Is the SLFP about to scream 'Mayday! Mayday'?

"I surrender" might be a consideration

‘Mayday’ is a signal. The term indicates a life-threatening emergency usually used by aviators and mariners, but also in some countries by firefighters and other working in difficult conditions. Apparently it was coined by a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport, London in 1923. He had bene asked to come up with a ‘distress-indicating word’ and had drawn it from the French word m’aider which means ‘help me’.

‘It is unrelated to the holiday May Day,’ Wikipedia notes. May Day predates Mayday, and conspiracy theorists may very well say that it was pernicious twist. May Day has rarely distressed anyone, especially the capitalist class. Indeed, one might even say that the capitalist class has appropriated May Day through political parties that by and large take care of their interests. 

This year won’t be different in this sense, and yet for at least a couple of reasons May Day 2018 will be quite unlike May Days of the past. 

‘May Day not being on the 1st of May feels strange,’ many have said. ‘May Day’ however is International Workers’ Day, where workers all over the world, in and out of unions, in and out of political parties, talk about the distance traveled and the distance to be traveled, so to speak. 

What’s important is that it is a single day that’s set aside to celebrate labor and workers, talk about conditions of work exploitation, articulate grievances and discuss what needs to be done.  Well, in Sri Lanka, that’s not what happens in the main, but let’s put that aside. 

It’s a single day. It’s as if ‘labor’ counts only on a single day, which of course is all rubbish.  So, one could argue, if it’s just a single day and if it is close to meaningless, it shouldn’t matter when May Day is held, in May or in another month, or whether it is held on the 1st of January, the 31st of December or the 28th of February.  

Those who are religious about May Day have objected, and that says a lot about the status of the working class movement and the Left in this country. In short, they are religious about May Day, i.e. the trappings, and are clueless about the conditions of exploitation.  

May Day 2018 is strange for another reason and one which makes us think of ‘Mayday! Mayday’. Let us say it in the form of a question: will the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) hold a May Day rally this year? 

In 2017, the Yahapalana Government, which seemed less watery in terms of cohesion than it is now, threw a challenge to the Joint Opposition (JO): ‘we will let you have the biggest open space in Colombo, Galle Face — try filling it!’ The JO was essentially a breakaway faction of the SLFP. The ‘mother party’ decided to do its thing in Kandy. The JO took up the challenge and drew unprecedented crowds to the Galle Face. It was an even bigger show than their rally a year before in Kirulapona.  

If that was an indication of slippage in the SLFP’s and especially President Mairhtipala Sirisena’s political fortunes, the true dimensions were realized on February 10, 2018.  Sirisena’s share of the party, so to say, diminished to the point that his faction, the official SLFP, could hardly muster 15% of the total vote at the local government elections.  

Further erosion was evidenced when 16 SLFPers who officially sided with Sirisena supported the no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on April 5, 2018.  Today, they are threatening to organize a separate May Day rally if the party leadership does not move to replace certain office-bearers.  Whether they can do it is not relevant here. What’s pertinent is that as we write, just two weeks before the official May Day (May 7), the SLFP does not seem to be in any position to do the show-of-force number that May Day has traditionally been. 

Apparently a committee has been appointed to organize the event, this time in Batticaloa. From Hyde Park to Kandy to Batticaloa might sound like a retreat to some. 

The JO is to have it’s May Day rally in Galle this year. ‘Retreat’ cannot be applied to this ‘distancing’ from Colombo simply because the JO is in consolidation mode. Their numbers increased in Parliament and they are well ahead outside. In all likelihood, they will put up the best show this ‘May Day’.

Some UNPers are cock-a-hoop over their leader surviving the no-confidence motion, but they’ve failed to understand that this ‘victory’ came from a parliamentary composition that inflates considerably the voter-sentiment as evidenced on February 10. They’ve moved from Campbell Park to Sugathadasa Stadium.

More importantly, the entire exercise has driven the key coalition partner, the SLFP and its leader Sirisena, into a serious identity crisis. They are not sure if they are part of the government or not, whether they should or should not be in the government. 

Sirisena, whose tenure has been marked by tremendous efforts to be accepted as the leader of the SLFP (not just in name), doesn’t have a party to speak of. It’s as though the SLFP has upped and left its official residence on Darley Road.  The party office remains, but the building is all but empty. We will know for sure when the show is over. There will be some chest-beating and bravado. No one will actually blurt out ‘Mayday! Mayday! and not just on account of language preferences, but the distress signs are so unmistakable that cries for help are not necessary.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer. malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com

Read more

Post May Day blues (for the blues and greens)

Hard times made harder by the errors of omission and commission

May Day (in Sri Lanka) is not about workers.  It’s about show.  This time it was about challenges thrown and accepted, oneupmanship and bragging rights.  

