The Saturday before last, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had been in the Deniyaya electorate collecting signatures for the ‘people’s impeachment’ against the government. He had personally visited around seventy houses in the village of Keerthigama. The UNP leader has put his best foot forward during the past one year and has been personally involved in grassroots work. During the UNP’s recently concluded weekly pola campaign, Wickremesinghe visited at least half a dozen village fairs to lead the campaign himself. It was the same in Deniyaya, where he personally led the house to house signature collection campaign. Matara district leader Justin Galappatthy had also been involved in this campaign. Galappatthy has a sword hanging over his head in the form of Mangala Samaraweera. If the people’s impeachment that they were collecting signatures for was successful and the government did call for a parliamentary election, then Galappatthy will have to give way to Samaraweera to assume the Matara district UNP leadership.

The main political activity of the UNP last week was the collection of signatures for this people’s impeachment against the government. The last time there was an impeachment, it was against President Premadasa and the signatories were parliamentarians - not ordinary people. A surprising number of UNP parliamentarians had also signed the Premadasa impeachment. Wickremesinghe, at that time, supported the president and worked actively against the leaders of the movement to impeach him. The explanation given by Wickremesinghe for so many UNP MPs having signed the Premadasa impeachment motion was that when a senior minister sends around a document, the junior MPs usually sign it without bothering to read it! The same applies inter alia, to the impeachment motion that Wickremesinghe himself is backing. When the leader of the opposition and the former prime minister turns up on the doorstep of a poor villager in Deniyaya, wanting him to sign a document, the overwhelmed peasant would be only too pleased to oblige. Wickremesinghe appears to have been greatly encouraged by the campaign in Deniyaya. He got back to Colombo last week and issued orders to all electoral organizers to stop holding formal signing ceremonies and to do house to house campaigns to collect signatures.

When the UNP disciplinary committee met last week, they decided to recommend to the working committee, the removal of the latest crop of UNP dissidents, Mahinda Ratnatilleke, Duminda Silva and Keerthi Wijeratne from their positions of electoral organizers. It was also decided that disciplinary proceedings would be initiated against them and Provincial Councilors Janaka Mallimarachchi and Edward Silva as well. These days it seems that the disciplinary committee is the busiest of all UNP committees. They are now trying to clear the backlog from the results of the second reading of the budget. It will be interesting to see how many cases they will have to handle after the third reading.

Last week, the disciplinary committee had managed to resolve a long outstanding issue which had been dragging on for almost a year. That was the case of the opposition leader of the Medawachchiya pradesheeya sabha, Nalin Wijeratne who had been holding a position on Minister Rajitha Senaratne’s personal staff. This matter had been resolved with Wijeratne agreeing to resign from Senaratne’s ministry.

When the UNP working committee met last week, a matter that was discussed was its composition in 2008. All UNP parliamentarians are at present members of the working committee, but Wickremesinghe brought up the question of how they were going to ensure equitable representation in the working committee next year because there was a need to get the various front organizations of the UNP represented in the policy making body while also giving parliamentarians representation. Wickremesinghe hinted that the number of UNP MPs may increase in the future and brought up the question as to how these expected new entrants could be accommodated in the working committee without expanding it.

The UNP working committee also approved the appointment of Kegalle district parliamentarian Champika Premadasa as the organizer for Dedigama, the electorate of Dudley Senanyake who always only managed to get elected to parliament because of the large Bathgama caste constituency in the electorate. Dudley never got the huge majorities that the Bandaranaike’s could take for granted in Attanagalle. More recently, Dedigama was the electorate of UNP dissident, Mano Wijeratne. After Wijeratne defected to the government, Wickremesinghe may have thought it politic to field a Bathgama candidate in Dedigama in order to utilize the caste vote for the UNP’s benefit.

On Tuesday, Wickremesinghe held several separate meetings with electoral organizers from all over the country to evaluate the progress of party programs in their respective electorates - primarily the membership drive and the setting up of branch organizations . The progress evaluation was done by Wickremesinghe, S.B.Dissanayake, Tissa Attanayake, and Renuka Herath. Wickremesinghe issued instructions to all organizers to fulfill their targets by the end of this month. He also instructed them to prepare for an election. A committee to organize public protest campaigns was also set up, with S.B.Dissanayake, Tissa Attanayake, Talatha Atukorale, Akila Kariyawasam and Bodhi Ranasinghe.

