Sri Lanka Freedom Party and its new leadership

Prof. Wiswa Warnapala Minister of Parliamentary Affairs

TASKS: The Sri Lanka Freedom Party celebrated its 55th anniversary recently. The Sri Lanka Freedom Party, as one of the formidable political organistions of the country, has completed more than half a century, within which period the party, as one of the successful political parties in an emergent State, was able to fulfil many a task for which it was created in 1951.

It came into existence to fulfil certain historical tasks for Sri Lanka and her people, and the party, therefore, derived inspiration from the historical foundations on which the party came to be built.

The historical foundations of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, which the late S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike saw as the major resources of the party, are part and parcel of the political culture of the country, and those forces, most of which had a cultural content, helped to evolve a set of policies for the party which primarily aimed at the emancipation of the common man whose improvement and recognition of his aspirations and needs came to be recognised in the formulation of public policy ever since the formation of the party as the major political vehicle of the rural masses of the country.

Sri Lanka Freedom Party, like many a political parties in the new states, was expected to arouse continuous public interest in a wide variety of complex political issues; it was also expected to mobilise support for those issues from which it derived popular strength, and it, therefore, was compelled to acquire political power to solve outstanding social, economic and political problems of the country.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party, therefore, basing its struggle on this strategy, acquired power at successive general elections and successfully implemented a programme which, though took the country in the direction of both political and economic modernisation, remained loyal to the historical foundations from which the party, as the late S.W.R.D. Bandaranike anticipated, derived continuous inspiration.

One can say that in 1948 a new policy came into existence in the country, and the changes within it demanded attitudes towards concrete issues and policies.

The party, as a new political party which differed from other political parties, most of which remained committed to ideologies, looked at major issues from the point of view of a different perspective, the main emphasis of which was the mobilisation of political support from the traditional layers of the Sri Lankan society.

Any political party, which proposes to function in this kind of context, needs to activate the relevant interest groups, and it was through the activation of such interest groups that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party could generate intelligent public interest for the realisation of its mission.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party, from the beginning, realised the utility of this fact and carefully planned its course on the basis of the need to make use of the most powerful interest groups based in the Sri Lankan rural society.

It was this political party which successfully mobilised and converted the main interest groups into a social movement which, within a very short period, brought into existence the landmark political victory of 1956.

The 1956 political change, about which much has been written from the point of its positive impact on the politics of the country, was a major landmark in the political history of Sri Lanka.

The diverse interest groups, which emerged in 1956 in the form of a social movement, have been dubbed as the Pancha Maha Balavegaya, comprising the major players in the hitherto politically suppressed rural society.

In this context, a very relevant point needs to be expanded. While the interest groups concentrate on specific issues and interests, a social movement like the one emerged in 1956 to bring about a total social and political change, usually aims at the development of the total society or culture.

It attempts to infuse certain values or goals into the institutional structure of the given society or to transform the structure in accordance of those aims and values.

In my view, the historic political change in Sri Lanka was based on such a social movement which brought the alternative political leadership of Sri Lanka in to the focus of attention.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party, therefore, is the only political party in Sri Lanka which transformed, routnized and institutionalised the social movement which came to the forefront in 1956.

A political party based on this tradition, was expected to translate those aims of the social movement from which it emerged, into concrete political, economic and cultural goals.

One can say that those aims of the social movement had to be converted into realizable public policy, and it was this trend which we witnessed in the entirety of the post - 1956 period.

The party built its historical foundations on the impact of the social movement to which it provided active leadership in 1956 and after, and every leader, who followed the astute S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, was expected to remain loyal to those social and political forces, from which base the party continued to derive inspiration.

It was this formidable base which provided the strength to the party, and it, in course of time, provided leadership to those fundamental forces in the Sri Lankan polity and continued to formulate public policy to satisfy their legitimate aspirations.

In this way, Sri Lanka Freedom Party, within a period of half a century, built a political machine based on the rural peasantry, and this helped the party to come to power on a number of occasions.

