Total eclipse of the UNP marks 2020, party’s
Economic revival
The total eclipse of the United National Party sun in Lanka’s political firmament was made dramatically visible on Thursday morn when it was conspicuously absent from Parliament, where it had dominated the august chamber with its stately presence as a national institution since the grant of independence 72 years ago.
The extent to which the people had clearly shown its gross displeasure toward the UNP in the Lankan electorate was self-evident when translated into numbers in Parliament where not even a single member had been elected to grace Lanka’s supreme legislature and add voice to the proceedings. One year ago the grand old party of Lanka’s politics was the government, with over 100 seats to boast. This week at the ceremonial opening of the 9th Parliament under the UNP fathered 1978 Constitution, they could boast none.
The ignominious defeat became even more shameless when the UNPers miserably failed to decide amongst themselves as to who should fill the one slot on the national list granted to the party based on the total polled. This vacillation confirmed the public view of the party as one of indecision, Hamlet’s tragic flaw that made him lose the name of action and brought forth his downfall. In this instance it is due to the internal squabbling of the handful left, desperately vying with one another to enter the House by the tradesmen’s entrance at the rear when, lacking the people’s invite, they had been denied entry from the front.
The failure meant that the oldest party joined ranks with the newest party, Our Power of Peoples Party, which, too, failed to send its one nationalist member to Parliament on its ninth ceremonial opening because two Buddhist monks Rathane and Gnanasara theras were fighting over the one slot to enter parliament, in a despicable manner unbecoming of Buddhist monks.
What a bleak day Thursday was for the United National Party, its total absence from the House it had built on Diyawanna waters, bringing home starkly to Sirikotha, the unthinkable, unimaginable and undreamt magnitude of their shattering defeat. It’s almost as if the earth had opened up and swallowed the UNP whole, leaving no trace that they had ever
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The party had paid the ultimate price for its utmost complacency, for its dinosauric resistance to change when survival demanded change. And betrayed remorseless the trust reposed and, with callous disregard, abandoned to the winds the myriad hopes and aspirations of its much vaunted voter base of approximately 5 million who had voted for the party at previous elections, including last year’s presidential poll. And the party had reaped the inevitable whirlwind.
Yet, a sense of irredeemable loss pervades the morose air not only for those dyed in the wool die- hards to whom the UNP and its policies were their political creed and tenets and the leader their irreplaceable messiah who had led them to apocalypse but also to the Lankan public of whatever political hue or denomination who genuflect before democracy’s altar and holds its sacrament as an article of undying faith.
They mourn the sad demise of the alternative party in a two-party system which has endangered further the already shaky foundations of Lanka’s democratic state; and has, overnight, put democracy on notice of its numbered days as the natural consequence of such a wretched state.
Since 1948, the history of post-independence Lanka has been inextricably linked with the history of the UNP. It had been the midwife of the nation who had delivered her independence from the British; the foster father of the nation’s parliamentary democracy who, against all odds, had kept the flame of individual freedoms flickering in the darkest nights and kept the totalitarian wolf with its communist fangs from the nation’s door; the father of the nation’s constitution which, despite its warts, has lasted 42 years for better or worse; the giver of the open economy who boldly opened the floodgates of trade, while unleashing the power of Mahaweli waters and harnessing it to fuel the industries.
But in the increasing mists of the illustrious past, can one barely discern a distant future hope of the UNP rising from the dead? A Phoenix taking flight from the ashes of abject defeat?
If that faint prospect is destined to come to pass and take substantial form, the remaining faithful of the shell shocked UNP must first come to terms with the reality of their party’s unprecedented defeat. First and foremost, the UNP must come off its imagined high horse and take a peep at the real world from the dustbin the people have contemptuously thrown them all into, lock, stock and barrel.
They should first understand and realise with every sinew and fibre that the folly of their intransigent and devious ways have dumped them there in the very nadir of political existence; and that false ‘pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall’. That this rout is of their own making, in their inability to compromise and accommodate new ideas, hear out alternative voices than their master’s own, and fashion its mould to changing styles that capture the imagination of the public and make the party and its members more endearing to the public eye.
