Amid political turmoil in Sri Lanka, a party with revolutionary roots rises
Last summer, Sri Lanka captured the world’s attention with mass protests against the incumbent Rajapaksa government, resulting in the president fleeing the country. He returned in September, after his successor forcefully repressed demonstrators.
Videos from the unrest went viral: Sri Lankans flooded into the president’s home, swimming in his pool and taking selfies of themselves in his bed. It’s possible the international coverage even drove a similar act of rebellion in Iraq. South African intelligence took note of the situation and worried about an uprising in their own country.
With Rajapaksa gone, and his family’s political dynasty tarnished along with his party, attention now turns towards the political vacuum that now exists in Sri Lanka. Local elections that were supposed to be held in March have recently been postponed, a messy situation that has been blamed on government worries of an opposition takeover.
And Sri Lanka’s political establishment does have reason to be worried.
With public anger persisting past Rajapaksa’s resignation, and protestors mobilizing once more, the political environment portends calamity for the governing coalition, composed, in part, of an alliance between the president’s UNP (which holds a single seat in parliament) and the Rajapaksa-led Buddhist nationalist SLPP. In both the last local elections and the last general election, Rajapaksa’s party won big, extending their grip across most of the country.
But according to the latest SLOTS poll for Sri Lanka’s next parliamentary election, SLPP influence is set to be wiped away as soon as voters find an opportunity. Since October 2021, the SLPP has declined from 40% in voting intention to merely 8%. Meanwhile, two parties are gathering significant support from disaffected Sri Lankans.
One of them, the JVP, is a revolutionary Marxist party that has attempted to overthrow the government of Sri Lanka twice in decades past. On its own, the party has never seen much electoral success; outside of the time they formed an alliance with the former targets of their revolution, the center-left SFLP, the JVP have never taken more than 9% in a national election.
The survey mentioned above now places their bloc in first, with 32%.
JVP, in its modern iteration, seems more pragmatic than the party that tried to take over Sri Lanka in the 70s and 80s. They’re led by Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, a former cabinet minister who was bandied as a possible candidate for interim president during last year’s political crisis. Anura, known by his initials AKD, has vocalized his party’s moderation frequently. In response to a claim that the JVP’s political alliance, National People’s Power (NPP), doesn’t support private property, AKD declared that his movement is “flexible.”
That charge came from Sajith Premadasa, the leader of Sri Lanka’s other major opposition party, the big-tent SJB. Readily apparent is the hostility between the two emerging players in Sri Lanka’s political scene.
In the SLOTS poll, the SJB clocks in at a virtual tie with the NPP, projected at 31%. Despite the open enmity, the parties together account for over 60% of the vote. Whatever the differences among Sri Lanka’s opposition, voters are clearly in a “change” mood. Both movements have vigorously championed criticism of the government’s incompetence and corruption.
While this year’s local elections have been postponed, Sri Lanka has a presidential election slated for 2024. If the government is trying to stymie a political upheaval here, it will not be long before Sri Lankans ensure that they are heard.
Connections
Neighboring India has a storied communist history of its own, and in the state of Kerala, they actually govern.
Likewise, in Nepal, a party with Maoist origins finds itself occupying the role of prime minister for the first time in more than five years, at the head of a wide-ranging coalition. It should be stressed that major communist parties in both countries mentioned have exhibited moderate tendencies to varying degrees.
The Maldives will hold its presidential election later this year. The election has been cast as, in part, a “competition for influence” between India and China.