The Liberal Party After 29 Years
Kamal Nissanka
The Liberal Party (Sri Lanka) was formed on 19.01.1987 in Colombo. It was a period of great unrest both in Southern and Northern Sri Lanka owing to two insurrections. Both these insurrections though had peculiar characteristics were a challenge to the decaying liberal democratic political tradition which we inherited from the British colonial masters. Yet in fact, the challenge to the liberal democratic tradition was fuelled by both 1972 and 1978 constitutions and then political leadership of the country. 1972 constitution created a supreme parliament with powers vested to the prime minister and 1978 constitution devalued the parliament and created an executive president directly elected from the people’s choice. Both these constitutions had some negative identical characteristics such as abolition of second chamber, acceptance of unitary state, acceptance of a foremost place for one religion and many such similarities.In forming the Liberal Party we had two objectives namely introducing “Liberalism “to the political discourse which was dominated by Nationalism and Socialism and secondly the protection of inherited “Liberal Democratic Tradition.’
A person who is not a “Liberal”, may be a” Liberal Democrat”. In that sense United National Party, Sri Lanka Freedom Party , Lanka Sama Samaja Party , Communist Party of Sri Lanka , All Ceylon Tamil Congress, Tamil Arasu Katchchi before Wadukoddai Conference , Mahajana Eksath Peramuna are and were all liberal democratic political parties. In short these parties believed that political power is captured by popular votes through regular elections. For that state should have universal franchise, a competitive political party system, a unified administrative system, a coherent legal system and a strong media.
Being a developing country in the third world Sri Lanka lacked a developed party system and two major parties were dominated by political families who decided the leadership issue and mostly not the real cabinet but the kitchen cabinet ruled the country.
In the ideological sphere nationalism developed spontaneously since the British period and this nationalism was mixed with Sri Lankan Buddhist views. They claimed the superiority of Sinhala Buddhism and their language. On the other hand ‘Socialists of all hues’ though not revolutionary in the beginning agitated against the existing bourgeoisie. In the seventies socialism in Sri Lanka took the violent revolutionary option with mixed nationalism and in North Tamil nationalism resorted to violent politics.
The intellectuals behind the formation of Liberal Party (Sri Lanka) thought to introduce liberalism to the political discourse of the country which is not a popular political ideology in Sri Lanka. In the western political tradition, nationalism, socialism, social democracy and liberalism are main political ideologies and most of the political parties in Europe are armed with a certain ideology.Read More
