Old habits die hard! Rathu Sahodarayas have bared their fangs. The JVP factions led by Somawansa and Weerawansa are at daggers drawn. Some of the JVP dissidents, including Wimal Weerawansa, have gone into hiding and their vehicles are being allegedly commandeered. Vehicles of two JVP rebel MPs are reported to have gone missing from the Parliament car park! The alleged incident evokes one’s memories of vehicle robberies in the late 1980s.

A rapprochement between the warring factions stands the same chance as a cat in hell. The Somawansa faction has taken to washing bundles of dirty linen in public in the full glare of the media. He cast aspersions on his bête noire, Weerawansa at Wednesday’s press briefing. He disported himself in slinging mud at his rivals to his ageing heart’s content, in typical JVP style. His opponents are, we hear, planning a venomous counter attack. The slanging match has the trappings of an obscene fracas at a public tap in a slum garden or a raucous brawl at a toddy tavern. The Marxist gods have proved they, too, have feet of clay like their Green and Blue counterparts!

However, the unfolding drama has much more to it than a fracas or some form of public entertainment. It shows the JVP is in the throes of a metamorphosis. It has discarded its public face that Weerawansa et al represented and is taking pains to slough off the straitjacket of democracy it finds itself in. Another general election is a worrisome proposition for it, if the humiliating outcome of the last Local Government polls is any indication. Having entered the Eastern Provincial Council election fray to save face, the outfit is up against it, unable to muster enough popular support to avoid a whitewash. It is now questioning the wisdom of holding PC polls in the East!

The Weerawansa faction will remain independent like the Karuna Group for the time being but will join forces with the UPFA at an election as its members will certainly not get nominations from the JVP. The pro-UNP faction of the JVP, which is still with the old guard, too, will have to make a decision as regards their political future. For, the JVP ticket at the next general election will be a passport to political wilderness. Having enjoyed power and savoured good things in life, they will not want to lose their parliamentary seats. They will have to contest on the UNP ticket.

What should be of grave concern is not what these two faction will do in the democratic mainstream but the undisclosed plan of the revolutionary old guard opposed to democracy. What the future holds for them is a choice between contesting elections on their own at the risk of being relegated to the political dustbin like the traditional left parties and reverting to its past strategy characterised by abortive attempts to overthrow governments. When they carry placards with Wijeweera’s mug and sport his trademark cap, they send a clear message—they are unwaveringly committed to his macabre cause, a mere thought of which will send a shudder down one’s spine.

Weerawansa knows the JVP like the back of his hand and he must be having good reasons to be frightened so much. He must be scared of the dark forces, whose feathers he has ruffled. And anyone who promotes those sinister elements for short term political gain is making the mistake of, as a pithy local saying goes, feeding snakes with milk. Those who did so in the past only had regrets in the end.

We only hope, as we said the other day, the country won’t run red with youthful blood yet another time.