Party loyalty or political immaturity?

When a party should devote and die for the people and its voters, voters dying on behalf of a party revives the old fable of a farmer and son who carried their donkey on their shoulders. That is indeed catching the issue in the wrong end.

We know that people commit suicide when they are disillusioned with their lives, but this suicide of Algama opposite Sirikotha is probably the first time we hear of a supporter of a political party committing suicide because he could no longer bear the spectacle of the party fortunes plummeting to the abyss.

In the process, he has left his family behind to fend for themselves. This shows that this political party was everything to this man and he considered its well-being more important than that of his own self and his family. This certainly is one of a kind and must be case unique to Sri Lanka. The irony of it all however is though motivated politically this overzealous loyalty by this man to his party runs contrary to the very principles of democracy and practices in party politics.

In a democracy the voter is the king and the Government has to be an institution that caters to the needs and aspirations of the voter. Political party is only an organization formed for the purpose of canvassing popular support to form a government. Therefore in a democracy, the Government and the political parties have to be at the voters bidding and therefore it is the Government and the party that have to die for the people. Thus when we have a situation where a voter dies for the political party it is, but an anti thesis of democracy.

This reminds me of the story where a father and his son carried a donkey on their shoulders, instead of riding it, to the market place.

Die hard loyalist

That was a popular children’s fable that exemplifies a particular human characteristic and that characteristic by the way is imbecility.

Yet there could be many party supporters who would have admired this man for what he did as a role model of ‘party loyalty’ and Ranil Wickremesinghe would have wished that all the people in Sri Lanka to have Algama’s mentality. The party hierarchy also may try to imply party men that ‘If you are a party supporter you should stay through thick and thin like Algama’ and further would give ‘political principles’ as the reason why you should be loyal to your party.

Now, we have come to the point and that is, if at all if a voter should be loyal to a political party it is because he believes in the same political principles as that of the party.

Therefore now let us examine these ‘political principles’ that keep the voter to a particular party taking the UNP as an example. Under Premadasa the UNP was a populist party but under Ranil Wickremesinghe it is an elitist party. Under Dudley Senanayake the UNP believed in making Sri Lanka self sufficient in food and hence gave pride and place to agriculture but under Ranil’s leadership the UNP ridiculed the farmers and advised them to grow Keketiya instead of paddy. Ranil himself proclaimed at public meetings that the paddyfields should be converted to cricket grounds.

Under JR’s leadership the UNP refused to negotiate with the LTTE on the grounds that they were terrorists while under Ranil the UNP had ‘negotiations as the only solution’. Hence we could now see that political parties often change their policies according to the leader who accedes to that position at the time and hence in that situation no party has the moral right to demand unquestionable loyalty from its membership based on ‘political principles’.

Political immaturity

Then what makes people so steadfastly loyal to political parties? The answer, I think is ‘political immaturity’. If the voters are politically matured they will evaluate the political issues facing the country at the time and choose the political party that appears to have the most plausible solution and cast their vote. If you are politically immature you will build this unquestionable loyalty to one party making your perceptions blur on what is right and what is wrong for the people and country.

It is in such a situation that you perceive everything that your party introduces to be good without questioning everything that the opposing party introduces to be bad, again without proper evaluation. Thus the voter becomes a zombie driven by party propaganda instead of the party being driven by the voter as it democratically should be.

There is no reason for a UNP supporter, to commit suicide at this moment of time. Even though his party may not be in power, the UNP supporters in this country too could enjoy the peace, stability, increase in per capita income and the pervading sanguine mood of the country. After all what matters at the end is the state of the country and not the state of your party.

On the other hand, a lot of people in this country were disillusioned and felt like committing suicide when Ranil gave part of this country on a platter to the worst terror organization in the world and recognized that organization as a conventional fighting force and also as the sole representative of the Tamils, back in 2002. At that time this country had no hope and we were sitting ducks to be devoured by the Tigers.

[email protected]