With the emergence of the alternative political leadership in Sri Lanka based on the emerging rural elite, the party represented all the political aspirations of the rural people whose social and economic improvement it championed for more than five decades.

The late S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, more than any other political leader of the period, understood the significance of the rural masses, and his publication - 'The Spinning Wheel and the Paddy Field' which came out in 1933 amply demonstrates his interest in the mobilisation of the rural people on the basis of the rural institutions in rural Sri Lanka.

It was through rural reconstruction that he envisaged a new Sri Lanka, and the idea was to rejuvenate the rural society with a view to making it the dynamo of political and social change in Sri Lanka.

The ancient Gamsabhawa was restored and reactivated on the basis of the same principle; it was the late S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike who saw the political utility of these rural institutions for future political and social change.

It was the same with Sirimavo Bandaranaike who had a first-hand knowledge of the village, and she, through the Mahila Samitis, understood the importance of the reconstruction of the rural society; it was this background and commitment which motivated her to remain loyal to the same process of change.

In the post -1960 period, the party, though experienced difficulties, continued to remain loyal to its formidable political base, and all changes were made on the basis of the recognition of this political principle. In other words, Sirimavo Bandaranaike never allowed the party to become an instrument of the urban elite, and it never functioned as an instrument of the people in the urban areas.

Unlike other political parties in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, from its inception, knew how to make use of the interest groups, and it was on the basis of such interest groups that it built a party organisation most conducive to the maintenance of representative government.

The party, at all major parliamentary elections, made use of this base with which a formidable political following was created in the rural areas. Various social movements sprang up during this period and they, as in 1956, wanted changes to suit the legitimate aspirations of the rural people.

These social forces, in this way, enthroned the alternative political leadership which maintained an integral link with the rural masses, and the phenomenon of the Pancha Maha Balavegaya emerged in association with the alternative leadership.

The party, therefore, was expected to remain loyal to this source of power and the rural forces never allowed the party to move in another direction.

Therefore the historical foundations of the party is fundamentally intertwined with the social forces in the rural society. There were occasions when certain elements within the party wanted the party to deviate from its historical foundations and go in another direction.

There were others who thought that there was no political relevance of the political slogans of 1956; they, with a view to adducing a new image to the party, wanted the party to break-away from the impact of 1956.

The role of the State in economic development came to be challenged and advocated the adoption of neo-liberalist economic policies which included the complete acceptance of privatisation. The concept of the welfare state came under attack.

This kind of attempt by certain elements of the leadership of the party, in the end, virtually destroyed the strength of the historical political foundations of the party.

The traditional rural base began cracking and those important social forces which, since 1951 remained with the party, began to desert the party.

This development took place in the context of a situation where a new political party, with a powerful youth clientele, began systematically to eat into the traditional rural base of the party.

The party, at this stage, needs a leadership and an opportunity to resuscitate its traditional support base, and the type of leadership, which the party supporters in the rural areas anticipated, emerged at the Presidential poll of November, 2005.

It was this Presidential poll which the ordinary man used to achieve two important objectives; firstly, it afforded an opportunity to activate the traditional base of the party which had begun to disintegrate due to the adoption of certain policies.

Secondly, it gave the people of this country an opportunity to elect a new President through whom they envisaged the reactivation of those rural forces which traditionally remained with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

What the people of rural Sri Lanka wanted was a political leadership which has the capacity to take the country beyond the period of 1956.

Therefore the people of this country seized the opportunity to elect Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President of Sri Lanka in order to create yet another 1956 with a different emphasis, though the content and the nature of the change was different.

People knew that the 1956 was fifty years old and the party, through its organisations and the membership, expected Mahinda Rajapaksa to become the architect of another important phase in the political development of the country.

Mahinda Rajapaksa justified and legitimated his elevation to the leadership on the basis of the fact that his father, the late D.A. Rajapaksa was one who played an equally important role in the period of the formation of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, therefore, was able to convert this historical fact into a vital political resource, and it paid heavy dividends during the course of the campaign.

The emergence of Mahinda Rajapaksa as the President of Sri Lanka was yet another milestone in the political evolution of the country, and it singularly affected the political fortunes of the party.

