By

C. A. Chandraprema

History will be made before the day ends today on May Day and we Sri Lankans will be seeing a phenomenon that no previous generation has seen hitherto. This will be the occupation of the opposition space by a new political entity.

There have been breakaway groups from the government earlier as well in 1951 when S.W.R.D.Bandaranaike broke away from the UNP to form the SLFP. However Bandaranaike was then going in as a newcomer into an opposition space then already occupied by the LSSP. It was the same when Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake broke away from the UNP in late 1991 to form the DUNF – they were going into an opposition that was then occupied by the SLFP.

In fact in the 1992 joint opposition May Day parade where the SLFP and the DUNF joined hands, one of the slogans shouted by the SLFP contingents was “megolloth den api passe.” The term ‘megollo’ referring to the UNP dissidents who had broken away to join the opposition who were marching in the opposition May Day parade.

This time however by holding a separate May Day rally, the Joint Opposition will be formalizing and consolidating their virtual monopoly of the opposition space which they had been occupying since last year. In this the parties and individuals who make up the joint Opposition have been fortunate. Their task is much easier than that which confronted Bandaranaike in the 1950s and the Lalith-Gamini duo in the 1990s.

In both these instances the new entrant into the opposition had to fight on two fronts – they had to confront the government that they had just left and at the same time jostle with the dominant parties that had been occupying the opposition space up to that time. Banda managed to elbow out the LSSP to become the biggest opposition party but the DUNF was not able to elbow the SLFP out because the leaders of both the DUNF and UNP were assassinated by the LTTE within days of one another and the rationale for the split in the UNP was lost. So the DUNF finally ended up rejoining the UNP.

The Joint Opposition is being given a hard time by the two governing parties, but whatever they do they cannot prevent the Joint Opposition from assuming is the mantle of the main opposition party – which is just as well because if the Joint Opposition does not occupy that position the only other candidate left would be the JVP. No person in his right mind will want the JVP to become the main opposition party in a situation where the government is not only deteriorating in popularity rapidly but making a right royal hash of day to day governance. Though the fact will not be appreciated by the government given the state of mind they seem to be in, the Joint Opposition is actually a stabilizing factor in the country from which the government also benefits directly. If the JVP had been the main opposition party there would have been a rush by both investors as well as individuals to get out of the country while they still can.

Both partners in the government indirectly acknowledge that the Joint Opposition is in fact their main political adversary. Minister P.Harrison appeared on the news bulletins on Friday night, with photos of the Hyde Park grounds where the Joint Opposition had its last rally, the Kirullapone grounds where the Joint Opposition will be having their May Day rally and the Campbell park grounds where the UNP will be having its rally and claimed that the Campbell Park grounds were much bigger than both. He was talking about the crowds that would be attending the UNP rally as against that which will attend the Joint Opposition rally. There was no reference to the SLFP rally in Galle. The same news bulletin showed Sajith Premadasa also referring to the ‘good guys’ who will be going to Campbell Park and the ‘horu’ who will be going to Kirullapone. He too did not make any reference to the Galle rally.

The protagonists of the Galle rally also seem to be intent only on seeing the crowds going to Kirullapone reduced, not those going to Campbell Park! The Galle rally will be an interesting experiment to see whether the SLFP as a political party can retain at least a significant part of its base. The results will of course be skewed by the fact that SLFP organizers and members are being coerced to attend the Galle rally with very public threats of disciplinary action, removal from their organizer positions and denied nominations at future elections. However it will be only those who attach some value to the SLFP name and symbol and SLFP nomination and who have no issue with the fact that the SLFP is serving in a government with the UNP who will attend the Galle rally.

On what basis does the vote divide at elections – is it according to the name and symbol of the party or on a pro-government and anti-government basis? As of now, the SLFP is divided down the middle with one part of it serving in the government and another part in the opposition. Those seen at the Galle rally will have no hope of getting the opposition vote. So only those who wish to avail themselves of the governmental pie will be seen in Galle.

President Sirisena’s removal of Geetha Kumarasinghe and Salinda Dissanayake from their electoral organizer positions last week may have been counterproductive as it was a reminder to everyone in the opposition that they have to be rid of this yoke if they are to function as an opposition party. Parliamentarian Bandula Gunewardene was making light of the fact that he too will soon be sacked from his electoral organizer post. That one can take one’s impending removal from such a position in one of the two main political parties in such a cavalier fashion is an indication of the trend of the times.

Courtesy:Sunday Island