On Sri Lankan political ‘suicides’ and the November ‘change’

The wildly popular urban myth of lemmings rushing to the sea in waves of mass suicide has a parallel in Sri Lanka in swarms of ‘ meru’ insects desperately attracted to the very light that eventually kills them.

Questions that must be asked

Quaintly k n own as ‘ Christmas flies’ probably because they are most evident towards that time, hundreds cluster around any point of light, leading to a gruesome mass suicide pact by morning. A few years ago, guests at a reception had to glumly leave the festivities due to a ‘ meru’ invasion of the lights strung up for celebration, with dying flies dropping into the food and hair of disgruntled guests. In contemporary Sri Lankan politics, the United National Party ( UNP) best qualifies for that title of rushing towards its political suicide.

Indeed, if actions of party seniors immediately prior to the November 16th presidential polls are scrutinized, a simple question arises as to whether deliberate machinations or stupidity of the highest degree (or a combination of both) were at play to ensure that its own candidate gets defeated. Quite apart from the party leadership inexcusably delaying the nomination of the party candidate until scarcely a month before the polls, organisers have alleged that blocks were put on their canvassing. Accusations and counter- accusations fly as the poisonous underbelly of party politics is exposed.

This is not an edifying sight. Regrouping and strengthening of the party in the wake of the polls defeat should be the first priority, given the forthcoming General Elections. Even so, it is important that searching questions are asked. For example, just weeks before the elections, the UNP dominated Cabinet approval of the Millennium Challenge Corporation ( MCC) grant by the United States lent fresh fuel to ‘Pohottuwa’ propaganda campaign that Sri Lanka was being sold to Western powers. It mattered very little regarding as to whether this allegation was true or not. What mattered was political perception and the skilful selling of that perception to the Sinhalese people.

Simplistic rendering of the UNP defeat

So too was United National party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe’s firm assertion that he would remain as Prime Minister under a potential Premadasa Presidency. These were all points exuberantly used by ‘Pohuttuwa’ campaigners to good effect despite a Premadasa pledge that he would bring about ‘ change.’ For those of the general public still undecided as to whom they would vote but sick and tired of ‘yahapalanaya’ confusion and chaos during the past four years, these warning red signals proved to be impossible to ignore.

Thus, when Mr Wickremesinghe reflects that his party has lost the confidence of the country’s Sinhala Buddhist majority, he is ( again) wide off the mark. As much as the polls results reflect a division on ethnic lines, that ‘ loss of confidence’ is not limited to a religious majority. As the November polls results show, the loss is of far wider import, including the Catholic and Christian communities devastated by the Easter Sunday attacks despite some polling divisions holding f i rm ag ainst all odds. Moreover, the Tamil and Muslim vote was given for Premadasa not because the minority communities approved of the UNP. For the Tamil people in the North and East, ‘ the ‘ yahapalanaya’ regime effected the cruellest betrayal of all by raising expectations regarding a transitional justice process that was callously conceived to fail from its very conception. In the minimum, even horrendously emblematic cases of gross human rights violations including the killings of children and aid workers were not prosecuted with full state will. These too were perhaps designed to fail as it were.

On their part, Tamil political parties from the ‘ extreme’ to the ‘not-so-extreme’ abandoned principled positions on helping victims of their own communities. Instead, they played politics. The so- called 13 point demands put collectively by the Tamil parties to the South in late October was distinctly inflammatory in its stress on Tamils constituting ‘ a nation with distinct sovereignty entitled to the Right of SelfDetermination under International Law.’ These demands lent a turbo boost to the ‘ Pohottuwa’ campaign in the South. It was in vain that Premadasa protested that he had not agreed to any conditions. Here too, it is difficult to ignore the analogy of lemmings rushing into the sea or insects dying by the light as Tamil activists start recoiling in fear and anticipation of ‘Rajapaksa-return.’

Way forward for Sri Lanka

But as the UNP must clearly understand, the minorities voted for Premadasa in such massive numbers purely for the reason that they were terrified of a Gotabaya Presidency. If the UNP is not to go into oblivion like the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), deliberations regarding its failures at the November polls must surely proceed on far less simplistic lines. For let us be quite clear. The failure here represents more than the failure of one or two political parties. Will Sri Lanka proceed as a parliamentary democracy with a multi-party system (however flawed) having checks and balances between the executive and the legislature, not to mention the independence of the judiciary? Or will a different and infinitely more uncertain creature evolve?

As for the new President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the question that he must ask himself in all seriousness is as to why Sri Lanka’s minorities voted against him with so much more force than when his brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa contested for the Presidency, even at a point when the Wanni conflict was still fresh in people’s minds ? If he is not to preside over a fractured nation with inevitable resentment spilling out to bloodshed, he must rise above platitudes. He must not confine himself to the panacea that development will cure all ills, even the broken heart of a grieving mother who still lays a place at the family table for her son and daughter who ‘ disappeared’ following their arrest by state forces.

This week, as the well regarded criminal investigator Shani Abeysekera who had in his portfolio, some of the most controversial cases in the past decade, is handed out a ‘punishment transfer’ this does not speak we l l o f the November ‘ change.’ As his de puty flees ove r s e a s, ‘ Pohottuwa’ chuckles must subside for these developments will only rebound on itself at some point, even when it is feeling most secure and most confident. For if the electoral results of 2015 and its reversal in 2019 show anything, it is that unpredictability is the hallmark of the Sri Lankan voter. And one major question remains. Will the same disgraceful quid pro quo that prevailed in 2015 when the Sirisena- Wickremesinghe- led coalition Government delayed prosecuting politicians of the Rajapaksa era be evidenced this time around as well, albeit in reverse? Will those who u n f o r g iv a b l y m u d d i e d ‘ yahapalanaya’ waters get off with a ‘ jail free’ card and the robbers compact between the very corrupt at the very top to safeguard each other as they rob the public purse, be repeated, over and over again?

This is the acid test for those singing ecstatic hosannahs in welcoming the second coming of Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksas.