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Whither SLFP: Once dominant party suffers another blow in its 73 years
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Under lock and key: Party headquaters at Darley Road, Colombo. Pic by Eshan Fernando
By Chandani Kirinde
“Malice towards none, with charity for all” were the words used by the founder of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, when he embarked on his journey to found a new political party in the country. However, with the current split in the SLFP into three camps, the once dominant political force has been left in tatters.
While the three factions claiming ownership of the SLFP are engaged in litigation, the Election Commission (EC) has sought an opinion of the Attorney General (AG) on which faction should rightfully own the party name and its symbol and is awaiting a response.
MP Dayasiri Jayasekara, who claims he is the legally appointed General Secretary of the SLFP, signed an agreement with SJB presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa this week to support him in the upcoming presidential election.
The Nimal Siirpala de Silva faction of the SLFP, of which he is the Chairman and Duminda Dissanayake the General Secretary, has extended support to President Ranil Wickremesinghe in the upcoming election. This group is supported by former president Chandrika Kumaratunga.
Meanwhile, the Maithripala Sirisena fraction of the SLFP appointed former Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe as the Acting Chairman of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and sought to field him as the SLFP candidate, but due to ongoing litigation, he will contest the election from the National Democratic Front (NDF) but will be backed by the SLFP (Maithripala faction).
SJB presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa contested from the New Democratic Front in the 2019 presidential election under the swan symbol.
This is not the first time that the SLFP has been beset with internal problems. Both Anura Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunga, the son and daughter of the founder of the SLFP, broke away from it at different times but eventually returned to the fold. In 2006, Mahinda Rajapaksa took over as SLFP leader, the first to do so outside the Bandaranaike family, and in 2015, the party leadership went to Maithripala Sirisena.
It will be 73 years this year since the SLFP was founded on September 2, 1951, by S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike. It was a middle-path alternative to the United National Party (UNP) on the right and the Marist parties. With its electoral success of 1956, which led to the dawn of the ‘era of the common man’, the SLFP became a dominant political force in the country and remained so until 2016, when the formation of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) dealt the party its biggest blow.
The SLFP lost its dominance as a political party under former president Maithipala Sirisena, with a majority of its members joining the SLPP.
Dayasiri Jayasekera signs an agreement with SJB presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa. Pic by Akila Jayawardena
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