Marriage of convenience

The UNP is the traditional party of the big bourgeoisie in Sri Lanka. The big bourgeoisie thrives on its link with international capital. Without the support and patronage of their foreign partners in exploitation they have no future.

That is why every time that party has been in power State ventures were privatized and sold for a song to political cronies who mange them with foreign collaboration. It was none other than J.R. Jayewardene, the architect of economic reform who introduced the neo-liberal economic policies to Sri Lanka that said, “Let the robber barons come.”

The national wealth they plundered and repatriated overseas is already history. Since the working masses, who were naturally interested in preserving the national wealth protested such protests were put down ruthlessly. It is enough to recall the fate of the July strikers in 1980 who were dismissed en masse.

Ranil Wickremesinghe and Ranasinghe Premadasa fared no better. They all served their imperialist masters and the lot of the ordinary people worsened day by day. During the period of terror the Government and the JVP continued to engage in extra-judicial killings, abductions and torture competing with each other. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s short lived government put forward the infamous Regaining Sri Lanka program at the behest of the World Bank and the IMF, which a blue print for large scale sell out of the country’s resources. Fortunately the people were able to defeat it.

The JVP or the New Left was born to fill a vacuum created by the class collaborationist policies of the traditional Left. It stood for a socialist alternative to the established system of society. In fact, it took up arms twice ostensibly for achieving the same objective sacrificing the lives of many youth. In the economic front it stood strongly against the open economy and the neo-liberal model.

Now the UNP and the JVP are united in supporting Sarath Fonseka as a Presidential candidate even without any agreement on principle. Has the JVP accepted the neo-liberal model or has the UNP abandoned it? Has their common candidate spelt out his economic policy? The only statement he has so far said is that he would follow the UNP as its economic policy is better in his opinion. The obvious conclusion to be drawn is that the JVP to have voluntarily or unwittingly accepted this position. Incidentally the JVP Leader is said to have told the business community that they have changed.

On the National Question the JVP is against even the 13th Amendment and the UNP is for 13th Amendment plus. The TNA wants to go beyond the 13th Amendment and has not given up the demand for secession. Yet the JVP, the UNP and the TNA are all aligned with the NDF candidate Sarath Fonseka.

At the same time all of them say there is no agreement among them. The NDF candidate always stresses that he has not signed any agreement with anybody. If one is to believe him all the rest have just taken his word and come forward to support him. Strange, indeed for the informal agreement is no to support a man contesting a village welfare society but the highest position in the country!

Not only that. Within the election campaign we see the two rivals coming together. The mutual accolades exchanged between them point to a deeper understanding, a closer coming together. It is difficult to imagine how Rohana Wijeweera would have reacted to this new union.

The best we could hope for is that it is only a tactical union, a marriage of convenience that would fall apart sooner than later. The irony of history is that the JVP which castigated the traditional Left for aligning with the SLFP has now aligned with the most reactionary right wing political party the UNP even without a simple agreement on a piece of paper. It is not a simple betrayal but a strategic shift from Left to Right in the political spectrum.