Liberalism rides high

Mahanama

Twenty four years ago, on January 19, 1987, a few upper middle class intellectuals formed the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka (LPSL) in Colombo. In 1988 it was recognized as a political party in Sri Lanka by the Commissioner of Elections. Late Dr Chanaka Amaratunga was the founding Leader and General Secretary while Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe was the President of the party. Both were Oxford educated intellectuals who had taken to politics to make a difference for the betterment of Sri Lanka.

Fourteen years ago, on August 1, 1996 Dr. Chanaka Amaratunga, Leader of the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka, died in a tragic car accident on the road towards Kalutara. He was only 38 years of age then having being born on April 19, 1958. Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe, President of the party then serving as the Head of the English Department of the University of Sabaragamuva in Belihuloya was elected as the new leader of the Liberal Party in September 1996. With the demise of Chanaka his mother Ms Swarna Amaratunga was named to the party committee as the Vice President, (now the President).

For a very brief period Alexander Weerarathna and Harim Peiris served as Secretary Generals. Kamal Nissanka, an Attorney-at-Law and a Political Science graduate of the University of Peradeniya was elected as the Secretary General in 1999. In May 2007 Kamal Nissanka took over the reigns of the Liberal Party as its new Leader. Earlier Nissanka served as the Deputy Mayor of Ratnapura after the Liberals won power in the Ratnapura Municipal Council in March 2002.

Liberalism is riding high today in Sri Lanka and the world as the party celebrates its 24th Anniversary with a public lecture at the OPA Centre in Colombo with Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe as the keynote speaker. Professor Wijesinghe, who was Secretary General of the Peace Secretariat and a former Ministry Secretary, came to Parliament as a Liberal MP on the UPFA National List. He is the second Liberal Party MP in Sri Lanka. The first Liberal Party MP was Asitha Perera, elected way back in September 1994 through an alliance the Liberal Party had with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress led then by the legendary M H M Ashraff.

In the United Kingdom the Liberal Democrats are in power as the junior coalition partner of the Conservative Party. The Liberal Democrats leader, the young and vibrant Nick Clegg, is the Deputy Prime Minister. Liberals are in power in the Philippines and Thailand; are the chief opposition party in Taiwan and Cambodia, have been in and out of power in many European countries like Spain and Portugal and also in Japan, Australia and Canada.

The Liberal Party of Sri Lanka is a member of the London based Liberal International (which is the equivalent the Moscow based Com-Intern when Socialism was fashionable) and also a founder member of the Manila based Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD).

In March 2010 the Liberal Party of Sri Lanka took over the Chair of CALD from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) with Professor Rajiva Wijesinghe as the Head of CALD for a two year term.

To go back memory lane in November 1982, Dr Chanaka Amaratunga, then Secretary General of the Council for Liberal Democracy (CLD), came to Kandy along with Asitha Perera and fellow liberals who were campaigning against the infamous Referendum of December 1982 through which JRJ postponed the general election due in 1983 and gave us Sri Lanka’s second “Long Parliament” of 1977 to 1988.

The first “Long Parliament” being the National State Assembly of 1970 to 1977 during the United Front government of Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Many of us English medium undergrads at the Dumbara Campus of the University of Peradeniya enthusiastically joined in the Liberal campaign against the Referendum asking the Kandy people and Peradeniya university students to vote for the Pot instead of the Lamp and reject the undemocratic extension of Parliament.

Before that, in May 1981, Dr Felix Fernando of Wennappuwa was instrumental in getting Hugh Fernando, former the Speaker of Parliament (1960 to 1964) and later a Minister in the UNP government of Dudley Senanayake, to accept the Chairmanship of the Council for Liberal Democracy (CLD) that Chanaka and other young liberals like Rohan Edirisinghe, Asitha Perera, Pakiasothy Saravanamuttu, Richard de Zoysa and Tissa Jayatilaka founded.

Kamal Nissanka, Shalini Senanayake, Ananda Steven and Samantha Unamboowe were also very active members of CLD. After Hugh Fernando’s demise Chanaka invited Desmond Fernando, PC, to become the Chairman of the CLD.

After my graduation from the University of Peradeniya in December 1986 I began my working life in Colombo as a Journalist at “The Sunday Times” whose founder editor was Vijitha Yapa. Dr Chanaka Amaratunga after his Doctorate from LSE, together with Dr Rajiva Wijesinghe, had founded a political journal named the “Liberal Review.”

During my last semester at Peradeniya I wrote an article about the liberal “People’s Power” revolution of February 1986 led by Cory Aquino in the Philippines and compared it to the Sri Lankan situation; post Referendum 1982 and post Black July 1983, and indicated what the democratic opposition led by the SLFP should do for the future. This was published in the “Liberal Review” by Chanaka and Rajiva.

Around that time, in January 1987, Chanaka decided that the Council for Liberal Democracy (CLD) alone was not enough, but that he needed a new “political vehicle” in the form of the Liberal Party to forward an alternative political ideology to promote individual freedom as against socialism, narrow nationalism and populism prevailed in Sri Lanka.

