A new political yugaya is haunting Sri Lanka, and it is the Rajapakse yugaya. It is being compared to the Bandaranaike yugaya that lasted from 1956 to 1977 with a five year (1965-1970) UNP interregnum. Before that and for nine years after independence was the Senanayake yugaya. Following the Bandaranaike yugaya was the Jayewardene yugaya that went on for 18 years. Since 1994, the second generation Bandaranaikes only succeeded in squandering their political and other patrimonies. The shift of power from Horogolla to Hambantota and the emergence of the Rajapakse yugaya, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court, the JVP and the LTTE, began in 2005.
There is obvious oddity about discussing politics in yugaya terms in this day and age, especially after a century that saw the rise and fall of some mighty yugayas in the world – of Churchill (British), Stalin and Mao. So what needs to be asserted up front is not so much the impermanence of the yugayas (the term itself, originating from cosmic periodization in Hindu culture, suggests that) but the manner in which each Sri Lankan political yugaya was brought to an end. The end in each case was administered by the people, and in each instance an alternative was at hand.The difference with the Rajapakse yugaya is that there is no apparent alternative. Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe has seen to that. He might have thought that he was being profound in interpreting the April election results as an indication of people’s disenchantment with the political system, but obviously he could not realize that almost all of that disenchantment is his doing. It is unfortunate that there is no electoral mechanism to ‘defeat’ an ineffective opposition. Even Mr. Wickremesinghe’s own Party cannot get rid of him for non-performance, whereas in Britain almost all Prime Ministers after World War II were forced out of office by their respective, Labour or Conservative, parliamentary caucuses before they became electoral liabilities.
The purpose of political opposition in a democracy is to make the government functional and accountable. Without such a countervailing force it would become almost impossible for a government to be functional, accountable and democratic. There is fervent hope among the more enlightened ones who uncritically support President Rajapakse that he will do the right thing on every matter now that he has been re-elected and reaffirmed. The evidence, however, is not as convincing.
With Mr. Wickremesinghe insisting on perpetuating his ineffectuality in Sri Lankan politics, it is up to everyone else to deal with the government in different ways. A formal opposition party opposes the government as preparation for its turn at the government. In the circumstances of an opposition vacuum, it is a formidable challenge for those who are not part of the government to find ways to work with the government where they could, and oppose and criticize the government when they have to.
There are two principal areas in which the dynamic of a government without opposition should be of concern. One is the general area of governance and democracy, and the other is the National Problem – the political relationship between the Sinhalese, the Tamils and the Muslims. The focus of this article is on the latter concern – the National Problem, the term that President Rajapakse’s Experts Panel on constitutional changes chose to describe Lanka’s ethnic problem, or what in Leftist jargon is called the national question.
Sinhala Yugayas and Tamil Yugams
For every Sri Lankan political yugaya named after a Sinhalese leader, there was a corresponding Tamil political yugam; To wit, the Ponnambalam yugam that was conterminous with the Senanayake yugaya, and the Chelvanyakam yugam that lasted throughout the Bandaranaike yugaya. The Jayawardene yugaya and the decades following were marked on the Tamil side for the most part by the Tiger yugam. The second uniqueness of the Rajapakse yugaya, apart from its not having an effective opposition in the South, is that it has no corresponding Tamil counterweight in the North and East. That is at least for now.
Democracy and the National Problem have had a strange relationship in Sri Lanka. Democracy aims at equality of citizens and is worked through electoral representation. Both requirements have been commendably met among the Sinhalese but the Tamils were shortchanged in regard to both. On the other hand, the Tamils while fighting for democratic equality vis-à-vis the Sinhalese have been quite inconsiderate about political plurality and intolerant of political dissent among themselves. The worst manifestation of inconsideration and intolerance among the Tamils occurred in the Tiger yugam.
But the foundation for this had begun earlier and the process was a mirror image of the government-opposition standoffs that marked Sinhalese politics in regard to the Tamil question. Let me explain. There were repeated instances when an SLFP government attempted to reach an agreement with its Tamil counterpart, the UNP from the opposition would strenuously campaign against the agreement; similarly, when a UNP government attempted a resolution of the Tamil question the SLFP would return the favour with a vengeance.
