With four more days to go for the final budget vote, the Opposition is rekindling its supporters’ hopes that the Rajapaksa government will be ousted and a UNP-led government installed. Although some government MPs, they are being told, didn’t cross over last time because the JVP’s wavering had given them the jitters, this time round they will vote against the budget. However, the government says it is confident of winning the crucial vote hands down in spite of its opponents’ bragging.

Rathu Sahodarayas made another faux pas the other day. They backed the defence vote at the committee stages of the budget, having sought to defeat the budget at the second reading vote. Their volte-face shows they are smarting from strong criticism against their earlier decision to side with the UNP and the TNA to torpedo President Rajapaksa’s war budget while calling for the annihilation of the LTTE. This newspaper likened the JVP’s action to throwing a lifeline to the LTTE and ventured to argue that it was not the first time that the JVP had rushed to the LTTE’s rescue. In the late 1980s, too, we said, the JVP’s campaign for sending the IPKF back had stood a beleaguered LTTE in good stead.

The JVP’s support for the defence vote at the committee stage was nothing but a vain attempt to repair its mask of patriotism which suffered irreparable damage at the seconding reading vote. The current budget is the be-all and end-all of the government’s war effort. SLFP dissident Wijedasa Rajapaksa after his crossover to the Opposition argued that since President Rajapaksa would continue to hold office, the war effort wouldn’t be adversely affected even if the budget was defeated. It was a flawed argument by a President’s Counsel. What happened in 2001, when the UNF formed a government with CBK as President? Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe signed a CFA with the LTTE and adopted appeasement. CBK was stripped of the defence ministry and virtually reduced to a titular President.

A vote against the President’s war budget is nothing but a vote against his war effort. The JVP’s right to oppose the budget cannot be questioned but having tried to defeat it, it has no moral right to demand that the LTTE be crushed militarily. Face saving tactics won’t help it dupe the discerning public. How can Rathu Sahodarayas relishing oxtail soup say ‘no’ to beef?

SLMC and CWC leaders are said to be in two minds whether to vote for the budget or not. But, the question is whether they will want a situation similar to that which prevailed during the 2001-2004 period, when the UNF had a wobbling government which was finally sacked by President Kumaratunga. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that if the budget were to be shot down and a general election held, the UNP-led Jathika Sabha would be able to form a government. For, although the UNP may get the JVP’s support in Parliament to bring down the government, the JVP will never combine forces with the UNP at an election. The real strength of the Mangala-Sripathy duo has not yet been tested and whether they could deliver what they have promised to the UNP at an election remains to be seen. So, whether Hakeem and Thondaman, who are currently ensconced in power, will want to help topple the Rajapaksa government is the question.

The UNP is handling political issues like a child clasping a heap of oranges. It always tries to take hold of everything but is left with nothing. The epithet that the JVP famously coined for the government—edavela tours (a private bus operator existing on his daily turnover)—may also fit the UNP living by the day. It keeps shifting from issue to issue without anything solid to hang its anti-government campaign on.

It is not so much the votes in Parliament that the UNP should be concerned about but popular support to win an election. First of all, it should get its act together. Protests alone don’t help propel parties to power. They must win public confidence and offer them something new instead of the same old stale wine in new bottles.

The UNP is mistaken if it thinks a general election will be a cakewalk for it because of the JVP’s breakaway from the ruling coalition. The SLFP-led UPFA has proved that it can win an election without the JVP. It is only at a presidential election that the SLFP may need the JVP’s support. But, President Kumaratunga managed to win the 1999 Presidential Election without the JVP. (Ironically, the JVP Presidential Candidate Nandana Gunathilake is now with the government!) It is said that she won because of the sympathy vote that the LTTE attempt on her life generated, but it may also be argued that the much publicised claim by the pro-UNP media that she would be invalided out of office due to a serious brain damage due to the attack deprived her of many votes.

The biggest casualty of the dissolution of the present Parliament will be the JVP. It won’t be able to retain at least one fifth of the number of seats it has at present. If it sabotages the war effort, it won’t be able to market its chauvinism again to the people who were taken in by its patriotic slogans at the last general election.

The government may pretend to be confident but it is obviously apprehensive and, so to speak, angst-ridden. For, it consists of a knot of toads whose movements are highly unpredictable. Ex-President Kumaratunga, who has thrown in her lot with the Opposition, is said to have some loyalists within the government ranks, though it remains to be seen whether she will be able to engineer their defection. Losing the budget vote is a worrisome proposition for President Rajapaksa, who will have his wings clipped in case of the UNP capturing power in Parliament.

All the heroes given to political sabre-rattling in public are shivering in their boots in private. Stakes they have in the budget vote are so high. They cannot afford to lose.