Kamal Nissanka, was the Editor of the Liberal Party’s first newspaper, the monthly “Liberal Nidahasa” and eventually became an Attorney-at-Law. Around this time Chanaka was able to negotiate grants from the liberal funding organizations to promote liberalism and democracy. Liberal Party’s first office at the seaside off Castle Lane in Bambalapitiya then became a centre of political activity against political authoritarianism.

Chanaka twice missed the chance to become an MP first in 1989 and then in 1994. In 1989 Chanaka was the sole Liberal in the SLFP National List. Had Sirimavo Bandaranaike won the presidential election of December 1988, followed by an SLFP victory at the February 1989 general election, both Chanaka Amaratunga (and also Lakshman Kadirgarmar) would have been MP’s from the SLFP National List in 1989. With the defeat of the SLFP that was not to be.

His second chance came in 1994. This time the LPSL was in a coalition with M H M Ashraff’s SLMC and Chanaka was on their National List.

Ashraff wanted to nominate Chanaka to Parliament in August 1994 but Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga preferred Asitha Perera as she thought he was more trustworthy given Chanaka’s close relations to Gamini Dissanayake who had by then emerged as the UNP Leader of the Opposition ousting Ranil Wickremasinghe.

Apparently CBK feared that given the wafer thin majority of the newly elected People’s Alliance (PA) government, a consummate politician like Gamini Dissanayake would easily topple her government in a matter of months with the help of insiders.

That is how Asitha Perera became the first Liberal MP in Sri Lanka, not Chanaka Amaratunga. Now we have Sri Lanka’s second Liberal MP in the form of Professor Dr Rajiva Wijesinghe, who came in through the UPFA National List. My association with Chanaka continued since I was a prominent member of the CLD political seminar circuit.

The CLD was the means by which Chanaka disseminated liberal democratic values in Sri Lanka. This is where his real contribution to Sri Lankan politics became manifest. Many years later the liberals edited a volume titled “Liberal Ideas for Constitutional Reform in Sri Lanka” which was essentially a summary of the discussions and conclusions reached at the CLD meetings which were attended by people from all parties and all ethnic groups.

There were some very bright and colourful personalities who attended these CLD meetings. Just to name a few they included Kumar Ponnambalam, Victor Ivan, Dayan Jayatilaka, Major General Balaratnarajah, Nigel Hatch, Rajpal Abeynayake, Marvan Macan Markar, Jayaprakash Tissainayagam, Sunanda Deshapriya, Ranmali Pathirana, Nikira Gunatilaka, Nirgunan Thiruchelvam, Sonali Pathirana, Harim Peiris, Jith Peiris, D Sivaram, D Siddarthan, Dr Jehan Perera, Dr Jeevan Thiagarajah, Sanath Ukwatte, Gamini Gunaratne, Chandana Ukwatte and a host of others. At times there were moments of high political humour.

One famous incident was when a novice member of the audience asked an innocent question from one of the panelists, Dayan Jayatillaka “Sir, do you think that if the JVP succeeded in their insurgency of 1971 that Wijeweera would have been called a Pol Potist?” Pat came the reply from Dayan without batting an eyelid: “If the JVP captured State power in 1971 Wijeweera would not have been called a Pol Potist; Pol Pot would have been called a Wijeweeraist.”

In fact the Pol Pot led Khmer Rouge seized power in Cambodia in May 1975 from the American backed Colonel Lon Nol’s military junta about four years after the JVP’s failed insurrection of April 1971.

Whether it is the revival of the Senate - Second Chamber for the Parliament; the adoption of the German system for elections - mix of the Proportional Representation and First Past the Post methods (PR & FPP); the establishment of Independent Commissions - vide the 17th Amendment; devolution of power - via the 13th Amendment and Provincial Councils; expansion of Press Freedom; reform of economic and social systems; all these ideas first advocated by Dr Chanaka Amaratunga at the Liberal Party forums now seem to be the agenda in the country’s political economy and intellectual discourse.

Chanaka was a political thinker much ahead of his time in Sri Lanka. He may be gone but his liberal democratic ideas have been widely accepted and are now seen as the solution to many complex issues in contemporary politics here and abroad. The spontaneous “liberal democratic people’s power revolution” in Tunisia this month is only the latest happening.

Chanaka’s tragic death on August 1, 1996 occurred shortly before I left for the University of North Carolina in the United States to read for my Doctorate in International Health Communication.

My association with the LPSL continued after my return from the US with Rajiva Wijesinghe and now Kamal Nissanka as the party leaders. I am now a National Executive Committee Member of the LPSL.

Chanaka is gone but the spirit of liberalism is well and alive in Europe, Asia, North Africa, Middle East and Latin America; the world over today. May he watch over us from the heavenly realms with wisdom and benevolence as the LPSL celebrates its 24th Anniversary.