Opposition Unity And The Return Of The Uncle Nephew Party
Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka
The jury is no longer out on the UNP-led protest rally in Colombo last week and what it revealed about the state of that party. The Sunday Times(Colombo), the newspaper least sympathetic to the government, most hostile to the UNP’s dissidents and the most charitable to the existing opposition leadership carried this definitive assessment in the column by its Political Editor.
“…Barely hours after the Magistrate’s order, a crowd of some 2,000 gathered for the protest…The organisers of the event had expected to muster a crowd of at least 5,000 from Colombo, Gampaha and Kalutara areas. The lower turnout to an event led by the country’s main opposition to protest the army killings at Weliweriya on August 1 – a fortnight ago, and other burning issues affecting the people, does not speak well for the grand old party. It perhaps would have made a difference if behind-the-scene moves to rope in both the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and its breakaway Frontline Socialist Party (FSP) succeeded. Both were to turn down covert overtures made. However, former General Sarath Fonseka’s Democratic Party was not asked.
…Going by the UNP’s own estimate of mustering a 5,000 crowd, not the best for the main opposition, the question that begs answer is whether the Police Department, recently beefed up with all the anti-riot paraphernalia could not have coped with it. Egregious enough, it is even more absurd when it ends up with a turnout of only some 2,000. Senior Police officials, who do not wish to be named, concede that there had been occasions when trade union events outside the Fort Railway Station have drawn crowds much higher than this number.” (‘As Pillay comes, Govt. faces more HR issues’, ST, Aug 18, 2013)
This upcoming week the UNP is supposed to sign an agreement with several Opposition parties. The common program is already in circulation. It is fairly decent one except for the opening point which is the abolition of the presidency and its substitution by an executive Prime Minister responsible to parliament—the very situation in which the most disastrous legislation was passed in 1956 and 1972. But that is not my main point. The entire exercise is politically pathetic. Read More
