Having to face the best SLFP leader..

UNP's woes are not limited to having a leadership removed from the general aspirations of the masses. In fact they are more to do with having to face up to a rival leadership that is the best ever.

Birth of the SLFP in 1952 brought about the current two party systems in Sri Lankan politics and since then the UNP was able to maintain its appeal among the urban elite in the country while the SLFP reined in the rural areas. The UNP had a cosmopolitan outlook as against the SLFP's indigenous outlook. UNP was known for its mega development projects and liberal economic policies and the SLFP for its social reforms and self sustaining economic policies. In the area of foreign policy the UNP was rightist Western inclined while the SLFP had been trying a balance act between the West and the East with an independent foreign policy.

Political base

However, this strait-jacket political perspective and outlook has changed from around 1994. That was when Chandrika Kumaratunge's government did an about turn to the right with its signals pointing towards the left. That government in fact was more rightist than the traditionally rightist UNP. However, as far as the SLFP is concerned that period was an aberration with regard to its tested and proven political base. The fact that Kumaratunge policies were not popular with the SLFP and the masses became quite apparent in 1999 when Ms Kumaratunge’s struggled to win the election for her second term, polling a mere 51 percent against a lackluster opponent.

This was a clear case of lost popularity as she scored a whopping 62 percent at her first attempt in 1994. Thus it should be clear that Kumaratunges strategy, if she had one, of trying to be more UNP than the UNP did not work with the SLFP and the masses.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa however had a more composed strategy and he never disowned the SLFP policies. Instead he built on them projecting them as more practical and appropriate to the country and the current state of affairs than those of the UNP. He gracefully deviated from the policy of being immersed in Western thinking to solve the terrorist issue. He restored self confidence in the people and the forces as that was a pre requisite in facing the marauding LTTE.

Development projects

At that time the invincibility of the LTTE was like the nude emperors invisible beautiful dress: nobody questioned it for fear of being branded a political naivete. President Mahinda Rajapaksa's perceptions were not tainted with ideologies borrowed from the Western or Eastern thinking and hence he was sincere enough to see the nudity of the emperor between the hyped clothes. He believed in the simple indigenous solution of either taming or eliminating the aggressor and his policy was 100 percent SLFP which believed in indigenousness.

With that, and with the success scored at the battlefront, the present SLFP leadership dealt the biggest blow the UNP has ever suffered. Yet the UNP had a few triumphs up its sleeve and the main among them had been the management of the economy. The UNP was known to manage the economy well with mega development projects funded by donors from the liberal West. ‘If the UNP as in power the people will have more money’ was the belief the majority of the people entertained, especially since 1977. But now the SLFP under President Rajapaksa's leadership has made inroads into this belief of the people too. President Rajapaksa did not wait till the war was over to launch all the development projects he had in mind. We would not know how he managed all that but the reality is that just two years after the war the country is experiencing a development boom.

Economic war

The country is paved with miles of beautiful roadways and the improvement in infrastructure during the past five years has been unprecedented. Thus it is time for the UNP to look back and admit that Mahinda is not good only for the war but he is even better in launching the economic war. This is the moment of unpalatable truth for the UNP with regard to its chances of regaining political power. Economy was the last bastion of the UNP and even that is now crumbling in the face of the rapid and accelerated work carried out by the present government.

President Rajapaksa has now demonstrated more maturity than the Bandaranaikes in being more practical for the times.

He is more street smart, worker-friendly, economically more results-oriented and even in foreign policy more purposeful. Thus President Rajapakse, especially after the victory in 2010 where he gained 62 percent of the vote against the 50 percent received in 2005, has ascended to the position of the best SLFP leader the party has ever had.

Therefore, the problems of the UNP are not limited to having a lackluster leader, or having the worst leader in the history of UNP politics, but in having to face up to the best leadership its rival in party in politics, the SLFP has ever had.

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