The UNP Yovun Peramuna held a protest rally in Kiribathgoda on Wednesday. On Friday, the Lak Wanitha organization held a protest campaign at the turn off to parliament, led by Talatha Athukorale. This column reported last week that both the youth and women’s sections of the party had been asked to prepare reports on what had to be done to attract the support of the youth and women to the UNP. What was obviously meant was not to organize yet another protest campaign but to increase youth participation overall, in party activities.

While the mainline UNP was thus preparing for a political showdown with the government, the UNP reformist group met at Minister Karu Jayasuriya’s office last week and unanimously pledged their unstinted support for the government at the forthcoming third reading of the budget. But some members of the group expressed dissatisfaction at the policy of arresting of Tamils without prior investigation, and stressed that those found to be uninvolved, should be expeditiously released.

What the UNP hopes to do is to topple the government of Mahinda Rajapakse in parliament on Dec.14 and replace it with a UNP-led government. One of the most important factors in effecting a change of government is the pressure that has built up in society against the incumbent government. In 1994, the resentment that had built up over 17 years saw the UNP government fall. During that entire period, members of the SLFP and the left parties had absolutely no access to political patronage. The fact that half the population was denied such access for so long was alone enough to create the anti-government momentum to overthrow the UNP in 1994.

Between 1994 and 2001, the pressure put on the UNP half of the population by the government of President Kumaratunga, was enough to create her own nemesis. The persecution that she carried out in seven years was even more excessive than the persecution carried out by the UNP government of 1977-94 against the SLFP. This element of around half the population being denied access to patronage, or - during Chandrika’s time - even a feeling of security, is an important element in effecting a change of government; but this crucial element has been missing vis-a-vis the Rajapakse government. The difference is that under the Rajapakse government, the UNP has not been subject to relentless persecution as they were under Kumaratunga, nor has the opposition been denied access to patronage as they were during the UNP government of 1977-94.

Today, there are about two dozen members of the UNP (not counting the CWC and SLMC) who are ministers in the PA government. Through these ministers, almost the entire UNP has access to political patronage. At the village level, any UNP activist can approach these ministers to get various things done. Ironically, those UNP parliamentarians who joined the Rajapakse government have had much greater freedom of action than when the UNP was in power in 2001-2004. Almost all of them have for instance given more jobs in the first three months after joining the government than they were ever able to during the entire two and a half years of UNP rule. These UNP dissident ministers also have got various grants under the government’s gamaneguma and maganeguma programmes and UNPers too can get their roads improved and new electricity connections given. Never before in the post independence history of this country has the opposition had as much access to political patronage as at present.

Many UNP parliamentarians who joined the government were district leaders. For example, the UNP district leaders for Colombo, Gampaha, Moneragala, Ratnapura, Matara, Kegalle, Kalutara, and Kandy are all in the PA government. The patronage that the people have access to has been finding its way to all levels of the UNP at district level. It may not be the same as having your own government in power, but when there was a UNP government in power in 2001-2004, UNP members did not have any access to patronage. Ironically, they have been getting more from Mahinda Rajapakse than they ever did from Wickremesinghe.

Apart from this diffusion of pressure due to access to political patronage, there is also the problem that the UNP now has very few people with name recognition among the general public. This is now a party of non-entities. At an election campaign, just trying to get people to remember their names will be an uphill struggle. In 2001, when the UNP came into power, they had a team which was as good, if not better than the team that J.R.Jayawardene had in 1977. Even the new members of the team had seven years to make their names known to the public. On top of those who were already in the UNP, some of the best known names in the PA, like S.B.Dissanayake, G.L. Pieris, Lakshman Kiriella, Bandula Gunawardene and others also joined the UNP. Hence at the 2001 election, the UNP’s candidates did not have to struggle just to make their names known. Coupled to this lack of name recognition is the question of stature. The entire Matara district has only one UNP parliamentarian, Sagala Ratnayake. Ratnapura district has only one – Thalatha Athukorale. The Colombo district has two parliamentarians – Ravi Karunanayaka and Mohamed Maharoof. All other candidates in the Colombo district are not known to the public. This lack of name recognition and stature is going to adversely affect the UNP’s election campaign. The UNP will in effect be fielding their B team against a government which includes most of the UNP’s own A team!

