UNP mulls over its future

Last Wednesday afternoon the Jathika Sabhawa - the combined UNP and SLFP(M) high commands - met at Cambridge Place to discuss the future in the light of the post budget fallout. The meeting was attended by UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, Mangala Samaraweera, Sripathy Sooriyarachchi, Tissa Attanayake, Rukman Senanayake, Tiran Alles and Malik Samarawickrema. The Jathika Sabhawa appears to have run out of options, because the only future programme they could think of was to organize another Jana Rela rally in Colombo. The UNP has now become like the LTTE. Over the past many years, the LTTE has attacked almost every target worth attacking and they have run out of targets to attack. What they can now do is to attack once again targets they have attacked earlier. Similarly, over the past several months the UNP has held so many meetings, demonstrations, and protest campaigns that they have run out of places to hold demonstrations.

They started the Jana Rela campaign from the maiden rally at Hyde Park some time ago were scheduled to end with the last rally in Hambantota – the electoral district of Mahinda Rajapakse. The UNP hoped to be in power by the time the jana rela campaign ended. The grand plan was to combine a popular upsurge against the government with a parliamentary upset engineered by Samaraweera with at least a dozen defections from the SLFP. But both these failed to materialize. Most people are not very familiar with the name ‘Jathika Sabhawa’. Even the jana rela slogan ‘rata iwarai perata warew!’ was a flop. Nobody even remembers this slogan. Even though the UNP insisted that the country was ‘finished’, the people did not seem to share that opinion. What the Jathika Sabhawa decided to do last week, was to repeat this failure one more time in Colombo.

Another committee

But the feeling that something was seriously amiss as far as whipping up public support has at last begun to sink into the minds of the UNP leadership. When the party management committee met last week, Wickremesinghe appointed a committee to look into the Youth and Womens organizations of the party. People may smile knowingly at this, and say "Another committee!" But the appointment of this committee shows that Wickremasinghe is worried, and it is good to worry about things that one should be worried about. Tissa Attanayake, S.B.Dissanayake, Talatha Athukorale, Lakshman Seneviratne Akila Kariyawasam and Bodhi Ranasinghe are members of this committee which will report back to Wickremesinghe about the present state of the womens’ and youth sections of the party and make recommendations as to what should be done to rehabilitate these sections.

As pointed out in this column on many occasions previously, the UNP has failed to attract the youth. At the 2001 parliamentary election, there was a visible youth presence in the UNP. Every UNP candidate - even the unimportant ones - had dozens of young men in their election campaign, with as many young women helping out behind the scenes. But after the treatment that was meted out to these youth, by the UNP government of 2001-2004, that entire generation seems to have given up politics. During the past five years or so, there has been a change in the way the younger generation perceives politics. Things are no longer what they used to be for everybody. Even the JVP is no longer able to attract youth. This problem which affects all political parties in the country, also affects the UNP in an even more accentuated form. This is bad news for the UNP because the older generation already is prejudiced against the UNP and its leadership. It is this generation that ensured the UNP’s defeat for the past one and a half decades. So without winning new votes, the UNP has no way of making a serious bid for power. If the new voters remain neutral without supporting any party, that too will favour the present government.

When the UNP political affairs committee met last week, the main topic of discussion was the program between the 28th of November and the 12th of December where the UNP has organized various events in the run up to the third reading of the budget. Even though the UNP has organized these events, they are not too confident about being able to do anything significant on voting day on Dec. 14. Wickremesinghe warned the political affairs committee that some had been making public statements to the effect that the UNP would be toppling the government on that day and that they should desist from making such statements. The prerogative to make such statements should be left to him and him alone said Wickremesinghe. He said that what the party should prepare for now was to go onto the streets against the government.

The spiteful damsel

On a previous occasion, Wickremasinghe pitched into Vajira Abeywardene at the political affairs committee – that was for saying at the Kosgashandiya meeting that the UNP would be capturing power after the Sinhala and Tamil New Year in April this year. This giving of dates has now become a joke and Wickremesinghe was right in calling a halt to it. Even though the JVP voted against the budget, there is no guarantee that they will vote against it at the third reading if it looks likely that the UNP may win. Even though the JVP did what the UNP desperately wanted them to do at the vote on the second reading, the JVP has not been warming up to the UNP. If the UNP is to derive any benefits from the JVP, they have to warm up to the UNP the way Mangala and Sripathy did and become genuine allies. But the possibility of that happening seems to be quite remote.

In the run up to last Monday’s vote, the UNP was engaged in a frantic attempt to woo the JVP Just before the budget vote was taken, Wickremesinghe had approached two JVP parliamentarians Wasantha Samarasinghe and Navaratna Banda who were chatting on a corridor in parliament and said, that he would like to talk to them about a ‘jathika arthikaya’ (national economy). Wickremesinghe had wanted to chat up the two JVP parliamentarians. But Navaratna Banda had asked him, "Why do you want to speak to us about a jathika arthikaya? You should be talking about a vijathika arthikaya (non-national economy) instead!" Wickremesinghe had beaten a quick retreat in the face of such hostility.

After the budget vote Mano Ganesan had approached Anura Kumara Dissanayake and congratulated him on the decision to vote against the budget. But when Sri Kanthan of the TNA had tried to congratulate Wimal Weerawansa, by thanking him for the support, and extended his hand to shake hands, Weerawansa had ignored the TNA parliamentarian’s outstretched hand and just brushed him off, saying that they had voted against the budget only because they were against the budget and not because they had any intention of aiding the Tigers. It would appear that the JVP resents having had to give the UNP and TNA even the slight satisfaction of seeing them voting against the government.

Despite the JVP having voted against the budget, it is clear that the UNP does not see the JVP as potential allies. Over the weekend before the budget vote was taken, Wickremesinghe had met President Rajapakse at former first lady, Mrs Elina Jayewardenehome. During the course of the conversation, the president had asked Wickremesinghe what he was going to do at the budget to which Wickemesinghe replied that they were going to vote against it. The president then said that if he loses, he will hand over the government to Wickremesinghe and Wickremesinghe told the president that he does not want to take over the government. He suggested that the president gets together with the JVP and run the government. An interesting exchange considering the fact that the avowed policy of the UNP was to topple the government by voting against it, at the budget and winning over dissidents from the SLFP. Wickremesinghe knows that even if the JVP voted against the budget, the UNP could not rely on their support. Besides, if the JVP was behaving this way against the PA government, they would be harsher on a UNP government.

Playing it safe

Another thing discussed at the political affairs committee was the budget coming up in the southern provincial council. Some members of the PAC like Lakshman Kiriella, Malik Samarawickrema and Ravi Karunanayake said that the SPC budget should be defeated. Another group however said that this would only distract the party from the goal they had set themselves. Sajith Premadasa, S.B.Dissanayke and Ranjith Madduma Bandara were in the more cautious group. This latter group was correct because there is no point in overthrowing a provincial government, unless they can be certain of winning the election that will follow. In the southern province especially, the possibility of the UNP winning an election is quite remote. If they defeat the SPC budget and then lose the consequent election, that is going to have a domino effect on the rest of the country as well. At a time like this, that is just about the last thing the UNP needs. So the UNP and JVP, which together could have defeated the SPC budget, walked out of the vote leaving the council undefeated.

Source: Island