Wednesday’s Opposition protest: Parties crumble in shambles

Wednesday’s anti-government protest, which turned out to be a big blow to the Opposition due to poor attendance and in-party disagreements, if not an embarrassment, forced its constituent parties in the alliance to do some reflection on their political future.

One minority party leader in the alliance shared a message to his close circles of what happened and the reasons behind the failure of the Opposition to muster its power, while it struggles to put up a fight against the Government.

The leader was of the view that Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa should not have agreed in haste to join the protest with the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP). Many parties and influential politicos who assured their support failed to turn up, and even if they did, they were alone without their support base.

Once they arrived at the protest and noticed how things were unfolding, some party leaders and MPs silently left early to avoid embarrassment while others who were preparing to go, contacted their parties in advance to ask if they should join the protest, or keep away. Many decided not to go when they heard others were backtracking.

When the Opposition Leader decided not to proceed to the Police barrier, he lost the respect of core anti-government protesters and things became tense. Some protesters openly said if the Sajith Premadasa led Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) was not willing to face tear gas and water cannons along with them they too can go home--just like they demanded the earlier Gotabaya Rajapaksa Government to go home.

A potential joint protest of SJB and Janatha Vimuthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National Peoples Power (NPP) members would not be a possibility since the NPP firmly believed that move would diminish their voter base.

Indeed, these were some constructive reflections coming from the Opposition itself to go home with.