On the positive side for the UNP, the JVP seems to have severed its link with the government and this will work in favor of the greens at least in the short term. The last time the UNP was elected into power in 2001, they were able to form a government only because the JVP contested separately and remained a separate entity in parliament. At the 2001 parliamentary election, the UNP and CWC got 4,086,026 votes which together with the SLMC"s 105,346 votes becomes 4,191,372. But the PA got 3,330,815 votes and the JVP 815,353 which together makes 4,146,168 votes. Add to this, the EPDP’s 72,783 votes at that election and the PA would once again have got the majority in parliament. Even after the total collapse of the regime, with negative economic growth rates, an empty treasury, a complete loss of faith in the government, the biggest military debacles since world war two, and the biggest crossover in parliamentary history led by S.B.Dissanayake, the UNP only managed to form a government because the JVP contested separately. That was an election where president Kumaratunga couldn’t get even the police to carry out her orders – so complete was the collapse of the regime in the eyes of the people.

If the UNP could not get a clear majority even in such circumstances, the situation is going to be much more difficult today. The Rajapakse regime is riding high on a wave of jingoism following many successful operations against the LTTE. Even the reversal suffered by the government in the Anuradhapura air base attack, did not lower the standing of the government because it was followed by the killing of Tamilselvam who had become the public face of the LTTE and the destruction of the Voice of Tigers radio station. Even the present controversy concerning the comments made by the head of UNESCO on the bombing of the VoT station, is helping the government because it keeps reminding the public how successful the government has been in hitting LTTE targets. As for the economy, money has been making its way to the ordinary masses despite the high cost of living. The prices paid for green tea leaf has soared; so has the price of raw rubber. Some months ago, Dr Karunasena Kodituwakku was interviewed by the Island, at a time when paddy was fetching only a very low price of around Rs 13 a kilo. What he said was that the government should ensure that paddy fetches at least 50% more. That has happened now, with Dr Kodituwakku having sold his own paddy recently at Rs 19.50 a kilo. The export sectors are doing well. The stock market is reasonably buoyant, land prices are on the increase. And the large projects started by the government such as the Norochcholai coal power plant and the Hambantota harbour have got off the ground.

In short, the present situation in the country is the exact opposite of what it was in December 2001, the last time the UNP was able to form a government. To think of fighting an election without taking these facts into account is to say the least, Quixotic. If even in the middle of that total collapse in 2001, the UNP was able to form a government only because the JVP contested separately, then that has lessons for the present as well.

After the defeat of April 2004, UNP strategists came to the conclusion that the UNP has no chance unless a wedge is driven between the JVP and the PA. The UNP’s defeat of April 2004, was born of their victory of December 2001, where the losers, the PA, JVP and EPDP taken together, had more votes than the combined UNP, CWC and SLMC. The government of 2001 existed only on sufferance. Even though the JVP has now decided to go their separate way, how beneficial that will be to the UNP is a moot point. In a three cornered contest between the UNP, JVP and PA, even if the UNP wins, they will still not be able to obtain a clear majority in parliament. Then once again, they will be existing on sufferance. If the JVP was so intent on destabilizing the PA, they will be even more disruptive when a UNP government is in power.

The case of the JVP needs further analysis. The UNP strategy depends a great deal on the JVP to be the ‘spoiler’ and deprive the PA of seats that would otherwise have been theirs. Today, the JVP holds many parliamentary seats that would in normal circumstances have gone to the PA. Because they contested together with the PA, many JVP candidates received the preference votes of PA voters. Wimal Weerawansa could not have come in at the top of the PA list in Colombo on JVP votes alone. Now that the JVP has struck out on their own, the two electoral bases will begin to separate. What will this hold for the balance of power in the country? At the 1994 parliamentary election, the JVP got only a miniscule number of votes but they won one parliamentary seat in the Hambantota district. By the 1999 presidential election, their vote base had gone up to 344,179. Less than an year later, at the parliamentary election of October 2000, the JVP got 518,774 votes. Just over a year after that, at the December 2001 parliamentary elections, they got 815,353 votes.

