{"id":130254,"date":"2014-09-14T00:00:42","date_gmt":"2014-09-13T18:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=130254"},"modified":"2014-09-20T00:04:15","modified_gmt":"2014-09-19T18:34:15","slug":"the-unity-deficit-in-the-united-national-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-unity-deficit-in-the-united-national-party\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unity-Deficit In The United National Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Malinda Seneviratne<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Malinda<\/a>

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

Two major factors wreck unity.\u00a0 Ambition is one and the other is ideological differences.\u00a0 The latte could include disagreements over strategy.\u00a0 In Sri Lanka, today, ideology is clearly a non-factor when it comes to the integrity of the major political parties.\u00a0 People break ranks for other reasons, even though they often justify crossover with rhetoric over ideas and strategy.<\/p>\n

Splits are not the exception but the norm in political organizations and even religious orders.\u00a0 The history of the Christian Church, one might argue, is a history of schisms.\u00a0 The same goes for the Trotskyite Movement, the Fourth International having dozens of claimants.<\/p>\n

The major political parties in Sri Lanka, the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) are not immune to this either.\u00a0 Where there are personalities, there are personality clashes.\u00a0 Politics is about power and this often contains a thing called \u2018power lust\u2019.<\/p>\n

It is a simple enough formula: do whatever it takes to move up, if there\u2019s an obstacle, remove it or else go around it.\u00a0 It is tough when you are in the ruling party.\u00a0 The best chance for a breakaway from a regime was when Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake quit in the early nineties, but weak as the main opposition (SLFP) was, the duo had to play adjunct.\u00a0 Typically, regimes attract dissidents from other parties, especially after Sarath N Silva made crossing party lines a one-way process.\u00a0 Small parties do this all the time and individuals who don\u2019t fancy spending years in the political wilderness crossover to recover their investment and more.<\/p>\n

\"Sajith<\/a>It is different when you are in the opposition.\u00a0 All you have to do is to tell yourself that one day things will change and until then all that matters is to move up the succession ladder and at the right time kick the leader out.\u00a0 It\u2019s been tried before.\u00a0 There was an attempt to grab party office, name and symbol by a faction of the LSSP in the early eighties.\u00a0 A similar attempt was evident in the SLFP too at the same time.\u00a0 The old guard prevailed.\u00a0 It\u2019s the same with the UNP.<\/p>\n

How many times have various groups led by various leader-aspirants tried to oust Ranil Wickremesinghe over the past decade or so?\u00a0 The Party Constitution has been his biggest ally.\u00a0 The wiser among his younger detractors have played for the No 2.\u00a0 Others have gone for the top spot and fallen.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s the situation right now?\u00a0 We have Karu Jayasuriya who joined the government during a time when national unity was more important than anything else. He rejoined the party when that need no longer existed.\u00a0 Karu wanted to be the leader, challenged Ranil, lost, accepted defeat gracefully and as part of party reforms took up the position of Chairman, Leadership Council.\u00a0 We have Sajith who also wanted Ranil \u2018kicked out\u2019 and replaced by Karu, spending months pouting, showering invective on party colleagues and all of a sudden wanting to mend fences.<\/p>\n

Sajith wants the No 2 spot and Ranil appears to like the idea.\u00a0 The plot is pretty transparent. Ranil supported by Sajith will get more votes in a presidential election than Ranil in the fray with Sajith in pouting mode. It won\u2019t be enough though.\u00a0 What next? Why, Sajith and his backers will resurrect the call for the leader to be sent home, except from a position of strength.\u00a0 As a precautionary measure, other \u2018pretenders\u2019 would have to be sidelined and Sajith is doing just that as evident from the crude snub directed at Karu in Passara.<\/p>\n

These machinations are par for the course in politics and Ranil Wickremesinghe is too seasoned a politician not to put two and two together.\u00a0 This is why he didn\u2019t openly say \u2018Sajith is my No 2\u2019.\u00a0 He merely said something that amounted to \u2018I will see what I can do\u2019.\u00a0 It is easy to lead a bunch of people who are on the same page.\u00a0 A great leader will keep together people who have different views, don\u2019t get along with each other and who are \u2018endowed\u2019 with different levels of ambition and arrogance.\u00a0 Has Ranil succeeded?\u00a0 The track record is not very impressive but that can be dismissed on account of a constitution designed to wreck the opposition, a regime enjoying unprecedented approval for defeating terrorism and gratitude that abates slowly.<\/p>\n

Passara was a sign, though. A bad sign.\u00a0 This was the UNP\u2019s 68th<\/sup> Anniversary celebration. It was held in a province with elections just days away.\u00a0 Sajith had made his move.\u00a0 Ranil showed his hand.\u00a0 Ranil named names.\u00a0 He mentioned three: Sajith, Wijedasa Rajapaksa and Daya Gamage.\u00a0 There are, he said, his \u2018three hands\u2019 and he needed 7 more.\u00a0 In other words the likes of Karu, John Amaratunga, Ravi Karunanayake, Lakshman Kiriella, Thalatha Athukorale, Mangala Samaraweera and Tissa Attanayake among many longstanding party stalwarts were roundly snubbed.<\/p>\n

Sajith had, for the first time in this campaign, stepped foot in Uva.\u00a0 It was a unity-moment.\u00a0 To his credit, Karu did not say anything to detract from it.\u00a0 Sajith showed political immaturity by indulging in barbs.\u00a0 Ranil showed why he is not a political leader who can deliver victory by a) appearing to submit to the concerted Sajith-inflating campaign by two media houses largely discredited by the general public, and b) encouraging seasoned campaigners to abandon ship.<\/p>\n

A different leader, say someone of Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s caliber, would have put it in ways that bring together instead of dispersing the membership: \u2018My hand was strengthened by Sajith, but more than that he has strengthened the party and all of us; I cannot do this alone and neither can Sajith, but most importantly even the two of us together cannot deliver victory \u2013 we need each and every member of the party to work tirelessly and as one.\u2019<\/p>\n

What happened next showed how \u2018united\u2019 the United (sic) National Party is.\u00a0 The same television station that is in overdrive trying to boost Sajith\u2019s image continues to lambast Ranil.\u00a0 For what purpose?\u00a0 To secure further benefits for Sajith?\u00a0 Can\u2019t Sajith stop this?\u00a0 Or is Sajith just a pawn of media moguls spurred by their own agendas?\u00a0 Whatever it is, it is clear that there are miles to go for some semblance of unity to be wrought.\u00a0 Holding hands on stage makes a good photo opportunity but the day to day grind of on-the-ground politics requires something more.\u00a0 That\u2019s lacking.\u00a0 Indeed, going purely by the sophomoric performance put up by the Leader and the Would-Be, the unity-deficit seems to be widening further.\u00a0 This is why the UNP appears to be an Opposition Made in Heaven.\u00a0 For the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime, that is.<\/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":"

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