JVP was the first all political parties and groupings in the country as a whole to announce his intention in the matter. The JVP-led NPP combine also announced the candidacy of party/alliance leader, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, months ago, and also launched its campaign almost immediately.

When the voters had almost forgotten the other two, the ?siblings?, if they consider themselves to be one, seemed to doing a chicken-and-egg sum, to see whether and if so where they would fit in ? but not definitely together under the same umbrella, leave alone all three working together under parental care. As in such cases of sibling-rivalry, if it?s again one, and larger familial estrangement, the hurt is more when hit from within.

It is thus that the two JVP breakaway factions, namely, the National Freedom Front (NFF) of Wimal Weerawansa, the older of the two, and the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), the lil? brother or sister, have seemingly entered the presidential race, though in the company of fellow-travellers, and announced their independent decisions close to each other?s.? They all claim(-ed) to be ideologically-driven, but the very company they keep and the road that they have traversed since the parent outfit launched itself as a militant outfit almost 60 long years back, would tell you, what their true political ?hue? is. ?Colour? in the place of ?hue? has other connotations and better be avoided at this stage.

It is thus that JVP parent in the post-militant stage over the past three decades or less is now more moderate and centrist of the three. The post-Aragalaya possibilities of a presidential poll victory, as projected and promoted by certain psephology groups, have made the party even more moderate than it had already been.

Compromised ideology

Finally, the mainline JVP has understood that extremist ideologies would only keep the party relevant only to a miniscule peripheral constituency that does not count in the larger scheme. If they have to engineer ?systems change? (that no one has defined), and not stopping with talking about it, they need to be in power.

And elected power, in a nation like Sri Lanka, goes only to those that take the middle-path and then expand it on either side as they traverse. The history of the left-leaning SLFP is a successful example. Today, the SLFP has mutated into the SLPP, and both have seemingly failed ? hence also the larger electoral space for the centre-left JVP. Or, that is one perception, post-Aragalaya.

In comparison, Wimal Weerawansa, by breaking away from the parent JVP at the height of his personal popularity and siding with the relatively less-leftist SLFP during President Mahinda Rajapaksa?s first term (2005-2010), had visibly ?compromised? the party?s ideology and centrist decision-making apparatus that is common for ?em all. The irony of the politico-electoral being of Weerawansa and his NFF since then has been marked by the fact that they have had no problem sleeping with the ?devil?, which the centre-right JHU, rather the breakaway PHU of Udaya Gammanpilla, used to be during their JVP days.

Thinking well, but…

Today, the two parties are partners in the newly-floated ?Sarvajana Balaya?, or the ?Force of the Common People?, a political alliance they took their time floating after forgotten former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had ?sacked? them. It was for their non-conformity, along with another leftist minister, Vasudeva Nanayakara, for violating the basic principles of the Cabinet form of democratic government. All three together had moved the Supreme Court against a Cabinet decision involving governmental agreement with an American private sector hydro-carbon firm.

When in the government, and less afterward, they were also questioning the pre-Aragalaya governmental negotiations with neighbouring India on projects aimed at energy security over the medium and long-terms. That the impending economic crisis involved fuel shortage as much as food shortage should convince even the otherwise inconvincible that despite all short-comings, the Gota dispensation was at least thinking well about the medium and long-terms even while continuously failing the nation over the short and immediate term.

Needless to say, the Wimail-Udaya combo cannot do politics without targeting not what is before them, but what is not visible to most Sri Lankans, so to say. In targeting their immediate electoral competitors in the SJB and JVP parent, after criticising the incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe presidency of all post-Aragalaya failures on the fiscal and economic fronts, their main contention is that all three have been toeing a US-India line, as if it were ungodly and perverted sins of all!

Twin ?unthinkables?

Yet, the Sarvajana Balaya and its promoters are not alone at it. The FSP master-mind of the Aragalaya protests, which was at best a mixed bag for the nation, has floated what is aptly named as the ?Jana Aragalaya Balaya?, meaning the ?Force of the People?s Struggle?, with student and trade union partners from the pubic/popular protests two years back. FSP?s students? leader Wasantha Mudalige, needlessly made more popular by his adventurous arrest by the Ranil government before being freed, again without any convincing reason, is the public face of the alliance for now.

However, at 32, Wasantha does not meet the age-requirement for presidential candidates, which the Government of National Unity (GNU), under the guidance of Ranil W, then Prime Minister, jacked up by five years, to 35, fearing, yes, Namal Rajapaksa, for the previous presidential poll of 2029. But that could not stop the Rajapaksas, especially after the GNU also barred twin-nationality for presidential candidates.

The ?unthinkable? ? rather, two of them — happened, and Gota Raapaksa gave up his American citizenship almost at the last-minute, to contest and sweep the presidency. The other ?unthinkable? for the Ranil camp was about the ?eternal number 2? Sajith Premadasa swept the pre-split UNP?s presidential ticket before the former?s eyes ? and he could not do anything about it.

Greater expectations

The question is if FSP founder and boss, Prema Kumar Gunaratnam, would contest for the alliance himself, or field another candidate, as in 2015, when not many even knew the existence of the party, leave aside the leader who had attained notoriety after the security agencies arrested an Australian citizen Noel Mudalige, whose militant JVP antecedents they had kept track of. That way, even the candidacy from the Wimal-Udaya combo will be keenly watched, not that anyone expects ether of the two alliances to throw up a victor, not this time.

But the crucial issue in terms of the presidential poll remains. It is true of these two breakaway factions of the JVP, and also the parent party ? apart from the SJB. Both the new ?Balayas? as also the other two that too are against the Ranil presidency and a full, directly-elected term for the incumbent, are highly critical of the government?s post-crisis economic policies ? and for good and at times justifiable reasons.

The two Balayas are specifically targeting the JVP parent on multiple issues with the FSP off-shoot going as far as to claim that the other had walked out of the Aragalaya protests once Gota was ousted and Ranil got to replace him. It is some kind of an insinuation, especially when they link Ranil to the Rajapaksas, the official under-writers of the government in Parliament ? but not outside. And such diatribes can be expected to continue until the poll day, and even afterwards, whoever wins the presidency.

Yet, not one of them, including the SJB has come up with an alternate economic model that would address the IMF conditionalities which all of them seem to agree is the only way forward, and also put money in the pocket of the masses and also the middle class. Older the ideology, greater are the expectations of the people ? yes, from the SJB and the JVP in that order.

But then, there is a remnant group calling itself the ?SLPP Independents?. Already, some of them who left together from the Rajapaksa clasp or embrace had signed up with the SJB under G L Peiris, one-time SLPP chairman and constitutional expert. But there is the rump of the rump group under Dulles Alahapperuma, who was their presidential candidate that lost to Ranil squarely when Parliament voted on Gota?s stop-gap successor, two years back.

That the stop-gap residual period is for the whole of the remaining term of Gota means that Ranil will continue until the presidential poll ? and for another five years, if voted in by the people. Until then of course, that is until the presidential election, there are going to be many more that may throw the hat in to the ring, not that any or all of them hope to make the grade, leave alone win.

With the result, the advent of the two JVP breakaways with limited reach and out-reach ? not to be confused with the mass-support for the Aragalaya protests ? there is a sense that there are one too many candidates already in the fray, and more certainly not is merrier. There is thus the pertinent question: If under the present socio-economic and politico-electoral situation, even two more alliances with two more candidates in what is turning out to be a less-than-serious round of presidential poll than the previous ones, may read and sound, ?one-too-many??

Any bets, any answers?

(The writer is a Chennai-based Policy Analyst & Political Commentator. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)