After 40 years in politics, where I had a ringside view of national events, I ask myself the question "Has Party Politics outlived its usefulness in the context of Sri Lanka?" Although belated, the acute problems that the country is facing has compelled me to ask this question. It is true that the existing state of affairs has not come about overnight. It has happened over the years because we have failed to approach the problems in an intelligent, realistic and honest manner and respond to what we knew or should have known would take place if nothing was done. It is similar to the frog that jumped into a pot of lukewarm water which was on the boil and felt very comfortable in it till it was too late.

Take the case of the ongoing confrontations in the Northern Province and the Eastern Province and the rupture that has taken place among the communities. Politicians, from all communities, have been looking at this problem with the sole idea of getting an advantage to win elections. Principles were compromised with cynicism as was seen with the Bandaranaike call for "Sinhala only" in 24 hours and the decision of the UNP at the Kelaniya sessions to do the same breaking away from the accepted and rational policy of two languages with English as the link language. This tore the political fabric and the country has not recovered from that since then. Could not the politicians foresee this was going to happen?

The Party system in Sri Lanka is based on the confrontational model of the UK in which short term objectives are given priority because General Elections are held once in five or six years. In this system, the governing party has an excessive influence on all activities in the country. As a result, Party politics creeps into every government office. Supporters get preference for appointments and for promotions. Development work is focused in areas where Government has support or needs support and jobs are created to accommodate supporters. It has degenerated to such an extent that government ministers spend time to hand over letters of appointment as a favour.

The system has given so much power to the politician that every action of a politician is never questioned. Violence including intimidation and assault, maiming, arson and murder and vote rigging has taken over. Civic rights of opponents are withdrawn and abused, each side outbid the other with promises which cannot be honoured and the voter is further disillusioned by the infighting in the parties as a result of the existing preferential voting system. Such a system is unsuitable to Sri Lanka although may be working satisfactorily elsewhere, it cannot be a singular argument for being adopted in Sri Lanka.

The effects of party politics have been particularly adverse in the rural areas. The village was traditionally self sufficient and self reliant and the people lived as one family. They engaged in agriculture in which the entire village participated in unison. Working members of all families of one village lent their collective efforts to work individual family plots of lands. The tradition of the village collectively helping one family reciprocating when it came to the turn of others called 'attam' which is practiced in remote villages even today. This splendid spirit of co-operation kept the village life happy, contented and joyous and knew no bounds when it came to social events like weddings, and religious events. This is the spirit in which the village economy was built. This cooperative spirit was ruined with the advent of political rivalry has even spread to elections of office bearers of various village level societies e.g. elections to co-operative societies.

The cancer of party politics has also infiltrated into social organizations and has created chaos in the conduct of their business as well. The trade union movement is one such example. It is a constitutional right of the employees (other than the police and security forces) to form into trade unions in order to safeguard their rights and interest so as to improve their working conditions. In this country these objectives have been relegated to an inferior status, and priority has been given to disseminate political party propaganda among the union members. This has been further aggravated by giving political rights to public servants, who should be independent of politics in order to serve the people.

The political maelstrom has had its worst impact in the field of education. One experiences this when it comes to the abuses practiced with school admissions. One sees this with the lowering of the standards of education in the government schools. Schools were taken over by the State without any thought and planning for purely political advantage but today they are ill equipped, badly financed with staff demoralized and de-motivated. Parents with money have found an escape route to send their children to International Schools with an English curriculum and then abroad.

The same malaise is with the universities. Political parties spare no pains to gain favours from the student population with the motive to brainwash them into their lines of thinking. Students waste their precious time on politics to the neglect of their studies. The party organizations in the campuses see to that the new entrants are enlisted for party agendas. The end result is the neglect of their education losing the value of a university education, which is financed by the taxpayer and by parents, who have to make great sacrifices. As a result of not making the best use of their university education, the country gets sub-standard graduates.

The general deterioration in the country has led to the loss of the most competent persons entering Parliament and taking public office. The first Cabinet of D.S.Senanayake in 1947 had 5 members who became prime ministers and one the Governor General. Of the eleven ministers there were two Tamils, both having first class degrees in mathematics; one a professor and the other a civil servant. The Muslim minister was a leading educationist. The Minister of Justice had a doctorate in law. Education was handled by a Major in the former British Army and of the other three two were lawyers and one a graduate of the London University.

O. M. Green, a leading British journalist wrote "Under Senanayake, Ceylon was the most untroubled country in Asia." That was a time when the prime minister could ride through Colombo on horseback without a bodyguard.

The scene in 1947, however, was very much elitist. It was obvious that the system had to adjust to the democratic changes, the pressures of the population explosion and the effects of free education on the new generation. Not doing that meant a breakdown. Though our leaders may have realized this, they could not and did not conceptualize a model which could meet the new challenges. Every government for the last 60 years has made small changes which were more cosmetic rather than radical. They have tinkered with the system and continued with the party system. The people of this country have no confidence and faith in the party system. It is to them a curse which is preventing essential changes from taking place.

One is reminded of Churchill’s words on leaders when one thinks of our own leaders. He said: "They go on in a strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all powerful to be impotent".

For the first time, however, a group of people have come up with a format to make a change. The SWARAJYA FOUNDATION OF SRI LANKA is experimenting with such a concept known as 'Gramarajya' in one Gramaseva Wasama situated close to Dambadeniya town. Here is an experiment at work where a system of governance is evolving with a strong local base. Political parties have no role but the people are mobilized through an electoral process to engage themselves in interest sectors which they are committed to develop and for which they have skills and knowledge. Self reliance, self rule and self respect is emerging from this Gandhian concept. This could be the model which the country can look at in its search for a New Political Order.

There maybe other models which are more suited to save this country from the malaise of party politics. It is high time that all religious leaders, community leaders, intelligentsia, professionals and other patriots without further procrastination, awake to extirpate this cancer of party politics and evolve a system through which people exercise their sovereignty with the objective of achieving unity, harmony, peace, integration and progress.