By P.K. Balachandran
Colombo, November 15: Sri Lanka’s only major leftist party, the National Peoples’ Power (NPP), is continuing its dream run in the island nation’s electoral politics. It registered a stunning improvement in its electoral standing in the parliamentary elections held on November 14.
The NPP secured 159 seats in the parliament of 224 members, which gives it a two-third majority. And it got 61.68% of the valid votes.
But in the September 21 Presidential election, its successful candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, got only 42.3% of the votes.
After the Presidential election, it was said that if only the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa and the Independent candidate former President Ranil Wickremesinghe had patched up their differences and supported a single candidate, Dissanayake would have been defeated. Premadasa and Wickremesinghe were top leaders of the same party, the United National party (UNP) for decades before they broke up, virtually destroying the Grand Old Party.
That argument may have held water in September, but not in November. The voting pattern in the November parliamentary elections showed that even a combination of Premadasa’s SJB and Wickremesinghe’s National Democratic Front (NDF) would have been no match to Dissanyake’s NPP.
NPP’s Growing Appeal
The NPP’s appeal had grown exponentially in the past two months. It now covers disparate groups living in different parts of the island and belonging to different ethnic groups. President Dissanayake and his NPP are being seen by more and more people from diverse areas and in diverse communities as the most suitable leader to exercise power in Sri Lanka.
Past Sri Lankan Presidents and MPs had shown total unconcern for the plight of the common man, people say. They had amassed ill-gotten wealth using State power in total disregard of national economic and security interests.
Previously, the NPP was thought to be a left wing representative of the majority Sinhalese, who are about 75% of the population. It seemed as if the NPP had no concern for the minority Tamils and Muslims. This was because the hard core of the NPP was the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) which unabashedly and uncompromisingly stood for the Sinhalese’ rights viv-a-vis the minorities.
But after Anura Kumara Dissanayake became JVP’s leader, the party came out of its ideological and communal confines and began to broaden its appeal from the Sinhalese urban working class to the middle and upper classes in all communities and both in the rural and urban areas.
Dissanayake reached out to the Corporate sector and assured the entrepreneurs and managers that the NPP will not hinder their growth. This change of image enabled the NPP to make a quantum jump from three seats in the dissolved parliament to 159 seats in the new parliament.
Catching up with Minorities
A noteworthy aspect of the NPP this time round is that it had put up Tamil and Muslim candidates in the North and East of the island where these minority communities predominate. The NPP candidates here had beaten local Tamil and Muslim bigwigs, like M.A.Sumanthiran in Jaffna.
The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK), the oldest and the largest Tamil party since 1949, got only one seat in Jaffna, the Tamil heartland. But the NPP bagged three there. In Trincomalee, the NPP got 2 seats, while the ITAK got only one. In Batticaloa, another Tamil bastion, the NPP got one seat while the ITAK got three.
Party Composition in Parliament
In the new parliament of 224 seats, the NPP will have 141 elected members and 18 nominated members (also called National List members). The Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), will be second with 40 seats, out of which 35 will be elected members and five to be appointed via the National List.
The Illankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) comes third after securing eight seats, from which seven are elected and one is a National List seat. The New Democratic Front (NDF) led by former Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, will have five seats, out of which three are elected members and two are National List appointments.
The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) led by the Rajapaksa family received only 350,429 votes but has managed to secure three seats out of which two (02) are elected. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Sarvajana Balaya, and United National Party (UNP) have secured a few seats.
Pros and Cons of Massive Mandate
Sri Lankan voters are now discussing the pros and cons of giving the NPP a two thirds majority. Would it make parliament irrelevant, they ask. Parliamentary redundancy is a real possibility because in other countries, a two thirds majority had led to dictatorship.
In the party system, MPs have to obey the party “whip”. The leaders of the NPP, who are actually hard core members of the original JVP, could road roll party MPs to toe the party line which could be rigid.
And under the Executive Presidential system that Sri Lanka has, the President is very powerful. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa used his Executive power fully to take unpopular decisions which ultimately led to a mass revolt (called the Aragalaya) that forced him to flee the country.
President Dissanayake and the NPP had promised to do away with the Executive Presidency by enacting a totally new constitution. But there is very little chance of this happening. All past Presidents, from Chandrika Bandaranaike onwards, had promised to abolish the Executive Presidency, only to abandon the idea ultimately. Every President and ruling party had wanted to exercise the powers given to the Executive President by the constitution.
Challenges
Since 2019, Sri Lankans have been suffering from loss of income and jobs, and rising prices since the COVID 19 pandemic and the economic crisis which followed. Sri Lanka had defaulted on loans running into billions of dollars. The NPP has been promising to reduce economic distress. But it is not clear as to how it proposes to remedy the situation.
It needs to root out corruption and inefficiency which is endemic. Politicisation of the bureaucracy and economic decision making has distorted the economy and the functioning of the system. This has to be rooted out by the NPP regime.
The other equally worrying problem is the management of foreign powers, who, while extending a helping hand with funds and projects, also extract their pound of flesh in terms of economic and political concessions in pursuit of their national, strategic and geopolitical interests.
Dissanayake would need expert help to meet his domestic and foreign policy challenges. He is likely to find the task of reconciling his left wing and nationalistic foreign policy predilections with ground realities and realpolitik.
This is the reason why former President Ranil Wickremesinghe has been repeatedly saying that voters much choose experienced people and that the Dissanayake government must draft experienced people to guide it when it navigates through treacherous waters both at home and overseas.
Wickremesinghe has offered his services, being the most experienced in governance among the present crop of politicians. He has been President once and a Prime Minister more than once.
Will Power Corrupt?
While the NPP is lauded for its stunning performance, the people of Sri Lanka also are worried that absolute power might go to Dissanayake’s head. They quote Lord Acton who said: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In the past, powerful leaders, whether in Sri Lanka or elsewhere, have not always acquitted themselves well.
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