There is an unmistakable differentiation of attitudes towards the UPFA and the Mahinda Rajapaksa government along class lines. At the present time the educated elite and bourgeoisie have turned very hostile and the working class is drifting in the same direction while the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie are more accommodating. I will recount the reasons that underlie this drifting apart of social classes.
The indictment of the government by the educated, and especially the English speaking middle and upper classes is merciless - and deservedly so I dare say, but that’s another matter. Here is a collection of quotes culled from the press over the last two weeks uttered by very well- known figures.
1. Today only rogues, thieves and drug lords and other dubious characters can dabble in politics.
2. There is no law in the country, people don’t trust the police. Any murderer or rogue affiliated to the ruling party is set free.
3. We could see that good governance, social justice, fairness and equality are fading away from Sri Lanka under the present political setup.
4. Today people have no right to information, and the Bribery Commission is defunct. These inactions have opened mass scale irregularities and malpractices in the country.
The wave of strikes, some breaking out some being broken, signals a widening rupture between the working and employed middle classes and the regime. One strike hardly subsides and another erupts - university non-academics have been on strike for months, academic staff for about a month; CEB non-staff grades, nurses and doctors, railwaymen and all sorts of state employees, are on strike, have just returned to work, or are threatening to go on strike. The government is losing control of the strike situation in the state sector.
The petty bourgeoisie and the war dividend
The petty bourgeoisie, in the sense of those engaged in small businesses and informal activities are reaping a post-war dividend; so are the farmers. More vans ply their trade selling cooked food and providing transport facilities than ever before, and small construction business is booming. Farmers are reclaiming and cultivating marginal land that fear had kept them away from during the war. This boom in the informal and semi-formal economy is a post-war dividend, albeit the one least expected and least talked about.
I expect that this will have its consequences in the three Provincial Council elections slated for September 8. If my reading of class is correct the UPFA should be able to hold its position in Sabaragamuwa with ease and I expect it to bag the NCP but with a reduced majority. The reason for backsliding in the NCP is not that my general observations are incorrect but that a severe drought has made farmer’s livelihood miserable. The Eastern Province is a different ball game because the outcome will be decided by ethno-politics.
However, the petty bourgeoisie will bask in the post-war sun only for a short while, perhaps no more than a year or two. The factors driving the urban working class to the wall will soon overcome the countryside - ubiquitous, painful price increases. Headline inflation, the one that matters and includes fuel and food, is now at a shade below 10% and will reach double digit magnitude before the end of the year. Workers and city folk on fixed incomes are hard hit, hence the strike wave, but when the petty bourgeoisie finds its incomes falling that worm will also begin to turn. What I am saying is that the economy is deteriorating overall and that pain will reach the petty bourgeoisie eventually, but after a time lag.
Why has the bourgeoisie turned against the UPFA?
Received wisdom was that the post-war dividend would take the shape of a flood of foreign investment flows; the bourgeoisie smacked its lips. Imagine its shock when the roguery of the government turned the expected flood into a trickle, ventures between local and foreign investors failed to materialize on the hoped for scale, and public life declined into the gutter.
The bourgeoisie hold the government responsible for the rot; the rule of law and hopes of good governance has evaporated. The attorney general was kicked upstairs for refusing to kow-tow and insisting on prosecuting in sensitive cases where it was warranted. The Mannar Magistrate’s Court was attacked by goons and a minister intimidated the magistrate. The Norochcholi power station is a dud and will cause problems for long-term electricity supply but no one dares demand an independent inquiry except this writer. Oil products are contaminated and ministry and CPC ex Board members exchange imprecations. (a) to (d) have come to pass with a vengeance and the upper crust of society curses the government.
And now the last straw; to be precise, the latest straw. The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tilak Karunaratne, has thrown in the towel in disgust and ‘bourgeoisdom’ is mortified. Rouge operators were wrecking havoc on the Stock Exchange and the SEC was going after fraudsters; the president and Basil would have none of it because the operators were well connected and it is said illicit billions was being laundered. The SEC also planned to tighten regulations to prevent excessive leverage overstretching trading and destabilizing the market. The powers that be told Karunaratne to go stuff it. The bourgeoisie is aghast at the damage that the government is prepared to inflict on the nation’s business environment. It was not news that a drug mafia with political connections ran the lower echelons of UPFA crony capitalism, but now it has reached the pinnacle of the business universe.
Enter Sobitha Thero
Ranil cannot win the petty bourgeoisie away from Rajapaksa because he is a scion of Colombo’s bourgeois world, does not fondle the yakos in SLFP style had has little rapport with the baja or the village. Not being corrupt does not help with the yako class. Notwithstanding the government defaecating all over
the public face Ranil’s UNP has failed to break into spaces of power; the alternative UNP is congenitally defunct with Sajith Premadasa, a political dwarf, at its helm. The UNP has failed to throw up a leadership to grasp opportunity by the fetlock, that is, seize upon the revulsion gushing in the upper classes and under the belts of workers, and link it to the sentiments of the petty bourgeoisie.
Enter Sobitha and Warawewa - or to give them their full titles Ven. Maduluwewa Sobitha Thero, chief incumbent of the Kotte Naga Vihara and justice W.T.M. Warawewa, recently retired from the Court of Appeal. The broader mass movement prefers Sobitha because he has a known personality and political history while Ranil’s is promoting Warawewa, for reasons I don’t quite get. I don’t get it because if the UNP joins Sobitha it will make for a stronger candidacy than Warawewa and if Sobitha presents himself as a one-issue candidate the UNP has nothing to fear on the day after.
A one-issue candidate is someone who comes forward saying: “I will abolish the Executive Presidency, set a Constituent Assembly in motion and once this is completed bye-bye, my work is done; I off, back to my temple” With this approach Sobitha can gather together the forces needed to defeat Rajapaksa.
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Dilith Jayaweera, a leading businessman and investor in the stock market, who has been ‘portrayed’ as one of the ‘leaders’ of ‘market mafia’ in town, says he is very confident that his company is definitely not part of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) pending investigation, and so confirmed by SEC’s ex-chairman. He also reveals that he has already asked Dr. Karunaratne to come up with the names of the culprits and calls on him to complete the investigations he undertook but adds that the ex- chairman is ‘not in a position to name the culprits since it is unethical and illegal for him to disclose such information’.