The Significance of FSP Candidacy in
the Eighth Presidential Election
Sumanasiri Liyanage
Mahinda Rajapaksa has to face his erstwhile colleague in the
cabinet and the General Secretary of the SLFP, former Minister of Health,
Maithripala Sirisena at the forthcoming presidential election. Since many
parties including the main opposition party, UNP, and civil society
organizations have already decided to back Maithreepala's candidacy, he has now
emerged as the main contender to the incumbent president.
Janata Vimukthi Peramuna, one of the leading left parties
has announced that it will boycott the presidential election although rumors
are in the air that its central committee wanted Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, de
facto leader of the parliamentary opposition to contest. It is in this context
marked by the absence of JVP in the presidential race in spite of a 200%
increase in its vote at the Uva Provincial Council election held some time ago,
that the breakaway group of the JVP, Frontline Socialist Party decided to field
a candidate representing the social left in Sri Lanka that at the moment is not
numerically very strong.
Having been encouraged by the Syriza
(Coalition of the
Radical Left) experience in Greece, FSP tried hard to unite all left
parties, groups and individuals to field a common candidate of the social left
with a minimum but transitional left democratic program at the next
presidential election. Well FSP does not claim that the left front it had
initiated is Syriza in Sri Lanka; but it seems to me it is Syriza in the making. Whether it will mark a significant moment in
Sri Lankan political history is yet to be seen. Nonetheless, this moment is and
will become significant and relevant as FSP led social left in its manifesto
have raised so many important questions that two principal contenders have
refused so far to raise. Most importantly, when both fronts are ideologically
dominated Sinhala-Buddhist (UPFA by Bodu Bala Sena and Maithree front by
Jathika Hela Urumaya) elements, FSP left front appears to be the most effective
secular political formation in the next election. Hence, my submission in this
article is that the FSP led social left front poses the real opposition to the
Mahinda Rajapaksa regime both in its program and in its practice.
Sri Lanka needs a strong social movement to counter three
main trends in its recent history, namely, towards authoritarianism, towards
economic policy framework that is biased towards the interests of the upper
classes and layers of the society, and towards majoritarianism. Although these
three trends emerged prior to MR coming to power, they have consolidated and
strengthened under his regime due to multiple reasons.
What is relevant to my present submission is to look at the
question of what social movements were actively engaged against the MR regime
and its policies and actions. I recognize two counteracting forces in Sri
Lankan society that questioned policies and actions of the MR regime. The first
group, primarily urban, posed the issue of democracy, rule of law and good
governance in their orthodox meanings. The most important group in this
category was the Sri Lanka Lawyers’ Association that came forward strongly
against the removal of the Chief justice, Dr Shirani Bandaranayaka. It
organized many fora to discuss the matters that fell within its purview. Later,
Citizen Forum also raised similar issues with strong political orientation.
These views had been finally crystalized in the movement for Just Society led by
Rev Maduluwave Sobhitha raising two main demands, (1) abolition of the executive
presidential system and (2) reactivation of the 17th Amendment by
repealing 18th Amendment to the Constitution. These protests by
these groupings received so much attention by the media partly because of their
elitist character.
The second opposition against the MR regime came from
subaltern movements. There are four groups, (1) student movement; (2) trade
unions and workers’ movements; (3) protests by peasants and rural masses; and
(4) movements by numerically small nations and ethnic groups. Second and third
movements were scattered and sporadic. The same can be applied to the fourth
movement after militarily defeating the LTTE in 2009. Hence the consistent
opposition to the government, especially against its policies on education, has
been guided by the Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF). IUSF launched
many a struggle in the recent past against cuts of student subsidies,
educational reforms, commodification of education and so on. It is interesting
and encouraging to note that IUSF was able to defeat government plans to reform
education by encouraging private investments to enter into the field of
education with the motive of profit. In the last year or so, it won almost all
its struggles. The IUSF while struggling for free education also widened the
democratic space that the elitist groupings failed to achieve. I remember very
well when the march in Colombo city by the IUSF was banned by a court order at
the request of the Police, Najith Indika, IUSF President decided to defy the
order and continue the march. It proved to be a great victory. The following
week, a district judge warned the police not to come forward with such
requests. This, in my view, was a most significant victory for the democratic
movement in Sri Lanka and all credit should go to IUSF.
The other subaltern movements that were capable of forcing
the MR government to retreat include the anti-pension scheme by private sector
employees in Free Trade Zone, peoples’ movement against water problem at
Rathupaswala, protests by slum people against forcible eviction from their
houses, peasants’ opposition to seed and water bills and micro opposition by
villagers on their problems.
Maithripala Sirisena announcing his candidacy as a common
opposition candidate informed us his program is limited to the abolition of the
executive presidency and the reactivation of the 17th Amendment. In
this sense his electoral program is based on the demands put forward by the
elitist movement. There is no doubt that these are demands are important; but
the program built on these demands are necessary but not sufficient to face or
counter three major trends in Sri Lankans polity, society and economy. In
contrast, FSP’s program is based on the struggles by various social elements in
the past ten years taking issues raised by them in its entirety, in other
words, confronting the MR candidacy by challenging it with a comprehensive
program. Most significantly, the program includes swayan paalana by numerically small nations and protection of
whatever the rights they have won, like 13th Amendment although they
informed that they are not happy about it.
Last but by no means least I wish to point out something
which is, in my view, of great importance. To signify the importance of the
IUSF led protests against MR regime, FSP led left front have chosen to field as
its candidate a former IUSF leader (there is a minimum age limit to contest in the
presidential election - both the present leader of the IUSF and his immediate
predecessor are under age), Comrade Duminda Nagamuwa who has led many a
struggle on many a front. He is young and can lead many struggles in
future.
Comments
Post a Comment