By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham
Colombo, May 3: International Workers Day celebrations have long since lost their original meaning and significance. They were a revolutionary tradition signifying the world-wide unity of workers and their commitment to continuing the fight for a more equitable and humane society.
But today, May Day has been transformed into one of crass politicking and personal political aggrandizement.
As Sri Lanka is looking towards national elections, political parties organized May Day celebrations last Wednesday to showcase their strength ahead of their campaigns.
The Janata Vimukhti Peramuna (JVP) has been organizing mass marches and rallies regularly and in a discipline manner for decades on May Days after older left parties like the Sri Lanka Communist Party and the Lanka Sama Samaj Party lost influence. Last week too, their May Day rally was very much bigger than that of other parties. Not only in the capital, but also in Anuradhapura, Matara and even in Jaffna they held rallies.
It seems that unlike earlier, JVP now in a new avatar as National People’s Power(NPP) has become one of the main political parties in the country.
The traditional mainstream political parties such as the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) have become small parties in terms of organizational structure and popular support. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) which the Rajapaksas started eight years ago, not only grew into the country’s largest political party in a short span of time, but also seized power with the overwhelming support of the people.
The Rajapaksas, who were ousted from power two years ago by Sri Lanka’s unprecedented popular uprising, the Aragalaya have once again stepped up efforts to strengthen their party. They also held a May Day rally in Colombo.
The UNP, led by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, organized the May Day celebrations on a grand scale this time after a long time. It is noteworthy that after more than three decades, the UNP celebrated its May Day under the leadership of an Executive President. It was on Ma day in 1993 that President Ranasinghe Premadasa was killed in a suicide bomb attack while leading the party’s procession in Colombo.
After him, no UNP leader had won the Presidential election. How Wickremesinghe, the current leader of the UNP, rose to the Presidency that had been eluding him for more than a quarter of a century is a remarkable story in recent times.
Even though he is two months away from completing two years as President, he continues to be unable to rebuild his party’s support base. The UNP, which had suffered a historic defeat in the last general election by failing to win a single seat in Parliament, was able to entertain hopes of revival only after Wickremesinghe took office as President.
Last Wednesday saw thousands of people gathered at the UNP’s rally. It was common to hear that participation in rallies need not necessarily translate into votes in elections as it had been in the case of the JVP. Even in the case of the UNP now, one cannot help but ask whether the mass of people who attended the May Day rally will translate into votes.
This time, the UNP also had the compulsion to put on a grand display. It bussed people from many parts of the country for the Colombo rally. Wickremesinghe, who has already embarked on efforts to form a broad alliance before announcing his candidacy for the presidential election, needs to show that his party is no longer in the dire state it was four years ago.
However, Wickremesinghe did not say anything about his candidacy for the Presidency, although it was expected that he would announce it at the rally in Colombo. Instead, he called on all political parties, including the main opposition United People’s Power ( SJB ) and NPP to come forward to reach an ageement with the government to continue with the current economic restructuring program being carried out with the help of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to bring the country out of the economic crisis.
Instead of making new promises, the President asked parties to support the government in enacting the agreement with the IMF in parliament as a law. It is obvious that he is focusing on handling the current economic restructuring measures as a major part of his future political agenda.
Many members of Parliament from some other parties, especially those from SJB were expected to attend the UNP rally. Despite the party’s deputy president Ruwan Wijewardena’s saying on the previous day that there would be some political tremor on Wednesday, no one other than a Monaragala district Member of Parliament belonging to the SLPP took the stage.
Meanwhile, Sajith Premadasa, while addressing his party’s rally in Colombo, explained the approach his party would adopt to deal with the country’s political challenges and gave numerous promises. He said that his government will strive to find a permanent solution to the problems faced by the minority communities with the support of the Sinhalese people and added that he was committed to the full implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
The Leader of the Opposition’s speech, which was an attempt to reach out to the minority communities, showed his keen interest in winning the support of those communities.
Addressing the NPP’s Colombo rally, which was attended by a massive crowd, its leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake said that Sri Lanka will celebrate the next May Day under their government. No doubt, it was a reflection of his confidence in his victory in the Presidential election.
Dissanayake, who as usual launched a scathing attack on past and present governments, instead of expounding on specific policies of his party, spoke in general terms about uniting the people around the NPP’s plan for economic recovery.
Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who addressed the SLPP rally held at Campbell Park in Colombo, boasted as usual, that the candidate who contests with the blessings of his party will win the Presidential election. Rajapaksa offered an indirect compliment to President Wickremesinghe by saying that he took up the Presidency when Premadasa and Anura Kumara refused were afraid to take up the responsibility. The then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had asked them to take over the government to handle the economic downturn two years ago during the peoples uprising. ‘
However, Mahinda Rajapaksa did not openly say that his party would support Wickremesinghe in the coming election.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Wijedasa Rajapakshe addressed an SLFP rally in Gampaha outside Colombo, a few hours after former President Maithripala Sirisena announced that Rajapakshe would be the SLFP’s Presidential candidate. But one is at a loss to understand why the Justice Minister wants to contest the Presidential election when the SLFP is badly divided. One cannot help suspecting that there may be an ulterior motive behind it.
As these are the messages from the May Day rallies, which were deemed a spectacular starting point of election campaigns, the question arises as to when President Wickremesinghe will announce his decision to contest the elections.
What does he think is the appropriate (auspicious) time to make his announcement?
Rajan Phillips, a veteran Sri Lankan political analyst living in Canada, made an interesting comment about President Wickremesinghe in his regular column in the ‘Sunday Island’ last week.
He said: “Ranil Wickremasinghe’s stars and fortunes are different and might be even rising. He has no party in Parliament but is in total control of Parliament. He has no party to take to the hustings but that gives him the freedom to shop around for an alliance and promote himself as the common candidate. A new political animal.”
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