May Day signals

May Day falling last week, as is very well known, has long lost its Labour Day intent and flavour certainly in this country, degenerating into the political carnival all Lankans are familiar with. With a presidential election due later this year, predictably the various contending parties made the occasion one of trying to demonstrate their pre-poll strength by transporting their supporters by bus and train for the various rallies organized in Colombo. This, of course, has always been done, but the incentive to make the show bigger was more so last Wednesday. While it was easy enough to see that a great deal of money had been spent for this purpose, it was less easy to judge who put up the biggest show although there were many claimants for that achievement.

The hurrah boys of some of the contenders for the presidency had promised all kinds of revelations on May Day. But very little surfaced with a single, little known MP from the Moneragala district switching allegiance from the SLPP to the UNP. There was also the already stale news that Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe will be the SLFP candidate for the presidential crown. We all know he will not wear it, at least the next time round, but former President Maithripala Sirisena announced his candidature at the SLFP’s muted May Day show at Gampaha.

What Rajapakshe’s intentions are, we don’t know. But the comedy continues and we can easily guess that he’s probably looking at the next parliamentary election rather than the presidency at least at this moment – whatever may happen in the future. He’s been serving many masters since his entry from the legal profession into parliament in 2004 on the national list of the SLFP and later by election. He’s thereafter held several cabinet ministries and chairmanship/membership of different parliamentary oversight committees. He’s now been named acting chairman of the SLFP but since restrained from assuming that position by the courts. The determination of an appeal on that judgment is pending.

The UNP which has been claiming many SJB defections to be announced on May Day pulled in a single minnow from back of beyond, not from the SJB but from the SLPP, into its ranks. Party hacks didn’t bother to even talk about it, leave alone make any noise. But the Wickremesinghe cheering squad keeps saying there are several months to go before the big election and are asking the country to await developments. So also the SLPP, out of the woodwork since the aragalaya, which while repeating they will field a candidate at the presidential poll remains shy of revealing that worthy’s identity. Though his father has said that Namal Rajapaksa has more time, the latter continues to champ at the bit.

One small clue from the SLPP May Day platform was the presence of billionaire businessman Dhammika Perera. Clad in his trademark blue suit and red tie, he looked a fish out of water among the political hoi polloi. Although he had barely spoken in parliament since he succeeded Basil Rajapaksa in an SLPP national list seat and briefly held cabinet office, his DP Education initiative offering free IT distance education remains alive and kicking. Observers believe this signals that Perera is not yet old hat as far as his presidential ambitions are concerned.

The anticipated May Day announcement of his own candidature by the president did not come to pass, some say to the disappointment of the Nimal Lanza-led group of SLPPers waiting to toss their hats into the Wickremesinghe ring. This made them keep off the UNP rally this May Day until the candidature is formally announced by the real McCoy rather than his acolytes. There was no clue last week on why Wickremesinghe chose to remain personally silent of his candidature although there are a multitude of signals that he plans to run. The latest among these was the president’s announcement on the CWCs (Ceylon Workers Congress) Kotagala May Day platform of the long promised Rs. 1,700 daily wage for plantation workers.

Newspaper correspondents resorted this May Day to identifying who was present where, and who was not at particular events to read the political barometer. Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka was present at the SJB rally which he left early probably because he was not given a speech. Observers attribute this to the ongoing squabble between Fonseka and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa.

In May Days of long ago when the old left, affiliated to many trade union federations, was alive and kicking, newspaper correspondents resorted to the not very accurate practice of timing which procession (often called demonstration) took the longest time to pass a given point. Given the pace of the marching and spacing between different sections of the processions, it is doubtful whether this was a reasonably accurate measuring device. But it was often practiced.

Galle Face green was then the most preferred venue, often hogged by whoever was in office, but public meeting are no longer permitted there. Many of this year’s May Day events were confined to the streets with the SLPP choosing the more open Campbell Park – and making much of it – while others chose smaller open spaces and the streets where participants were packed into narrow confined spaces with obvious attempts to outdo each other in terms of crowd show. Mahinda Rajapaksa projected his party as the kingmaker in this year’s presidential contest claiming that nobody could win without their support. The JVP/NPP had four rallies, big ones in Colombo and Matara, one in Anuradhapura and the smallest in Jaffna.