Sixty eight years after independence it’s time to retrospect. Has the country progressed democratically? Have the political parties expected to carry out the mandate of the people honoured them? Have these parties and the politicians that represent them protected the sovereignty of the country or themselves? The latest tussle in Parliament beckons the people to realize that the expectations from the 2 main political parties in the country has now withered and we see no future for them or for the people who are ardent fans of the party. No political party can take precedence over the needs of the country. No political party ideology can compromise the sovereignty of the country. No politician can divest the territorial integrity of the country in exchange for the assurance to remain in power. The people need to change their thinking and mind-set too. People too must learn to put country before self-interest.
The UNP
The United National Party was launched on the 6th of September 1946. D S Senanayake was its first leader and became the country’s first prime minister in 1947. Ironically, the 1947 election campaign pledged to remain as a dominion under the UK while also protecting the traditional way of life and Buddhism. Senanayake’s polices were pro-West, anti-Communist foreign policy. UNP was known for its stand against the majority Sinhala Buddhists and its pro-Catholic policies. UNP was also accused of being party to the 1962 army Christian-coup.
The present UNP is today a member of the pro-Christian centre-right polices of the International Democratic Union (IDU) of which the present leader and PM was elected the Chairman of the Asia Pacific Democrat Union and IDU Vice Chairman (ex officio) since 2005 http://idu.org/officers/hon-ranil-wickremesinghe-mp/
The SLFP
The Sri Lanka Freedom Party emerged after S.W.R.D. Bandaranayaka left the UNP to form it in 1951 on the strength of the ‘Pancha Maha Balavegaya’ (Five Great Forces) which consisted of the native doctors, clergy, teachers, farmers and workers. The first SLFP government was formed in 1956. SWRD was instrumental in shifting Sri Lanka’s foreign policy from pro-West to a Non-Aligned one. In September 1959, Bandaranaike was assassinated. Wijeyananda Dahanayake served as the interim PM. SLFP was taken over by SWRD Bandaranaike’s widow Sirimavo Bandaranaike who became the world’s first elected woman Prime Minister in 1960. Under her leadership the government nationalized key sectors of the economy such as banking and insurance, the Ceylon Transport Board and also all schools. She too followed a pro-East and Non-Aligned policy. Her government was instrumental in bringing a new constitution, changing the name of Ceylon to Sri Lanka and turning Sri Lanka into a republic. She served as the chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1976. After JRJ removed Sirimavos civic rights the SLFP was headed by Hector Kobbekaduwa. SWRD & Sirimavo’s daughter Chandrika took over SLFP in 1994 becoming PM and later going on to become the President of Sri Lanka under the People’s Alliance. Mahinda Rajapakse took over the SLFP in 2005 until SLFP leadership which is now under the current President Sirisena since January 2015.
Should a political party be a family party?
The UNP has been referred to as the Uncle-Nephew-Party. When D S Senanayake died in 1951 following an accident his son Dudley became Prime Minister. When Dudley resigned in 1953 after a hartal against rice rationing, his cousin John Kotelawala took over. Dudley returned to power in 1965 but lost in 1970. Dudley passed away in 1973 enabling JR Jayawardena known as the ‘yankee dickey’ for his free market policies and a pro-American foreign policy. UNP came to power in 1977 and using the 5/6 majority JRJ changed the constitution, became the Executive President and brought in a new constitution. Jayewardene retired in 1988 and was succeeded by Prime Minister Ranasinghe Premadasa. Premadasa remains the only non-relation to head the UNP and upon his assassination in 1993, JRJ’s nephew Ranil Wickremasinghe took over leadership of the UNP in 1994 and has since remained its leader. It is pretty obvious that Ranil will hand over leadership to another relation in the UNP and no one else. So apart from the stint Premadasa had as leader of the UNP given the public popularity Premadasa was able to build up, the UNP has been led by family members. However, the question is should political parties be led by one family only?
The SLFP has been led by 3 family members – father, mother & daughter while the UNP continues to be led by family barring the only time it was led by Ranasinghe Premadasa. However what is the future of a party if they are more interested in security the family hold over it.
The JVP today is a spent force. It’s a sorry version of what its founder Rohana Wijeweera would even imagine it to be. We need to only speculate aloud that it has prostituted itself and its communism to capitalist agenda. The youth followers of the JVP must realize that their cries and wailing must come secondary to the need to educate, graduate and on the strength of their qualification earn a living. Demands and slogans cannot meet those objectives in a global village. They must wake up.
The rest of the political parties most of whom carry an ethnic label should be shunned in view of their party name itself being anti-national. No party can claim to be working towards the unity of the country if they carry an ethnic name to their political party because it is on the strength of this ethnic name that they revolve their campaign. This automatically nullifies their claims of wanting to live with the other communities because ethnic-based parties are only claiming things for themselves.
Let’s take a look at the present parliament. How many are really elected by the People? How many have come from the backdoor and even after coming from the backdoor see the manner they are behaving. How many illegal decisions are taking place and avenues closed for people to address these grievances? This is not democracy. This is not what the people want and voted for. Is the country their personal property, are the state institutes and other bodies theirs to decide to sell off for a one off payment when easily losses can be addressed by proper management and reduction of top down wastage. How many decisions have ever had the people’s consent when the constitution clearly sayssovereignty is in the people and is inalienable?
After over 400 years of occupation by invaders those that took over were virtual clones of the colonials tasked to continue colonial rule with a touch of local flavor. No post-independence leaders rose to demand reversal of discriminations suffered since 1505, no demands were made for apology and compensation and instead former colonies aligned to global systems of trade and western laws that entailed enslavement under another name. Will former colonies ever be able to get out of the debt-interest trap set by the West who live off the interests given on created money? If we have come far in terms of infrastructure it is something to feel proud of but as people, have we followed values, cultures and traditions or are we always copying the Jones. We are trying to please and copying others because our governments have failed to implement an education syllabus that makes citizens proud of the nation, proud of the local heroes, proud of its history, proud of those who built the nation and proud of our heritage all ingredients required to want to defend the nation. It is those that do not know the history who do not value it and do not wish to protect the nation and defend it.
How many MPs today even read a bilateral agreement, articles giving warnings about our enemies, agreements that are detrimental to the national security etc? How many of our MPs can evaluate the terms of agreements and oppose the handover of state assets, food, energy, maritime security to foreign nations especially those that have been historical enemies and whose agreements are always one-sided tilted in their favor only. How many MPs realize that signing such agreements will remove the protective layer we have globally when strategic interests are handed over on a platter to another country simply because a party wants to remain in power.
We need a new political culture that departs from the selfish and wasteful manner current political parties and parliamentarians practice irrespective of which party they belong to which is why they have no qualms to jump from one side to the other and sing hosanna’s thereafter.
It is the people’s opinion that can bring change. Change comes not in changing one political party with another and a plethora of kangaroo jumps.
The time is now ripe for the green and blue to be replaced. They are a spent force now and have nothing to offer the people or the nation. We need a new ideology that is nation-centric and people-centric desiring to build the nation not outsource or sell everything we have for a one-off payment and lose our sovereignty and territorial integrity altogether. Change euphoria, broken promises and lies on political stages need to stop.
Both parties lack vision, lack politicians with a mission and strategy to take its voters to a promising future in a country that they are committed to protect both its sovereignty and its territorial integrity.
We need to now re-start rebuilding the nation from scratch.
Shenali D Waduge
srilankaopinion 