Sitting around moaning and whinnying and wallowing in its own mire of a defeat that stinks to high heavens, and pointing the finger of blame at everyone else other than in the direction of their own at whose shoes blame for this unmitigated disaster must be placed, will not help stir even one cell to life in the UNP’s moribund corpus. Rather a decent burial and move on than have it linger any longer on a hope supporting machine when life itself has fled.
In this regard, former State Minister for Defence, Ruwan Wijeywardene, made an optimistic start this week to find the party’s place in the sun to suit its present adverse circumstances after its fall from grace: from being the courted belle of the ball everyone wants to tango with to being the wrinkled, crimpled, down and out dowager with whom none wants to be seen, even dead.
But the UNP’s Deputy General Secretary Ruwan struck the correct pitch when he made the first overtures to his former party colleagues who, through force of circumstances, had been forced to leave the party and form their own. But first he had a lot of weeding out to do.
A few months before, the then powerful UNP had thrown out the rebels, had stripped them of their party membership and had gone to the injudicious extent of having them barred from contesting the elections by getting their nominations cancelled. Now having failed to do their worst, and the Samagi Jana Balawegaya having done their best to secure the traditional post of UNP leader during his 26-year reign as leader of the opposition, the tables had turned dramatically in SJB’s favour.
Though his party had met with its Waterloo with all its ships sunk, Ruwan was resolute, yet gracious in defeat. Suing for peace, Ruwan reached out the UNP hand to the SJB to join them in the common pursuit of winning the upcoming provincial elections. He told the media on Tuesday his party hopes to join hands and work with the breakaway Samagi Jana Balawegaya in the future. “There should be a change in the UNP and that they will reorganise the party to face the upcoming provincial council elections. We have to regain the trust and confidence of our followers and the people in the country, at a time the vote percentage has dropped to 2-3 percent we have a good opportunity to completely change the party.”
He further said: “There is a possibility of a merger between the United National Party and the Samagi Jana Balawegaya in the future. We intend having a dialogue with the SJB with such a possibility in view.”
The SJB, in the excess of euphoria, perhaps, thought it fit to snub this offer. Newcomer to Parliament SJB MP Hesha Withanage told the media the same day, “the only alternative left for the United National Party is to ally with the Samagi Jana Balawegaya. We hear that the UNP is hoping to reorganise itself. These plans have ended in failure in the past. We are sad about the fate which has befallen the UNP at the general election. Parliament will be without UNP MPs for the first time in Sri Lanka's political history. We are inviting those remaining in the party to join Mr. Premadasa."
This was not the first time Ruwan Wijeywardene had made this appeal and cautioned both sides of what was at stake. On March 8 this year, he had warned: “The UNP will not have a future if it gets divided. All must get together to contest the General Election, Several groups within the party hope to achieve a greater victory by shattering the party. A future is not visible if the party is divided. Therefore, the UNP and the Samagi Jana Balawegaya must get together to achieve a greater victory.”
Though his first efforts to bring the two parties together may have been initially rejected with a counter-invitation made by the SJB for the UNP to join the SJB, it has served to thaw the ice. And shows all possible signs of success in the future. The UNP still has some widow’s mite to offer after some load shedding in its power grid. The road is long with many a winding turn and the run down UNP faces a solitary walk with a leaky umbrella and its hand stretched to hitch a ride in the SJB’s SUV. Though presently it gives the thumbs down to the weary traveller, who knows a puncture might well call for a tyre changer.
The year 2020 has been an ‘annus horribilis’ for the UNP, even as the year 1992 was to the Queen of England. She described the year as ‘annus horribilis’, an old Latin phrase meaning ‘horrible year,’ in her speech marking her 40 year of ascension to the throne.
In the coming months, the UNP will have to first reinvent itself if it wishes to regain its place in the political firmament. No rush. If nothing else is, at least, time is on their side.