The ‘Common Candidate’ of ‘uncommon baggage’ by an ‘uncommon alliance’ for a ‘common affliction’

Political week

By The Third Eye

It was the JVP that first mooted the idea of a common candidate, probably because they considered that to be the only course of action viable in the light of the incumbent Government’s popularity with the polity. The idea, they say, is to do away with the office of the President. The JVP, for all its failings has been at least consistent in its opposition to Presidential rule and hence its stand in this case appears tenable.

The position of the UNP however is quite the obverse. It is the UNP that authored the Presidential rule disregarding opposition from all democratic quarters in the country under the guise of ‘political stability’ and the need for ‘effective governance’. The real reason however was that JR in 1977, after having carefully studied the voting pattern up to then, realized that the UNP always polled more votes as a single party at every election even though it sometimes failed to muster enough seats in Parliament to form a government. It is to transform this vote in UNP’s favour in to political power that the Office of the President was instituted in 1978.

Further the UNP and its current leader never spoke ill of, or rather held in glow, the Office of the President, as an accomplishment of UNP rule. The UNP even derided the efforts of the former President to effect Constitutional changes in 2000 by tearing off the very proposals in the well of the August assembly. It is that same UNP, under that same leadership, that is now opting to abolish the presidency, simply because it has turned to ‘sour grapes’ for the UNP in the current political context.

What is even more intriguing is the contradictions in agendas the ‘common candidate’ is expected to follow after he gets elected to the much coveted office. The JVP believes that the President elect will empower the three commissions under the 17th Amendment and then hold elections to the Parliament. That way the JVP hopes to secure more power in the Parliament while expecting the common candidate to revert to the ceremonial role appointing a think tank of intellectuals to function in a consultative capacity to the Parliament.

The JVP has made its followers believe that the Constitution empowers the President to abolish that office without obtaining a two third vote from Parliament.

The UNF on the other hand expects the President elect to carryout a ‘Ten point’ program announced by the UNP. That program stipulates, either abolishing or a considerable reduction in the powers of the executive presidency, appointing Ranil Wickremesinghe as the executive Prime Minister with a cabinet made of members of the JVP and the TNA, the speedy settlement of the Northern IDPs. Both these lists, considering the current political reality and the technicalities of constitution making, look more like a wish list handed over by two kids to their mother on a shopping sojourn in the city. They not only pre suppose the mother’s capacity to buy all they wish but stretches further in impinging on each others lists.

Mangala Samaraweera, the spokesperson for the UNF, the other day made a press statement assuring the UNP supporters that the UNF will ensure that the ensuing period of cohabitation with the JVP would not be dominated by the ‘organizational skills and the very nature of the JVP’. Similarly the JVP has made their supporters know that this prospective partnership with the ‘most reactionary political party’ in the country will have no impact in compromising the avowed ‘progressive’ JVP policies. Hence to start with the common candidate seems to be burdened with a lot of ‘uncommon baggage’.

However, what takes the cake in this ‘common understanding’ is the na‹ve thinking that this common candidate, who undergoes a grueling campaign to unseat the incumbent President, would act as ‘your obedient servant’ to these two political parties who did not have the guts to contest the election on their own.

In the case of a victory the position would be ‘whose victory it is?’ rather than ‘what to do with the victory?’ The fact that the ‘common candidate’ is only inferred, short of being declared, prevents anybody from evaluating the candidate’s credentials, post victory.

Hence, this much publicized common path, on an objective evaluation, is sure to lead the country to anarchy and to a point of no return.

It is not that these two experienced parties are unaware of this danger, but they must in all their earnestness have to do something to salvage the receding political fortunes of their respective parties. That is the primary challenge, as evidenced by the recent election results, before these two political parties. Therefore, in the end, this much publicized ‘common candidate’ is nothing more than a political circus to keep their supporters glued to their parties; a common affliction the UNP and the JVP is faced with in the current Sri Lankan political scenario.