{"id":129347,"date":"2014-08-24T00:02:20","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T18:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=129347"},"modified":"2014-08-30T23:58:45","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T18:28:45","slug":"the-party-is-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-party-is-over\/","title":{"rendered":"The Party Is Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

Malinda Seneviratne<\/p><\/div>\n

There are parties and there are coalitions.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen both rise and fall, falter and prosper.\u00a0 There are party candidates and there are common candidates. We\u2019ve seen both types and both have tasted success and failure.<\/p>\n

Common fronts were not uncommon in the period before J R Jayewardene<\/span><\/a> came up with the Second Republican Constitution in 1978<\/span><\/a> with proportional representation, executive presidency and a lot of other things that are part and parcel of what\u2019s now called \u2018the democracy deficit\u2019 in the country.\u00a0 The UNP itself was a coalition, as was the MEP that ousted it in 1956.\u00a0 There were no-contest pacts. There were official \u2018fronts\u2019 too.\u00a0 The UNP and SLFP of course remained key factors in electoral politics after the 1978 constitution \u2018kicked-in\u2019, electorally, but both parties have needed props be it a general or presidential election.<\/p>\n

The last \u2018pure\u2019 party candidate of any consequence was Ranasinghe Premadasa<\/span><\/a>, but even he needed the convoluted support of the JVP in that the destabilization and vote-and-die threats mouthed by that party affected Premadasa less than it did his principal opponent.\u00a0 He even had Ossie Abeygoonesekera ripping off a fair number of opposition votes \u2013 Ossie would the UNP soon after the presidential election of 1988.<\/p>\n

Since then, be in parliamentary or presidential, winning elections have been about getting the coalition right.\u00a0 In the case of parliamentary elections, the proportional representation system has made coalitions logical. \u00a0In presidential elections, given the obvious benefits enjoyed by an incumbent who contests, it is the opposition that has to think of candidate-suitability in terms of cobbling together a coalition. Mahinda Rajapaksa<\/span><\/a>, in 2005, didn\u2019t have the open endorsement of his party leader. He obtained the support of the nationalists and the left parties. Wickremesinghe<\/span><\/a> had minority parties on his side, as did Sarath Fonseka<\/span><\/a> in 2010.<\/p>\n

We are in 2014 and this political moment is full of coalition talk. The focus is on fielding \u2018a common candidate\u2019 against Mahinda Rajapaksa.\u00a0 It is in this context that the validity of \u2018party\u2019 (as opposed to coalition) has to be examined.\u00a0 \u00a0More specifically, the suitability of particular candidates in particular coalitions, have to be assessed.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s talk that the Bodu Bala Sena<\/span><\/a> might field a candidate.\u00a0 As of now it seems more rhetoric than anything else. As in the case of single (and small) political entities winning is not the issue \u2013 robbing votes is.\u00a0 In the case of the BBS, one would say \u2018insignificant\u2019 at this point. Of greater interest are the moves by Ven Maduluwawe Sobitha<\/span><\/a> Thera, the insistence on common program first rather than candidate name, whether or not the JVP would support a UNPer posing as \u2018common candidate\u2019 etc.<\/p>\n

In 2010 it was easy.\u00a0 The incumbent was strong and losing face was the priority for both the UNP and JVP.\u00a0 They played Sarath Fonseka for a sucker quite successfully. Today, many in the opposition believe that the right candidate is in with more than an outside chance. Ranil Wickremesinghe cannot be faulted for believing that his time has come, finally.\u00a0 The JVP, however, has stated that it would not back him. If the opposition is really keen on winning then this is hardly the time to harden positions.\u00a0 The focus on program is positive but announcing candidacy is unhealthy.<\/p>\n

Mahinda Rajapaksa was as common a candidate as one could get on the other side of the political equation. He was a member of the SLFP but we haven\u2019t heard that party\u2019s name much in the past 20 years. That coalition was about program and personality, but not about party name or symbol.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lesson to be learned there, obviously.\u00a0 Fixations on either make for fissure and not unity. Rajapaksa was fresh. So was Chandrika Kumaratunga<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 Wickremesinghe has a handicap in that area.<\/p>\n

Thus, even though it makes sense for the common candidate to be from the UNP in the event that the opposition cannot come up with a credible name outside of \u2018party circles\u2019, others in the party have to be considered too while keeping in mind that the supporting cast can have reasonable reservations about name and symbol. Fonseka\u2019s failure showed up the immense disadvantages of a party-less person when taking on an incumbent who still has considerable mass appeal despite regime-fatigue, lawlessness, unpardonable wastage and perceptions of dynastic preoccupations.<\/p>\n

As things stand, the familiar bickering, reiteration of preferred position, too many people and groups pulling in too many directions do not produce a positive picture of the process. It is not a knot that is easily untangled admittedly. As pointed out, the wiser thing at this stage would be to focus on program. Dropping fixations about party name and symbols would help.\u00a0 Stating the non-negotiable has to come much later if at all.<\/p>\n

*Malinda Seneviratne is the Chief Editor of \u2018The Nation\u2019\u00a0and his articles can be found at\u00a0www.malindawords.blogspot.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":105560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Party Is Over - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-party-is-over\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Party Is Over - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[…]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-party-is-over\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-23T18:32:20+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-08-30T18:28:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Malinda-Seneviratne-150x150.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"130\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"135\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"COLOMBO TELEGRAPH\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-party-is-over\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-party-is-over\/\",\"name\":\"The Party Is Over - 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