He, knowing the utility of the party's traditional base, appealed to it; he had the horse-sense of an experienced politician who, as a pragmatist, was determined to unite all the progressive forces of the country, and he, in the end, formed the most formidable progressive front of Sri Lanka's history.

The social and political forces, which had some relationship to the dominant culture of the country, were organised in such a way so as to see that it create an awakening similar to that of 1956, and the rural masses, after fifty years, saw the emergence of a leader who could easily identify himself with the aspirations of the common man. Village Sri Lanka was politically activated and they were waiting to elect him as the Head of State.

There was a group of people within the party and outside who could not come to terms with this political trend and the activation of the rural political forces, and they were the pepole who wanted to defeat him.

In the alternative, the personality of Mahinda Rajapaksa and his style of leadership penetrated the rural society which saw him as the future leader of the party. The package of policies called the 'Mahinda Chintana' with its emphasis on the rejuvenation of the rural Sri Lanka, laid the foundation for economic and social change.

Mahinda Chintana has been formulated with a close understanding of the village society and the need for its immediate improvement. It was primarily a policy package with which the country could move forward in the 21st century. Mahinda Chintana has now become the theoretical guide to a set of realistic policies.

This essay is incomplete without a reference to the Mahinda Chintana and its relevance to the formulation of public policy in such areas as economic and social development.

This package of policies has taken into consideration the need to formulate public policies to suit the challenges of the 21 century. The policies have been realistically formulated.

Though the country has passed the stage of the post-colonial State, it still remains undeveloped, and the policies, therefore, have been formed with a primary focus on the rural people.

The package of policies intend to make use of the economic potential in the rural sector to generate a process of development coupled with a disciplined society.

Mahinda Rajapakse, breaking away from the leadership of his immediate predecessors, has given due consideration to the need to build a civilised and disciplined society which, in his perception, is a fundamental requirement for economic and social development.

He has understood the impact of our culture and its integral relationship to the political culture of the country.

Mahinda Chintana, with its various development and social strategies, has successfully reinvigorated the rural society; the village is in the process of going through an era of reawakening. In the process, Sri Lanka Freedom Party has again become the main political platform of the rural masses.

Some references need to be made to the strategies which need to be adopted to bring about a permanent political solution to the on-going ethnic conflict.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party believes and advocates a negotiated political settlement, and the party, as the famous writer Carl Von Clausewitz said, recognises the war as a dangerous political instrument.

The party, while advocating a negotiated political settlement, has taken considerable measures to achieve a consensus in the South, and it was on the basis of the consensus that a durable political settlement could be negotiated.

This is one of the main challenges before the party, and it, under the leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa, proposes to construct a 'home grown' model of devolution of power with indigenous characteristics.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party, while believing in its own experience as the party of Government on a number of occasions, understand the gravity and urgency of the current situation in relation to the ethnic conflict, including its devastating effect on the social fabric of the nation, proposes to place before the country a set of proposals which could address the legitimate aspirations of the Tamil community.

The party hopes to formulate a set of proposals on the basis of the 'home grown' model, which, in effect, means that a set of proposals would be formulated on the basis of our own historical experience and on the basis of the political discourse that took place in the country in the last several decades.

It would be relevant in this context to quote President Mahinda Rajapaksa who, speaking before the All Party Representatives Committee, said that-" people in their own localities must take charge of their destiny and control their politico-economic environment. Central decision-making that allocates disproportionate resources has been an issue for a considerable time.

It is axiomatic that devolution also needs to address issues relating to identity as well as security and social-economic advancement without over-reliance on the centre. In this regard, it is also important to address the regional minorities". This shows that Sri Lanka Freedom Party proposes to devolve power on the basis of an indigenous model built on the political experience of the country.

The party, at its 55 anniversary, should display both determination and courage - along with statesmanship - to devise and construct a 'home grown' model, comprising of indigenous features derived from the political discourse since independence, with a view to bringing about a durable and permanent political settlement to the ethnic question. This is a major challenge before the party.

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