Sri Lanka: dimensions of a crisis

By Jayadeva Uyangoda

WHILE SRI LANKA'S present political crisis deepens, the ruling People's Alliance administration of Ms. Chandrika Kumaratunga has averted a regime collapse by entering into a surprise understanding with the radical Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which has ten seats in the present Parliament. If the JVP had not come to the PA's rescue two weeks ago, the Opposition coalition led by the United National Party (UNP) would have forced the President to call its leader, Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, to form the new administration. Given the deep personal and political acrimony between Ms. Kumaratunga and Mr. Wickremasinghe, a scenario of their sharing power would have been truly miraculous.

The Kumaratunga regime's present crisis, which forced it to enter into an uneasy alliance with the JVP, could have been averted with a little patience and prudence. It began in the aftermath of the anti-Muslim riots in Mawanella early this year. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, a crucial partner of the PA, was unhappy over the reluctance to take action against local SLFP politicians believed to be behind the violence. The SLMC then initiated a no- confidence motion against the Minister, Mr. Maheepala Herath. When the UNP extended support to the SLMC move, the rift between the PA and the SLMC widened. Things reached a crisis point when Ms. Kumaratunga this July sacked from the Cabinet the SLMC leader, Rauf Hakeem. Mr. Hakeem took the SLMC out of the ruling coalition, reducing the PA to a minority. The UNP seized the moment and proceeded with a no-confidence motion against the Government. In the face of defeat, Ms. Kumaratunga prorogued Parliament while announcing a referendum on whether the people wanted a new Constitution.

This galvanised the divided Opposition into joint action. The polarisation between the Government and the Opposition began to turn into a conflict between the Executive - the President - and the Legislature. Deprived of a parliamentary opportunity to defeat the Government, the Opposition took to the streets in Colombo, raising fears of greater political instability and chaos.

This type of Government-Opposition polarisation has always provided space for the LTTE to intervene, decisively and dramatically, often forcing the Colombo-based political forces to react in panic. In early July, the LTTE struck - a dramatic, high-visibility attack on the Katunayaka Airport - with unprecedented economic costs.

Against this backdrop, two significant processes occurred. The first is the pressure mounted by many civic, religious and business organisations on the PA and the UNP to arrive at a consensus and form a government of ``national unity''. These social constituencies feared the collapse of the political order. There were also right-wing as well as Sinhalese majoritarian political impulses that found expression in this demand for PA- UNP coalition. The PA too initiated discussions with the UNP conveying the impression that a joint, crisis management administration was in the agenda. However, three days of PA-UNP talks collapsed in greater acrimony, each party accusing the other of being power-hungry. This demonstrated the extreme degree to which Sri Lanka's Sinhalese ruling elite is bifurcated. It is quite clear that the two sides approached unity talks giving their own partisan agendas paramount importance. The PA strategy was to involve the UNP in a coalition regime under Ms. Kumaratunga as a subservient partner. The UNP, meanwhile, had a totally different agenda. It wanted effective governmental power by making Mr. Wickremasinghe the Prime Minister.

The inability of the PA and the UNP to arrive at even a minimum consensus has laid bare some crucial dimensions of the crisis itself. First is the deep divisions in the Sinhalese ruling elite. The second is the continuing crisis of political leadership in Sri Lanka. Third, the two main political formations of the Sri Lankan capitalist class seem to be able to defy the wishes and interests of the class that they are supposed to represent.

Still more dramatic among the political events was the alliance forged by the PA and the JVP. For the PA, the JVP brought in ten votes to secure parliamentary majority. It also enabled the PA to dispose of the proposed constitutional referendum the outcome of which appeared unfavourable. It also made it possible for the Government to postpone parliamentary elections that could have favoured the UNP. For the JVP, the prevention of a PA-UNP alliance was paramount for its own survival. Such an alliance could have brought the right wing elements of both the SLFP and UNP into a dominant power bloc, closing out the JVP's political space.

The memorandum of understanding signed by the PA and the JVP represents a remarkably populist political programme with a tight agenda and a limited time-frame. But on the ethnic question, the MoU's promise is an unfortunate one. The relevant clause binds the Kumaratunga administration not to bring in, during the one year the MoU is in force, ``proposals for devolution of power or any other proposals that may lead to controversy until such time that a broad consensus is arrived at through a wide-ranging dialogue with the participation of all segments of society aimed at reaching a reasonable solution to the ethnic question.'' Notwithstanding this commitment to the JVP, the Government has been at pains to assure the Tamils and the international community that there is no bar to negotiations with the LTTE. The Government has also told foreign investors that the accord would not inhibit direct foreign investment. However, the MoU gives a strong impression that the PA Government, for political survival, has capitulated and accepted the most retrograde components of the JVP's ideology and agenda. What appears now is that in three crucial areas of public policy - devolution, economic growth and constitutional reform - the Kumaratunga administration has abandoned its own broad agenda on the pretext of maintaining the alliance with the JVP. This might make it crucial for the PA to take other initiatives in order to restore the confidence of the Tamils, the business and investor communities, donor and global civil society groups and the international community. But, as long as the MoU is in force, the Government's options are rather limited.

It is somewhat intriguing that the PA leadership preferred an understanding with the JVP, a political movement representing the class interests of rural and urban petty-bourgeois strata, to a consensus with the right-wing capitalist UNP.

Obviously, the PA Government's crisis management measures were conceived in desperation and executed in a hurry, with exclusive focus on political fire-fighting. These have given the JVP a rare opportunity to make serious claims to political respectability. Those who remember the JVP's bloody insurrectionary campaign for power in 1987-89 might still remain sceptical about its commitment to parliamentary politics.

In the uncertain and unpredictable politics in Colombo, there is also another crucial factor in the political equation - the LTTE -, awaiting a ripe moment to strike. There are quite a few possibilities that might constitute Sri Lanka's political trajectory in the coming months. Dissolution of Parliament by the President in late October is one. The PA Government's current understanding with the JVP is probably designed to gain breathing space till October - which mark the end of the first year of the present Parliament thereby making it possible for the President to call fresh elections. The second is for the present arrangement with the JVP to go on even after October. In such an eventuality, the PA-JVP accord is mostly likely to come under severe strain. The LTTE's strategy and agenda for the coming months is the third factor that can certainly shape the emerging trajectories. At a time when the Kumaratunga administration's capacity to resume the Norwegian initiative for negotiations with the LTTE remains constrained, the LTTE's thinking is very likely to be on an agenda to seize fresh initiatives and gains in the military, political and diplomatic fronts.

The coming months do not seem very good for Sri Lanka's politics. The crisis might explode again at an unanticipated moment. This may require Ms. Kumaratunga to seek a consensus with the UNP again. Objectively speaking, the only way to avert a major crisis is for Ms. Kumaratunga to launch a fresh and imaginative political initiative, combining consensus politics, constitutional reform and negotiations with the LTTE through international mediation.

(The writer teaches Political Science at the University of Colombo.)

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