President Kumaratunga, sitting pretty while JVP in dilemma
 

Political Perspectives by Mark Anthony

Many political commentators, especially those in the pro-UNP private media have been examining the position of the JVP with regard to the proposed common or joint mechanism for tsunami relief and reconstruction and generally seeking to indicate that President Kumaratunga and the SLFP / PA is promoting a policy which would be unsupported by the majority of the political and social forces in the country. On the contrary the opposite is true.

The balance of social and political forces in the country is generally supportive of a positive engagement with the LTTE as a part of a process of democratizing of the LTTE and a negotiated political settlement to the ethnic conflict.

After all Sri Lanka has been very successful in making former armed militant and rebel groups which had engaged in armed conflict or hostilities with the state changing themselves into socio-political organizations, the JVP in fact being a case in point but also all the other former armed Tamil militant groups such as EPDP, EPRLF, TELO etc all of whom are in Parliament today.

A quick score card of the political parties likely to be supportive of the general policy indicate that all political parties with representation in Parliament are likely to be supportive of the measure with the exception of the JVP and the JHU.

These parties will also point to the anti LTTE Tamil leaders such as EPDP and Mr.Anandasangari / TULF, but while such leaders may have a partial claim on the hearts and minds of the Tamil people, their absence on the ground in the North and East, reduces their relevance in the current context.

Accordingly the JVP finds itself opposing a positive engagement by the Government of the LTTE, which is supported by a majority of Sri Lankans. This is a majority made up of all the minorities in Sri Lanka and a plurality of the majority community most of whom also don't want another war and are smart enough to realize that consolidating no war requires compromise and a settlement with the Tigers, one that is durable and just in that it guarantees democratic and fundamental human rights and freedoms.

The UNP or its leader has for pure partisan politics sans any hint of statesmanship, not that the private press would ever acknowledge it, refused to give the UNP's position on the proposed joint mechanism hoping for the UPFA Government to fall over a JVP walk out.

However the Opposition Leader cannot be not supportive of the Mechanism and simultaneously nurse presidential ambitions, given the role that minority communities play in presidential politics. The same holds true for the SLFP / PA / UPFA presidential aspirants as well.

All of which leaves the JVP in a dilemma. Its only real recourse would be to create a political distance between the mechanism as an initiative of the President / SLFP but not of itself, since to topple the Government would leave all political actors with unpalatable options.

Especially it would present the JVP with the foolhardy option of forcing an early though not immediate election in which it would go to the country without an alliance and lacking the means to get its thirty nine (39) MPs re-elected. As all the older left parties would vouch, supporters and voters of the centre left forces in the country cast preference for them when contesting in an alliance with the SLFP and they fare very much more poorly in elections on their own and even the ambitious and well organized JVP, funded by the UNP to split the UPFA vote would not fare as well as it did in an alliance.

Further more for the JVP there is no guarantee that a walk out will trigger an immediate election. With the budget for current year passed and the TNA supportive of the President and Government after a joint mechanism, a minority SLFP Government can certainly go on for a while.

The JVP certainly has no alternative of its own, as a solution to the ethnic conflict, opposed as they are to devolution of power. Pure political opportunism has led them down the path of narrow nationalism and chauvinism and they are desperate to prevent President Kumaratunga from being able to move forward successfully on ethnic reconciliation.

Which all leaves President Kumaratunga sitting pretty, her real accomplishment being to have developed sufficient working level trust between the LTTE and her self, that the LTTE has agreed in principle to the broad contours of a proposal put forward by the Government and developed in negotiations at the Peace Secretariat.

Once the hectic consultations regarding the joint mechanism is over, a timely conclusion of a far sighted and generous administrative arrangement will generate the political dynamics, the aid flows and the good will necessary to unite and deal with the significant challenges of post tsunami reconstruction and national reconciliation.

Political Perspectives was born of the need for an analytical political commentary that moves beyond conventional wisdom.

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