The UPFA’s Chronic Crisis: What Next?
Prof Kumar David
It is astounding that the crisis now tearing the government apart is about the national question. All of us radicals and liberals have theorised that the Sinhala political classes would never risk the wrath of the Sinhala-Buddhistmasses by standing up for Tamil rights. What on earth is happening now? The last four weeks have been amazing. It will teach as all to stand aside and bow our heads in humility before history’s complexity and uncertainty. Frailty, sometimes thy name is history!
The crisis in the UPFA, the government, and the Cabinet, is manifest in the political domain. It gives the appearance of having burst out unexpectedly on conflicts about the NP-PC elections and 13A. This view is incomplete; the economy totters and the government’s future on current account, debt and fiscal deficit is perilous; secondly, the hens are coming to roost in the international arena; the Rajapakses have lost the plot on how to deal with India and the international community. Instability on these two fronts underpins the restlessness in the political domain; government MPs and UPFA partner parties fear that they are on a sticky wicket. Read More