The regime-thinking was abvious.  They believed the JO could not fill Galle Face Green.  They did.  Although the Joint Opposition (JO), perhaps in the permissible magnanimity of euphoria, thanked the regime for providing Galle Face Green for its rally, the tongue-in-cheek is unmistakable considering the challenge, ‘let’s see if you can fill up the place!’  If May Day shows allow for an assessment of regime-approval, we have to conclude that disillusion is the word on the street.  Local Government Elections, if held soon, would put the issue beyond doubt.  

Pandula Nayana Bandara, a prolific and colourful political commentator on Facebook captured ‘May Day’ thus:  “They didn’t catch the thieves. They mollycoddled them. They made deals.  Bigger crooks were birthed.  The practice of offering contracts to the near and dear didn’t stop.  It continued.  The people were not heeded when they voiced grievances.  They were ignored. The Rajapaksas were continuously vilified, but for two years they failed to prove they had a cogent programme.  They were unable to manage natural disasters.  They couldn’t resolve urgent issues following disasters.  They compromised the trust in the Police.  The law bent only to punish the Opposition.  Forget making the state media independent, they didn’t even come close to doing it.  Journalists were subjected to veiled threats.  The people were asked to tighten belts, but it was made possible for ministers to enjoy luxurious lives.  They couldn’t secure the confidence of investors, but there were many joy rides abroad.  Those who criticized nepotism paved the way for family members to make big money.  There were band-aid solutions for the problems faced by  farmers.  They couldn’t take the country one step forward from where it stood when the Rajapaksas were defeated.  In fact they went backwards.  This is the result.”

Today, SLFP and the UNP spokespersons are in damage-control mode, fiddling with numbers to counter the JO claims including the hilarious claim by Bandula Gunawardena that 2 million came to Galle Face.  The truth is that Campbell Park was full, as were the BRC Grounds (JVP rally) and the Getambe Grounds (SLFP rally).  The telling stat, then, is the respective areas.  Getambe is 2.4 acres, Campbell Park 3.8 and Galle Face Green 18.7.  Says a lot about who won and lost the game of mobilizing supporters.  If we factored in the obvious advantages of incumbency (advantages unabashedly used by both the SLFP and UNP notwithstanding this running counter to yahapalana rhetoric), it makes the JO show even more ominous.  

Not ‘ominous’ in terms of imminent regime change of course.  Ominous, mostly, for the political project of the yahapalanists.  ‘Political project’ as in pacts with India, the Eelamist embrace via federalism etc., but not the bread and butter of yahapalanaya or ‘good governance’ which is about democratization, transparency, accountability and showing the door to things such as nepotism, cronyism, political patronage, corruption and the abuse of state resources.  Such things, we can forget because the regime is no longer interested.  

The coverage of May Day rallies by the state media should convince the doubters that the yahapalanists weren’t really serious about yahapalanaya.  The silence of the most ardent advocates of good governance who announced their objection with shrill howls of horror during the Rajapaksa years also shows that they weren’t serious either.  

What’s most important is that these realities would considerably hamper the pernicious moves by this government or rather the UNP faction of the yahapalanists to push through agreements with India and legislation to concede political ground to the Eelam Project via federalism.  This is not because the objectors are cognizant of the theoretical arguments against such projects and are empowered by relevant knowledge of history, the ‘objections’ posed by geographical, demographic and economic realities, but the simple ‘need’ to trump any big move by the regime.  It’s just like dressing an economic grievance in ethnic garb in order to grab more visibility.  It’s politics.  

Politicians recognize all this, even though not all of them respond with reason.  Fear, often, is a better driver even though emotion increases the probability of error.  The President, it is reported, has spoken about appointing a committee ‘to iron out differences between the SLFP and the UNP’.  It was also reported that overtures are being made by the SLFP leadership to the JO.  On the face of it, then, it is the SLFP that seems to have been most disturbed by the JO’s May Day show.  However it is the UNP that has shown the greater irritation.  

