DR. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA Courtesy The Island

We are supporting the reforms and supporting the President to implement them.” Eran Wickramaratne Oct 19, 2022.

JVP-JJB leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake gave a landmark interview to the Salakuna program of Hiru TV on Monday October 17^th 2022. It had several key takeaways.

· The JVP faults the Aragalaya leadership for not moving on to the Parliament as the endgame of the struggle.

· The JVP rejects any partnerships or alignments with other political parties in the opposition.

· The JVP asserts that the formation of a broad bloc is needless because it already exists in the form of the Jathika Jana Balavegaya, the JJB.

· The JVP holds that the SJB is an extension of the UNP administration of the recent past which were responsible for the economic crisis as for corruption, but broke away only because it thought Ranil could never win. The SJB shared the economic policies of President Ranil Wickremesinghe and should not be regarded as any kind of alternative to the status quo. It was second only to the government as a JVP target. Anura Kumara’s critique of the Aragalaya and its leadership was most revealing:

…lawmaker Dissanayake faulted those who spearheaded ‘Aragalaya’ for bringing the project to an early end. Having forced Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee, the protest should have been diverted towards the Parliament. Protesters’ ultimate objective should have been to force the then government to dissolve Parliament and call for a fresh election, the JVPer said…As a result of shortcomings on the part of those who directed ‘Aragalaya,’ the Rajapaksas succeeded in regaining political power.”

(Aragalaya failed for want of proper leadership, Rajapaksas regained power through Wickremesinghe – JVP – The Island)

This clearly lets the JVP’s rival, the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) as well as the Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF), off the hook. Since they are being indicted by the JVP leader for NOT targeting Parliament and forcing an election, logically they shouldn’t be indicted by the Government for doing so!

AKD then turns his guns on the Samagi Jana Balavegaya, the main Opposition party. Obviously the JVP regards itself as the main competitor of the SJB or vice versa.

MP Dissanayake alleged that Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) leader Sajith Premadasa, who is also the Leader of the Opposition, was also part of the utterly corrupt political party system that ruined the country. The SJB leader, as well as the vast majority of those around him, couldn’t absolve themselves of waste, corruption, mismanagement and irregularities though they now pretended to be paragons of virtue… Lawmaker Dissanayake said that it would be a grave mistake, on the part of the electorate to believe the SJB genuinely represented their interests.

Declaring that they were the real Opposition, MP Dissanayake said that the SJB backed the policies of the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government…MP Dissanayake said that the formation of the SJB should be examined against the backdrop of the split in the UNP, caused by the belief the party couldn’t win under Ranil Wickremesinghe. MP Dissanayake, in an obvious reference to the rebel SLPP groups, alleged that they distanced themselves from the government after failing to achieve their objectives, and agendas.” (ibid)

The JVP leader’s rejection of a United Front with anyone is unambiguous:

…Responding to a spate of questions on the JVP’s readiness to form a government of its own, MP Dissanayake insisted that the party wouldn’t, under any circumstances, join other political parties. Referring to the JVP joining the CBK government, in 2004, and backing Sarath Fonseka and Maithripala Sirisena at the 2010 and 2015 presidential elections, MP Dissanayake said that they wouldn’t repeat that strategy.”

(ibid)

AKD’s strategic perspective has some glaring errors. It flies in the face of decades of left electoral successes in Latin America, in what are known as Pink Tide 1.0 and Pink Tide 2.0. None of these have been by a single party. All have been by broad platforms, blocs, alliances, united fronts of left and progressive forces.

AKD’s go-it-alone strategy has been abiding failure of the JVP. That’s what it did in 1971 and 1986-89, and both experiments were failures. In a famous quote attributed to Einstein, it was observed that doing the same thing and expecting a different result was the definition of lunacy”. The same thing referred to in this case is not armed struggle which the JVP has clearly renounced. It is the practice of partisan political sectarianism; political unipolarity and unilateralism, or more colloquially, going it alone.

Though the JJB is a most commendable political enterprise, the very fact that it is headed by Anura Kumara, the JVP leader, clearly makes the JJB an auxiliary of the JVP, not an independent social/civic movement or mass organization.As for Anura Kumara’s allegation against the SJB, it could be made against every new party which ruptured from its parent party, or against any new leader who has taken over from an old one. What is crucial is whether or not the new party has made a policy pivot and presents a new profile in relation to its earlier home. Obviously SWRD’s SLFP did so.

JVP leader Anura Dissanayaka’s allegation that the SJB backed the policies of the Wickremesinghe-Rajapaksa government is unsustainable given the 20-point frontal critique and presentation of a counter-perspective that Opposition and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa made in direct response to President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Oct 6 roll-out of his economic perspective in Parliament.

This is all the more reason why one cannot help but wonder why the SJB’s Economic Policy Unit member Eran Wickramaratne has taken a position and espoused a view that plays into the anti-SJB propaganda of Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the JVP, i.e., the SJB’s main competitor on the opposition race track. This was Eran Wickramaratne’s explicit view in a newspaper this week:

…We have taken the position that we will remain in Opposition and support the Government…That is why, when the decision was made to go to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), we supported it. There are many, many other reforms that need to be made.

…Thus, we are telling the President to please get the support of those who made him President and push the reforms through. We are playing a positive role and we will support the reforms in Parliament. The challenge for the President is actually getting the SLPP’s support for the reforms. That’s why we don’t have to take the Executive office to do that, because people haven’t given us the mandate to do so. We are supporting the reforms and supporting the President to implement them. I should be clear on the non-economic factors. We support the economic reforms, but we don’t support the President’s moves against innocent protestors in this country…”

(‘Will support economic reforms, but not moves against protestors’ – The Morning – Sri Lanka News)

This is clearly contrary to SJB leader Sajith Premadasa’s spate of public speeches as well as his more formal 20-point critique of President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s economic policy. It was the opposite of an expression of endorsement and support.

SJB Economic Policy Unit members Kabir Hashim, a senior politician, and Dr Harsha de Silva, both of whom have a solid electoral base, have been strongly critical of President Wickremesinghe’s recent policies especially on taxation. As the citizens’ hardships grow, Eran Wickramaratne’s statement this week that We are supporting the reforms and supporting the President to implement them”, were it to be taken as SJB policy, would seriously cramp the party’s style as the main Opposition and play neatly into the hands of the rival JVP-JJB and its leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake.