Random Thoughts On The Politics In Sri Lanka After 2004
Dr. Nirmal Ranjith Dewasiri
Political unification of the Sinhala-Buddhist South and the decline of the two-party system: Some Random Thoughts on the Politics in Sri Lanka after 2004
Introduction
Politics of Sir Lanka is undergoing serious changes in the last decade. These changes have shaken the very foundations of the major pillars of the post-colonial hegemonic edifice of Sri Lanka. Two of such pillars are the two-party equilibrium system and the North-South equilibrium system. The objective of this presentation is to map the post-colonial political landscape in Sri Lanka in relation to these two equilibrium systems and shed some light on the changes that are taking place in these two systems.
Emergence and development of the two-party equilibrium system
There was no well-developed party system at the time of the transfer of state power from the British colonial rulers to the indigenous elite in 1948. While the influence of the two organized left wing parties, i.e. the Lanka Samasamaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party (CP) restricted only to certain areas, the United National party (UNP) was only a makeshift arrangement that was made to face the 1947 general election. The number of independent candidates that were contested and won the 1947 election bear witness for the reality where the political allegiance of the voting public still remained outside political parties.
This situation began to change since 1956 with two structural changes. Firstly, two major Sinhala-Buddhist parties, namely Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the UNP consolidated in the Sinhala-Buddhist south as two main electoral rivals. I call these two parties ‘Sinhala-Buddhist’ as they rely mainly on the support of the Sinhala-Buddhist constituency for their electoral success. From 1956 to 1977 these two parties mostly with other minor parties whom they formed electoral alliance with managed to defeat each other in successive elections.
Secondly, two left parties which had evolved since 1930s as decisive force in Sri Lankan politics began to lose its grip on electoral process. As individual political parties, their impact was entirely disappeared after 1977. They could remain in electoral politics after 1977, even with the introduction of the proportional representation, a system that is much favorable for political parties with lesser voter-attraction, only through alliances first with the Sri Lanka Mahajana Party (SLMP), the party that managed to keep some voter-attraction immediately after the death of its charismatic leader, Vijaya Kumaratunga,and then with the SLFP.
After 1994 sees the metamorphosis of the Peoples’ Liberation Front (JVP), which had devised its strategy to capture state power through organized armed insurgencies, into an electoral party. In this period the sudden growth of its voter attraction in the Sinhala-Buddhist South made one believe that it is emerging as a threatening force for the two-party equilibrium system.Read More