Rajitha Senaratne was, true to form, agitated.  He let slip that the late Lasantha Wickramatunga, celebrated in some circles as a principled and indefatigable campaigner for media freedom, was in fact a Sirikotha lackey.  We have to believe that Senaratne was lying if not for anything but the fact that Lasantha is not around to defend himself.  He ranted against the Rajapaksas, quite forgetting that he was a minister in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government.  He swore to bring wrongdoers to book (did someone scream ‘b.o.r.i.n.g!”?).  Sarath Fonseka, also speaking for the UNP swore that Mahinda Rajapaksa would not be sent to the electric chair but would be hanged by his own ‘saatakaya’.  Quite yahapalana-like, what?  Champika Ranawaka, for his part, was adamant that there’s a job for Fonseka to do.  Fonseka can and must be allowed to crush trade unions, Ranawaka said.  

What is all this if not brave chest-beating by the politically beleaguered?  These UNP politicians are essentially acknowledging that they’ve lost faith in ‘due process’.  They are talking as if they are fighting for their political lives.  Ranawaka, most of all, should know how the 1980s unfolded, from the July 1980 strike to the 88-89 bheeshanaya unleashed by the party he now represents and its companion-of-sorts, the JVP, and the escalation that took us from the one to the other.  

The tempting option for both the SLFP and the UNP would be to go for an 88-89 repeat.  Maybe it’s too late to consider any other option or (hopefully) maybe it's just they are not able at this point to think of anything else. The ‘other option’ is to summon whatever residual intellectual and ethical resources at their disposal and revert to the original yahapalana project with quantities of energy and commitment unlike anything they’ve so far demonstrated they’ve possessed.  It could be called a tall order, but then again, it could be the one thing that will save both regime and project because, at this point, it is hard to imagine that even cold-shouldering India and shelving constitutional reform would blunt the momentum of the JO.  

As for the ‘Fonseka Option,’ those who are advocating it would do well to remember that although the vast majority of those who were killed in 88-89 were unarmed young people unfortunate to have been born in the sixties and early seventies, many high-rankers of the then UNP regime also perished in the fires ignited.   

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malindasene.  This article was first published in the Daily Mirror (May 4, 2017)

Read more

The democracy deficits within

They have more to contemplate than the Joint Opposition!

Politics is about power. Rhetoric is frill. Objection on grounds of morality, unconstitutionality, illegality etc., with chest-beating to accompany the uttering of terms such as good governance, democracy, accountability and transparency, amounts to ‘necessary drivel’. 

Indeed over-uttering has a way of not just devaluing the relevant notion but even prompt cynicism.  In the worst case scenario it can even come to mean the exact opposite.  ‘Good Governance’ is a case in point; the term has already become a joke and is in danger of being a synonym, paradoxically, for incompetence, same-old-same-old and the celebration of terrorists and terrorism.  

That said, even the most ardent critics of the yahapalana regime and even the greatest cynics of yahapalana-intent, must acknowledge that some things in this country have changed for the better.  Bad on development, atrocious on reconciliation, poor in making action match rhetoric over corruption and abuse of power, the yahapalana regime nevertheless has walked a few steps along the road to democratization.  Slow, yes; unsteady, yes;  unconvinced/unconvincing, yes;  selective, yes; falling short of expectations by a mile, yes; and yet the steps are real.   

There’s no 20^th Amendment (electoral reform) and local government elections have been postponed for purposes of political expedience, but we did get the (imperfect) 19^th Amendment.  The FCID is, according to legal experts, illegal and yet there’s space for those hauled up for interrogation to come out and lambast the process and the institution.  Suspected wrongdoers of the previous regime have been lined up for questioning, but they have also had the option of appealing and obtaining relief on occasion.  Yahapalanists suspected of worse misdeeds are kept safe but then again slowly but surely a culture of apprehension is spreading among politicians.  A good sign, certainly.   

One might dismiss these signs as being typical of the early-days honeymoon following electoral victory, but with the 19^thand the Right to Information Act in place the Government has certainly done away with safeguards previously available for errant politicians.  

All this and more was to happen in 100 days from January 8, 2015.  Almost 600 days have passed.  Democratization is slow and the speed or rather its lack cannot be blamed on politicians alone.  Intent and drive notwithstanding, a country with an anti-democratic political culture and one where the mandated righters of wrongs are themselves ignorant, incapable and corrupt, a few good people or rather a bunch of bad people who are occasionally good can only do so much.

In other words, we should look at the bright side and breathe deep (while we can).  