On the Tamil side, a culture was created to condemn working with the government as treason while those who did work were condemned as traitors. This was part of the dynamic in the political succession from Ramanathan-Arunachalam to G.G. Ponnambalam, from Ponnambalam to Chelvanayakam, and it was the entire premise of the LTTE’s usurpation of Tamil politics from the TULF. The LTTE took it further to the most abominable step of sentencing to death those whom it peremptorily condemned as traitors.
These patterns of government-opposition standoffs and Tamil infighting that plagued the earlier yugayas are now remarkable only for their absence in the Rajapakseyugaya. It could be tempting to see their absence as an opportunity for the government to positively rewrite the script for improving the Sinhala-Tamil political relationship. But as I noted earlier, the evidence is far from encouraging.
The support in the South, for resolving the Tamil question, is much stronger outside the government circles than within the government. And those within the government who take a progressive position on the Tamil question are not in the loop when it comes to decision making. Equally, the absence of Tamil infighting is not the result of a positive cultural change but part of the dreadful aftermath of a devastating war. The war has taken the air out of Tamil politics; there is no vigour or vitality, only stunned emptiness. The aftermath of the war among the Sinhalese, certainly among those who support the government, has been one of euphoria and triumphalism and ungenerous niggardliness in regard to politically accommodating the Tamils.
The biggest difficulty and unprecedented challenge that haunt the new yugaya are the physical, social and psychological devastations left behind by the war. No previous government has had to deal with rebuilding and restoration on such a scale, and the present government is not certainly among the better ones that Sri Lanka has had in preparing and implementing development programs. What is involved here is not just the building or rebuilding of physical infrastructure, as an extension to existing infrastructure amidst well established political, social and industrial institutions. These institutions have virtually collapsed in the war affected areas, and there is no purpose in building physical infrastructure without addressing the institutional vacuum at the same time.
Complicating the challenges of the new yugaya is the international dimension of the Sri Lankan National Problem. Sri Lanka’s National Problem is not an international problem like the Palestinian problem, the Iranian problem or the Korean problem, but a problem that has attracted considerable global scrutiny that the government cannot easily escape from. Correlating with the global scrutiny is the emergence of the Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora as a factor in Sri Lankan Tamil politics. The Diaspora is the result of large numbers of Tamils leaving the country, primarily to escape communal violence, police and military harassment and Tiger conscription, but the spatial displacement has not severed their emotional, familial and material ties to their natal lands. While these ties explain their stake in Sri Lankan Tamil politics, they are not helpful in defining the role that the Diaspora could or should play in Sri Lankan Tamil politics.
President Rajapakse has been raised to the plenitude of Sri Lanka’s political power, but he might not be willing to do everything he could in regard to the National Problem. In fact, some would argue that there is no apparent need for him to do anything other than what is already assigned to the Tamils especially after they let the LTTE fight a war against the government. Keeping the LTTE bogey alive and continuing preoccupation with security and sovereignty may be seen as survival strategies for the government from inevitable public outcry against economic hardships and politicians disrespectful of law and order.
On the other hand, international pressure including pressure from India could force President Rajapakse into some action. Should he decide to act, there are no shortage of ideas and proposals in the government’s file on the Constitution to help him along those lines. He will have less than little official Opposition in the South to contend with, with the main opposition potentially coming from within his own government.
There will also be pressures on the elected Tamil and Muslim MPs to work with the government on initiatives focused on the Northern and Eastern Provinces. The Tamil MPs will face conflicting pressures emanating from within the Tamil society in Sri Lanka and the Diaspora. The MPs will have no cause for concern if they restrict their involvement to addressing the immediate requirements of the people in the Northern and Eastern Provinces. Beyond that, their cooperation with or opposition to the government should be on a case by case basis. They may have to exercise what Ponnambalam and Chelvanayakam jointly proposed in 1947 as "Responsive Co-operation", but never jointly practiced.
The Rajapakse government is expected to fall short of a two-thirds majority by only a few votes, and there will be pressure on Tamil MPs to add their votes to the government tally to bring about constitutional changes to address the National Problem. The Tamil MPs should join hands with the government for such a purpose. But they would be well advised to refuse support for any constitutional amendment that might be attempted to remove the two-term limit on the Presidency. The intention of this amendment would be to enable Mahinda Rajapakse to contest a third term. For Tamil MPs to support such an amendment would not be responsive cooperation, but irresponsible cooption.
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