The SJB’s identity crisis

by Uditha Devapriya

Who is winning the battle of ideas? Not the government, it’s mired in too many crises to claim victory of any sort. The Opposition, perhaps, but it depends on what opposition you are talking about. The anti-regimists are split into two camps: those who want the party in power out, and those who want a new party in. The SJB subscribes to the former strategy, the JVP to the latter.

Caught in-between are the likes of Champika Ranawaka, who more or less sway between acceptance of a major crisis of legitimacy and acceptance of a pragmatist course of action. The JVP obviously idealises itself as the next party in power, and through its parliamentary avatar, the NPP, it is trying to win constituencies the government has lost, massively. Being the idealists that they are, they also spurn the SJB.

Despite what the naysayers will say and despite concerns about social gatherings during a pandemic, the SJB turnout was a success. People may not have been consciously joining the SJB, and it’s futile to conflate protests with votes, but this was the biggest such rally since Nugegoda 2015. In that sense Kumar David is absolutely right when he writes that the party “made a correct judgement call.” The government erred by trying to stop the protests, but then that is what governments do. That the SJB continued despite these obstacles and that it brought in urban and suburban elements revealed the seething discontent that threatens to undermine this regime and any semblance of order. This is why the rally was significant: it underscored the need to channel discontent through democratic outfits.

It remains to be seen whether people will respond to these developments this way. On the one hand, the need for a real Opposition has surfaced. On the other, frustration at there not being a proper Opposition has also gained ground. People may want the SLPP out, but does that necessary mean they want the SJB in? Colombo’s upper and upper middle classes seem more beholden than ever to the UNP’s policies, while an increasingly proletarianised lower middle class seem attracted to the JVP’s message. That leaves the peasantry, which frankly speaking no organisation appears to be considering seriously.

A multi-class resistance is the call of the hour. But multi-class resistance makes sense only if there is multi-class political mobilisation. Split on so many points, the Opposition has failed to bring about such mobilisation. This does not augur well for the SJB. As I have mentioned many times in this column, part of the problem lies in the SJB itself. For a party that formed and identified itself as an alternative to the UNP, it is fascinating how so many of its MPs are touting the UNP line on so many matters, calling for a return to the past.

When Tharaka Balasuriya, one of the more intelligent MPs in the present administration, asked if the SJB followed Mangala Samaraweera’s foreign policy, Imthiaz Bakeer Markar deftly deflected the question. Such a tactic will not work if the SJB does, in this instance, tout Mr Samaraweera’s line, or for that matter his ideology, which as Ramindu Perera in a recent piece (“Was Mangala ‘progressive’?”) has outlined is progressive only for those who conflate liberal rhetoric with commitment to social justice.

It must be mentioned here that Mr Bakeer Markar is one of the few who identify the Samagi Jana Balawegaya in opposition to and not in line with such policies. Yet this is a strategy the need for which very few of his colleagues seem to realise, much less concede.

Mr Markar was frank in his response to Mr Balasuriya. He made his argument, that the SJB should not be judged by the actions of the UNP, using the analogy of the SLFP under S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike and the UNP under J. R. Jayewardene. He effectively argued that just as Bandaranaike had forged a new party and Jayewardene a new set of policies for the old party, Sajith Premadasa had left the old party and the old policies for a new programme. This is what Dayan Jayatilleka has underscored as well: that if new parties and new political personalities have to be held against the actions of the old, then Mahinda Rajapaksa would have to be blamed for the Chandrika Kumaratunga government’s P-TOMs arrangement and Ranasinghe Premadasa for the Jayewardene government’s excesses.

The argument is logically sound, almost impeccable, but it does not ring true enough. Why do I say this? While Mr Markar is taking great pains to distinguish Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP from Sajith Premadasa’s SJB, not a few MPs from the latter are emphasising their links to the former. Some time back I drew a line between three groups in the SJB: the Old Guard, whose political careers were boosted by Wickremesinghe’s UNP, the Young Turks, who were overlooked in favour of Wickremesinghe’s Royalist Cabal at the height of the UNP’s power, and everyone else in-between, who feign neutrality but make statements highlighting their allegiance to the one or the other from time to time. While no conflict has arisen between these groups as yet, in the almost contradictory despatches they issue to the media and the public, one notices a lack of ideological cohesion, indeed of unity.

Thus, while Mr Markar and Dr Jayatilleka carry on their campaigns, differentiating the son from the father, a great many SJB MPs are emphasising the need to carry on with a very different campaign, of bringing the son back to the father. To borrow Mr Markar’s analogy again, this would be akin to S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike returning to Dudley Senanayake’s and John Kotelawala’s UNP before the 1956 election, or Ranasinghe Premadasa recycling J. R. Jayewardene’s policies. It would be tantamount to saying that the yahapalana experiment under Ranil Wickremesinghe’s UNP was a success and that its economic, social, and foreign policies constitute the ideals which the SJB ought to aspire to.

As far as yahapalanism is concerned, those in the SJB who advocate a return to it frequently emphasise two points: that regime’s jaunts to Geneva and Washington, and its repackaging of neoliberal economics under a social market veneer. This explains why Harsha de Silva’s eloquent and fine speech on the foreign policy blunders of the SLPP government detoured to a commendation of the Resolution that Sri Lanka co-sponsored, essentially against itself, in 2015. It also explains the view, held by some SJB MPs, that Sri Lanka needs an economic package involving neoliberal free market reforms. Contrasted with Mr Markar’s arguments distancing the UNP’s policies from the SJB, such invocations of yahapalanism seem to me a case of chalk and cheese: some want to avoid the grand old party and its not so grand legacy, but others seem to be in favour of bringing that party to their platform.

This is the fatal contradiction that explains the SJB’s less than stellar performance so far, one and a half years on. Sarath Fonseka was correct in his view that the SJB has not proved itself as a viable alternative. But while many have diagnosed the problem correctly, they have not given the correct prognosis. To me the issue is clear enough: if you want to differentiate the new party from the old, why advocate a return to the old party, indeed even joining up with the old, frequently? You may advocate everything the UNP stood for, but what’s the point if a great many of your fellow MPs, particularly the younger Turks, are emphasising an identity for the SJB that is different in almost every respect from the UNP? When Mr Markar makes his claims in parliament, at day, and other MPs betray their belief in the ideology of a party he disavows, at night, what’s the message voters are going to get?

If the government has been saved by a divided Opposition, the Opposition, the SJB, has been saved by the government’s blunders. The idea has formed that the SJB, had it been in power, wouldn’t have been as bad as the SLPP. But so has the idea that the SJB would not have been as good as the SLPP. Meanwhile, the JVP, or the NPP, continues to canvass votes from the impoverished middle-class and other sections of the population, and Champika Ranawaka’s 43 Senankaya, after a promising start, continues to go nowhere.

As of now, the only party that has the numbers in parliament is the SJB. True, it has a major liability with partners like the SLMC, which has time and time again proved that its loyalties lie with anyone that will offer its members cushy posts. But this is an in-house problem, and it can be resolved. Not so easy to resolve is that paradox I outlined at the beginning: while distancing itself from the UNP, it is also getting close to it. Why anyone would want to vote for an outfit that can’t make head or tail of where it wants to go beats me. In that sense the SJB has a major identity crisis. The more it refuses to engage with or address that crisis, the bleaker its electoral prospects will be. It cannot afford to be complacent.

In the marketplace of votes, political parties should know what they are saying, and more importantly, why. The SJB may be aware of what it is saying. But does it know why? On this question rests no less than its future, and no less than the future of the country.

The writer can be reached at udakdev1@gmail.com