Saturday 6th July, 2024

Time was when the SLFP and the UNP dominated Sri Lankan politics, and captured power almost alternately so much so that we had a two-party system to all intents and purposes. But today they have become shadows of their former selves and are struggling for survival. Worse, their offshoots have not only overtaken them but also rendered them almost irrelevant in national politics.

The UNP is lucky that the elevation of its leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to the presidency, albeit fortuitously, has enabled it to recover some lost ground on the political front. But the SLFP continues to sink in a political mire of its own making apparently with no prospect of recovery anytime soon.

In what can be considered a dramatic turn of events, MP Dayasiri Jayasekera, who obtained an interim order from the Colombo District Court against the SLFP’s decision to strip him of party membership and the post of General Secretary, assumed duties in front of the SLFP Headquarters at Darley Road, Colombo 10, yesterday. The police did not allow him to enter the party office.

No sooner had the interim order in question been issued than Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, whom the Chandrika faction of the SLFP appointed as the party Chairman, sacked Jayasekera. Now, there are two persons staking claims to the SLFP chairmanship—Minister de Silva and Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapaksha. There are three persons who claim to be the SLFP General Secretary—Jayasekera, Dushmantha Mitrapala and Duminda Dissanayake. The party’s rank and file are confused and frustrated; many of them have already voted with their feet. Most of the SLFP MPs, elected on the SLPP ticket, have switched their allegiance to President Wickremesinghe.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena, who resigned as the SLFP Chairman, is pulling the strings. Ex-President Kumaratunga is doing likewise. Their proxies are at war. The unfolding Darley Road drama is like an Ambalangoda rookada (puppet) show.

The police are all out to ensure that the rivals of the Chandrika faction do not gain access to the SLFP party office. It is obvious that they are doing so at the behest of the powers that be. The anti-Sirisena faction of the SLFP supports President Wickremesinghe. Sirisena and his loyalists were planning to field Minister Rajapaksha as the SLFP’s presidential candidate. Their attempt has been in vain; their rivals have gained the upper hand with the help of the police, and others.

The SLFP is no stranger to internecine legal battles among its ambitious leaders. Even some members of the Bandaranaike family failed to be different, and as a result the SLFP remained in the political wilderness for 17 years, after its humiliating defeat at the 1977 general election.

The SLFP has had two of its General Secretaries decamping—S. B. Dissanayake in 2001 and Sirisena in late 2014. In 2005, the then President Kumaratunga sought to queer the pitch for the SLFP’s presidential candidate, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had ruffled her feathers. She failed in her endeavour. Ten years later, President Sirisena ruined the SLFP-led UPFA’s chances of winning a general election, as he had an axe to grind with Mahinda, who was the party’s prime ministerial candidate at the time. The SLFP has not recovered from the crippling split it suffered due to clashes between the then Sirisena-Kumaratunga faction, which sided with the UNP, and the Rajapaksa loyalists.

The SLFP is in the current predicament because its leaders never hesitate to subjugate its interests to their personal agendas. Whichever faction emerges victorious in the intraparty war at Darley Road, the SLFP will lose, for at this rate it is likely to end up being a mere nameboard, having lost significance, influence and following.