The JVP is a cadre based party and way back in 1982, when Rohana Wijeweera contested the presidential election, he polled around 250,000 votes – the votes of their cadre and their immediate constituency. The JVP constituency at that time, was the rural educated youth and underprivileged Sinhala castes such as the Rada, Bathgam, Wahumpura, Berava and other miniscule castes such as the Oli, Hunu, etc. These are castes which do not have as much access to education and business opportunities as the privileged, Karava Durava, Salagama and Govigama castes. In both the 1971 and 1987-89 insurrections, the JVP was strong in pockets which had concentrations of these underprivileged castes.

But the other parties too have their hands in the depressed caste pie as can be seen from last week’s conferment of the Dedigama electorate on parliamentarian Champika Premadasa who is from the Bathgam caste. Giving the seat held by Dudley Senanyake to a member of the Bathgam case can be considered a compliment to the entire caste of which there is a significant concentration in the Kegalle district.

Hence the JVP does not have a complete monopoly over the depressed caste vote. Even in 1988, at the height of the JVP’s partially caste based insurrection, President Premadasa who was a member of the ‘Hinni’ caste was able to reap the vote of the underprivileged castes which is what made him the UNP’s choice for that presidential election and a sure winner.

Be that as it may, the rapid increase in the JVP’s vote base between the presidential election of 1999 and the parliamentary election of 2001, can only be ascribed to the floating vote which was in search of a dynamic opposition. Between 1994 and 2001, the UNP was very different to what they are now. Today hardly a day passes without the UNP organizing some event to protest against the government. But during Chandrika Kumaraunga’s first term in office, the UNP was too busy running for cover to think of opposing the government. Even in 2001, there had to be a full scale mutiny in the UNP led by Gamini Athukorale, Karu Jayasuriya, Ravi Karunanayake, Rajitha Senaratne and others to persuade Ranil Wickremesinghe to explore the possibility of winning over the S.B.Dissanayake faction to topple the government.

It was in the context of the UNP’s inactivity and pusillanimity and the virtual absence of an opposition in the country that the floating vote got attracted to the JVP between 1999 and 2001. The UNP’s defeats at the 1999 presidential election and the 2000 parliamentary election would also have contributed to the floating vote looking for a more viable looking political entity.

The thing with such floating votes is that the vote base tends to dissipate almost as quickly as it accumulates. Take the DUNF that Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake founded. It got over a million votes at the very first election it faced, barely 18 months after it was founded. But that vote has basically disappeared. The same could well happen to the JVP as well. One thing that gives the JVP a sense of security would be the fact that after contesting the 2004 parliamentary election and the 2005 presidential election in partnership with the PA, they went on their own during the local government election of 2006 where they got 824,350 votes - a little more than what they got at the 2001 parliametary election the last time they contested alone. This may have given the JVP the impression that it had a permanent vote base of over 800,000 votes and their recent decision to distance themselves from the government may be based on this feeling of security.

Political abhidhamma

But the rise of the JVP between 1999 and 2001 was mainly on the expectation that they would do something constructive. The phenomenal increase in JVP representation in 2004 when they contested together with the PA was because they were the hope of a significant section of society. But by now, having proved that they are no more than talkers and holders of pristine positions, it is doubtful that they will be able to attract the same number of votes. Even though the JVP got over 824,000 votes at the 2006 local government election, that was at a time when the JVP was still with the government and the people thought they would do something constructive instead of being the perpetual critic. Today, however, the JVP is an ageing party. The youth are no longer attracted to the JVP. The party which was once known as the poster peramuna, is no longer as visible on the walls as they used to be in the past. The posters that they put up are under names of various front organizations and are hard to recognize as JVP.

The JVP is no longer on the rising curve as they were in 2001. Their political mainstay today is the ‘jathiwadi’ line represented by Wimal Weerawansa. But then the government has the upper hand in this because it is the government that is doing something whereas the JVP is only sitting on the sidelines and cheering when the government scores a hit. This policy will also further erode confidence in the JVP when they are seen to be the main cause for the instability of the very government whose successes they had been cheering. At the JVP politburo meeting held the week before last, party leader Somawansa Amarasinghe said that the people don’t understand the JVP’s decision to vote against the government at the second reading of the budget, but that they will understand by and by. Hence the JVP itself is aware that their actions are incomprehensible to the public. This is a danger sign. When a political party does things that are difficult to explain to the people in simple terms, it is only a matter of time until the repercussions manifest themselves.