The Democracy Project, if you will, has at its helm politicians and political parties that are high on rhetoric and low on implementation; they are incompetent for the most part, good intention notwithstanding.  Therein is the danger for the yahapalana project; the danger from within that is.  Without, of course, there’s the Joint Opposition standing in the wings and ready to gather discontent.   That’s a political issue about power and has little to do with good or bad governance, especially since the yahapalana discourse is a) largely foreign to the voters and b) the voters are pretty well educated about politics and politicians – they know what they can get and what they will not.  

Dealing with the ‘outside threat’ (less to yahapalanaya than to yahapalanists) will have to be about bread and butter issues, development, keeping inflation under control etc., etc.  The length traveled on the road to democracy is not exactly a winning slogan.  Unfortunately, one might add.   Ironically, though, if the bade-prashnaya or the issue of the stomach (as metaphor for the tangible material minimum) is not resolved the political rug could very well be pulled from under the Democracy Project.  The same people that voted for a more democratic regime will quickly ask for a strong (read, tyrannical) leader.  That tyrant-in-waiting, could be resident in the Joint Opposition or in the UNP or the SLFP, let us not forget.  

This is why the architects and drivers of the Democracy Project would do well to do a reality check on things closer to home; in short, their own parties.  When dissent (for whatever reason) rises and yahapalana rhetoric becomes hollow it would be silly to say ‘Mahinda put is in this mess!’ and even more silly to get the rank and file to talk yahapalana-lingo.  The reason is simple: the major political parties are democratic only in name.  In constitution, operation and culture they are anything but!  

It is time that the SLFP and UNP seriously subject themselves to the reforms they advocate for the country, not just to salute the adage ‘charity begins at home’ but for purposes of political expedience.

They can go slower on the party road than they have on the nation-road in the quest for democracy but things can change and when they do they can change pretty fast.  When ‘the enemy’ is not only outside the doors of the party headquarters but are sitting pretty inside, edifices so necessary to sustain a reform project that is inherently weak can crumble. 

Neither the SLFP nor the UNP can effectively argue that the parties are places where democracy reigns.  A secret vote on the matter will result in the edification and thereafter the disillusionment of optimists.  No one is saying ‘physician heal thyself!’ or ‘practice what you preach’.  Not yet.  It could come to that but it need not.  Indeed, if it does come to that, it may be already too late. 

Read more

The unbecoming undressing of 'Good Governance'

What did the Joint Opposition achieve by marching from Kandy to Colombo?  What does it say about the strength of the Joint Opposition? Does it say anything about the strength or otherwise of what is being called, tongue-in-cheek, the ‘Official SLFP (Sri Lanka Freedom Party)’?  Has to solidified the alliance between the OSLFP and the United National Party (UNP)?  Was it an exercise poorly timed because the OSLF and the UNP government has been in power only for a year and a half and as such there’s little chance of this kind of agitation transforming into a mass upheaval resulting in regime-overthrow?  

Jehan Perera in an article titled ‘Opposition protest march consolidates Government Alliance’ published in the Colombo Telegraph offers some observations on power.  He was referring to the recently concluded march from Kandy to Colombo organized by the Joint Opposition. 

“Usually such a bid to generate spontaneous public protest would come towards the end of a government’s term of office when it has over-extended its stay in power and the people are dying for a change. But a mere year and a half of a government which has four more years to go is too soon to evoke a people’s movement to overthrow, or even to destabilize, the government.”

The first sentence is correct.  The second is lends itself to a symptomatic reading.  Whether a march, even one that drew the kinds of crowds it did, can overthrow or destabilize a government is a valid question.  To say that it has ‘consolidated the government alliance’ is misleading, however.

Let’s consider the facts.  Yes, it was organized a mere year and a half after Maithripala Sirisena became President and less than a year after the UNP won the General Election.  There are two ways of looking at it.  Jehan says ‘too early’.  True.  There’s another way.  If such numbers could be drawn to Colombo a mere year and a half after Maithripala Sirisena became President and less than a year after the UNP won the General Election it does indicate discontent of a significant nature.  Putting it down to the ex President’s charisma or the stupidity of his followers will not rob it of this significance.   Loyalties of protestors, ‘true objectives’ of the organizers, the reasons that drew the crowds are relevant of course, but in a political sense it is the show of strength that counts.  We are not talking any more, after all, about the merits and demerits of one regime over another here. 

