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Will LSSP split make any difference in the presidential contest?
View(s):With differences surfacing in many quarters both in and outside government over the impending presidential election, a split within the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) presents the latest challenge to cohesion within government ranks. The decision of a faction within the party to oppose and work against its Central Committee’s decision to support Mahinda Rajapaksa as presidential candidate for a third term, comes on the heels of the ultimatum issued to the Government by another coalition partner, the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), whose demands also relate to the powers of the executive presidency.
The proposal to support Rajapaksa’s candidacy was carried with a majority of 26 voting for it with one abstention at last Sunday’s LSSP meeting at the party headquarters. Senior LSSP members Lal Wijenayake and Jayampathy Wickramaratne were among the 13 who voted against. Wijenayake said the dissenting group planned to form a ‘Left Centre.’ By this he meant a common platform that would ‘bring the Left people together’ to support a common candidate opposed to the executive presidency. This formation would not be a separate political party but was ‘for the purpose of the election,’ he told ‘the Sunday Times.’
“Though they want an alternative candidate, there are many in the Left who don’t want to be on the same platform as the UNP” Wijenayake said. A ‘Left Centre’ would allow such elements to work together with the common objective of abolishing the executive presidency. “The main thing we want is for the roadmap to be implemented,” he said, referring to Ven. Maduluwawe Sobitha Thera’s proposals. “A Bill to abolish the executive presidency must be brought and adopted within two months. Within six months parliament should be dissolved, allowing people to elect the government they want. It doesn’t matter who.” The dissenting group wants reintroduction of the 17th Amendment with independent commissions to be re-established before the general election. It envisages a government with a prime minister in parliament, with the president playing a ceremonial role as under the 1972 constitution.
Vasu backs Rajapaksa, DEW undecided.
LSSP leader and Senior Minister Tissa Vitarana speaking to ‘the Sunday Times’ said one and a half month’s notice had been given before the proposal was put to the vote. At a politburo meeting the question of which candidate to support had been raised and discussed. Three members had presented arguments, with Jayampathy Wickramaratne making the case for those opposing Rajapaksa’s candidature and Deputy Minister Y. G. Padmasiri arguing in support of Rajapaksa. Vitarana said he examined the pros and cons of both positions and recommended that the party support Mahinda Rajapaksa at the election. “All three documents were sent to the Central Committee members.” The 13 who voted against had wanted the decision delayed till the Opposition’s ‘common candidate’ was known, but two thirds wanted the decision made at the meeting, Vitarana said.
Communist Party chief DEW Gunasekera said a decision on whether to support the LSSP position would be taken next week. But Vasudeva Nanayakkara, whose Democratic Left Front is the third party in the Left Alliance within government, says his party will support the Rajapaksa candidature. He argues that there are two separate issues here. The question of presidential powers and the constitution needs to be considered separately from the contest between two political forces (as during an election) he argues. “We always stood for curtailing of president’s powers, and we continue to stand for it. But when it comes to an election it’s a different matter… We are opposed to right wing forces, and if it’s the UNP vs. the Alliance, we support the alliance.”
Ranil as ‘common candidate?’
While the question as to who the Opposition’s ‘common candidate’ will be remains as yet unclear, it is apparent that the UNP expects its leader Ranil Wickremesinghe to be that choice. There’s not exactly an overwhelming number of people from the Left to back that project. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna will not touch it with a barge pole. Still less its more radical breakaway group, the Frontline Socialist Party. The JHU despite being in ‘protest mode’ has stated it will not back the UNP leader. But with Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa reportedly declaring his support for Wickremesinghe (at a Hyde Park meeting on Tuesday attended by thousands of UNP polling agents from around the country) it would seem there is a good chance the picture will change. Just as it did in Uva after he threw his weight behind dynamic young Harin Fernando’s provincial campaign.
After all the permutations and combinations of possible political alliances on the issue of abolishing the executive presidency have been exhausted, in the end it looks as if the contours of the race may end up no different than in previous presidential elections (with the exception of 2010) — as a contest between the SLFP and the UNP. ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same,’ it seems. How much importance can an issue such as that of the executive presidency assume in such a fight? Isn’t the presidential election more a battle of personalities, where it is individual magnetism and popular appeal that counts?
The JHU’s campaign led by Ven. Athuruliye Rathana Thera differs from that of other Opposition formations in that it does not call for abolition of the executive presidency, but for scaling down of presidential powers. The JHU demands include constitutional amendments before the presidential election that would make the president answerable to parliament, remove his immunity and divest him of the power to make key appointments such as those of judges of higher courts. The nationalist element in the JHU’s battery of proposals such as the primacy accorded to Buddhism and demographic changes it seeks to impose, will not sit well with progressive and Left forces that believe in an inclusive, pluralistic society. But the party’s clarion call to war against corruption, nepotism and the obscene greed of the ruling class is gaining considerable traction across party lines. How Wickremesinghe’s bid for the ‘common candidate’ ticket will affect this groundswell of opposition remains to be seen.