The difference of ten years

The debacle suffered by the main Opposition United National Party (UNP) at the recent elections to the Eastern, North Central and Sabaragamuwa Provincial Councils must surely cause some soul-searching among its leading members.

It also bodes ill for its future that, in the midst of one of the biggest droughts of recent times, it was unable to increase its vote in what are, after all, some of the most agricultural areas of the island.

The Grand Old Party has always been heavily dependent on the donation of funds from the wealthy. Its level of spending historically was an order of magnitude greater than that of its nearest rivals to its left. Increasingly, the donors have been expectant of payback in terms of patronage, contracts and policy changes.

The UNP has not won a major election since 2002, meaning that the payback has not been forthcoming for almost a decade. Its financial backers have grown weary of throwing money down the drain. The party cannot exist without a vast input of funds, so its very survival is moot.

The pundits of the UNP had better, surely get cracking on working out the reasons for its consistent failure at the polls. Their starting point could be to compare the present situation with that of ten years ago, when they last were in government.

Then, the UNP came to power amidst widespread dissatisfaction with the administration of President Chandrika Kumaratunga. The military had managed to roll back the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from some of the territory they had captured in their ‘Unceasing Waves’ offensive up the throat of the Jaffna peninsula.

Infrastructural development

The cost of beating off the LTTE’s onslaught, combined with the economic havoc wrought by their suicide assault on the Colombo Airport, had the effect of creating negative economic growth for the first time since the abortive Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna insurrection of 1971.

The UNP negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the LTTE which, effectively, gave to the LTTE all that the defence forces had managed to recapture, and more, as the price for a limited peace. The expectation was of a massive ‘peace dividend’, which would cause an unprecedented boom.

The result was, indeed, that businesses were able to pick up. However, the UNP government also squandered assets, hiving off some of the most important state lands and corporations to the private sector under somewhat dubious circumstances.

Much of the resultant growth simply went to the already rich, leaving the major part of the population without much of a ‘peace dividend’. Also, for most of the people, there was a foreboding of a renewed war, due to the virtual grant of a separate state to the terrorists.

Moreover, the occupation of the North and East by the LTTE meant a totally different set of economic conditions there: Prabhakaran and his cronies were able to exploit the people of those areas, giving them very little in the way of infrastructural development.

By way of contrast, nowadays the effects of a true ‘peace dividend’ are apparent. The economy is booming at levels unprecedented since it was ‘opened up’ in 1978. Unemployment has gone below 6 percent for the first time. Village-centred infrastructural projects, such as road building and social programmes such as Divi Neguma have smoothed out the tendency of high economic growth to foster inequality.

Furthermore, the growth has not merely been in the metropolitan area. The ‘outstations’ are also booming. Previously moribund regions have been reawakened. Most importantly, there has been no political or developmental dichotomy between ‘North East’ and ‘South’: development is for all Sri Lankans.

National assets

The contrast is epitomised by the highway between Avissawella and Nuwara Eliya. For years, despite being the principal artery for transporting high-grown tea to Colombo harbour, it was neglected. It remained at basically the same width as it was when British planters brought coffee down it in bullock carts - indeed the road surface was also reminiscent of a cart-track!

Now the road is being straightened, widened and repaved, which will cut down the time of travel considerably, reducing fuel consumption and transport costs. On its way it passes through the town of Talwakelle-Lindula, where extensive, planned urban development is transforming it into a modern city sitting athwart the long new lake created by the brand-new Upper Kotmale hydro-electric scheme.

This highway and the development visible beside it, are just examples of what is occurring throughout the country.

In isolated (and even in not-so-isolated) hamlets the ease of access created by a simple small concrete road has made the difference between growth and stagnation.

This has been possible because the government of Mahinda Rajapaksa defeated the LTTE, creating the conditions for a lasting peace and embarked on a development policy which included the poor and which safeguarded national assets.

So what does the UNP have to do to recover? Of course, it is ideologically committed to a course somewhat to the right of that of the incumbent United People’s Freedom Alliance.

Nevertheless, within the limitations imposed by that ideology it has freedom of movement.

The UNP was from the beginning a coalition between the compradore capitalist class - heavily dependent on first the colonial power and then on the ‘West’ - and national-minded, populist elements. The first was exemplified by JR Jayawardene, the second by Dudley Senanayake.

The effect of JR’s policy, post 1977 were to destroy local industry and to create gross inequality, while maintaining high growth, mainly through import-based trade. This contrasted with Dudley’s approach in the 1960s, when he maintained a bipartisan policy of protectionism combined with an emphasis on agricultural production.

UNP leader Ranil Wickremasinghe’s policies are even more extreme than JR’s. As such, they are unacceptable to the people. Until the UNP manages to find again its roots and the national-mindedness in the tradition of CWW Kannangara and that ilk, it will be consigned forever to the dustbin of history.