The march attracted massive numbers.   Contrast it, for example, with the ‘marches’ that other Oppositions under different regimes organized at the tail-ends of terms.  This was put all those to shame.  Contrast it, also, with the rally that the United National Party (UNP) organized at Hyde Park a few months ago.  On that occasion the organizers had to shift the venue to Lipton Circus fearing that Hyde Park might not be filled.  This time Hyde Park was literally dug up by the Government, forcing the demonstrators to Lipton Circus.  The five roads leading to Lipton Circus were ‘peopled’ to a considerable distance.  If numbers matter, these do.

That numbers matter is in fact confirmed by the response of the Government to the march.  The United National Party started off with a bold statement, vowing to affirm the democratic right to protest.  Good.  It went downhill thereafter.   The Government sought support of the courts on the flimsiest of pretexts, threw obstacles in the way of the march, issued dire threats of ‘disciplinary action’, threatened to expedite investigations (obviously against the big names of the Joint Opposition), found a sudden ‘need’ to dig up Hyde Park, indulged in endless rubbishing of the protest, abused state media especially Rupavahini; in short embarrassed itself at every turn.  Hardly the behavior one might expect of a confident and secure regime!

The UNP, at least in secret, might say ‘not us, but them,’ with ‘them’ meaning sections of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) loyal to the President, but that excuse is no longer valid; after all the two parties, their leaders and the key supporters of the leaders, have reiterated marital vows and claimed conjugal bliss ad nauseum.  In fact, the response, in its entirety was reminiscent of the ‘dirty tactics’ used by the previous regime and indeed all regimes that came before.  ‘Change’ (‘venasa’) was not evident.

Interestingly, the bleeding-heart advocates of yahapaalanaya who shed buckets of tears over the abuse of state media by the Rajapaksas, the ‘dirty tricks’ in dealing with dissent/protests etc., are silent.  Instead we have Jehan (who belongs to the aforementioned group) claiming that the Government is ‘stronger’. 

Fine.  Now why should a ‘strong alliance’ fall over itself to rubbish a ‘weak’ protest which, according to Jehan, posed absolutely no threat?  Was it a case of old habits dying hard?  Had they not been tutored enough in yahapalana-practice?  Had they junked whatever notes were thrust into their hands when they got into the yahapalana bandwagon?   Did someone whisper, ‘scared out of their wits’ (for no reason at all a la Jehan’s claim)? 

It seems that things are not as rosy as Jehan would want people to believe.  And it’s not the Mahinda loyalists who are saying it.  When someone like Dr Razeen Sally, a respected economist and academic who now heads the Institute of Policy Studies calls it ‘an unwieldy unity government’ and mentions bad appointments, messy decision-making, lack of coordination and above all faults the government for not having a credible economic plan, talking about political consolidation is downright silly. 

Let’s forget all that.  If anyone thinks the march somehow consolidated the ‘alliance’, then one must talk of the constituents of that alliance and their relative strengths, never mind that the ‘point of consolidation’ is at best wishy-washy given the character certificate issued by Dr Sally.  The UNP is intact but has embarrassed itself by the attacks on the media, foot-dragging on key election pledges and the about-turn and worse on Port City.  Intact, nevertheless. 

And the OSLFP?  Well, they have a party office that is shunned by the membership.  There’s an ex-leader who invites incessant booing by the mere mention of her name.  There are ministers who’ve been rejected at the polls issuing statements about political power, democracy and what not.  And there’s a leader who broke party lines, divided the party, was elected by default with the full support of his party’s arch rival, the UNP, and who whines about Mahinda Rajapaksa ‘diving the party’.   Is the section of the SLFP that he has some control over, the OSLFP, a solid political force?  If this is the case, then the march forcing it to strengthen ties with the UNP would amount to ‘consolidation’.  But the march clearly showed where the rank and file of the SLFP stands.  The louder they OSLFP diehards (and the likes of Jehan) shout about conjugal bliss and solidity of marriage, the less convincing it all sounds. 

All this is good news, probably, for the Mahinda camp.  It has to be bad news for those who truly believed the January 8 result would usher in a different way of doing things.  The generous thing is to put down the silence of such people to a sense of shame or helplessness.  The unpalatable truth, however, could be that they were never serious about ‘change’; they just wanted friends in power, never mind what they do and how they do it.  The verbal contortions that people like Jehan have been forced to indulge in demonstrate this. 

There’s one positive though.  The marchers did not get to undress the yahapaalanists.  The yahapaalanists stripped of their own accord. 

A version of this article was published on August 4, 2016 in the Daily Mirror under the title 'The March as a test of Yahapaalanaya'.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malindasene.  Blog: malindawords.blogspot.com.

Read more