SLFP and the Sirisena paradox

Over the past 70 years, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, as one of two main political entities in the country, offered a centre left alternative to its erstwhile political rival, the United National Party. The SLFP founder was an anglophile aristocrat who could hardly speak the vernacular tongue, but the party attracted a more nationalist and socialist followers almost at the outset, based on its Govi-Guru-Veda-Kamkaru-Sangha policy.

Undoubtedly, the SLFP carved out a unique niche in the Sri Lankan political arena, by being able to evolve and change with the times. By the time President Chandrika Kumaratunga wrested power back from the UNP after 17 long years, she ensured that the party held on to power for another two decades. From 1994 to 2015, except for a short two-year hiatus from 2002-2004, SLFP-led coalitions have formed the Sri Lankan government. Today however, the SLFP has been politically decimated. The man mostly responsible for this predicament is its current leader Maithripala Sirisena. The former Secretary General of the SLFP resigned from his party position to run for the presidency in 2015.

Sirisena was elected president by political parties that were not his own. His own party’s rank and file voted for his opponent in that election, Mahinda Rajapaksa. In this context, Sirisena had no moral obligation to continue as SLFP leader after winning the presidency. He could have stayed above SLFP-UNP tussles and focused instead on the democratic reform agenda his campaign promised. Had he abandoned his party and focused on reform and re-democratisation, Maithripala Sirisena would have secured his place in the Sri Lankan history books as one of the greatest leaders the country ever produced.

This was not to be. Having held membership in the SLFP since boyhood, President Sirisena found it impossible to detach himself from his party when its leadership was finally offered to him on a platter. From that early decision to accept the SLFP leadership in January 2015, President Sirisena’s reform agenda was all but doomed. SLFP politician who had abandoned Sirisena during the election, joined the Government and proceeded to use the presidency and President Sirisena’s insecurities to undermine the same coalition that placed the Polonnaruwa politician in the seat of presidential power.

Following President Sirisena’s failed constitutional coup in 2018, the bulk of the SLFP rank and file moved over to the Rajapaksa-led Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna. All Sirisena achieved by his machinations was to wipe the SLFP out of relevance as a formidable political force in Sri Lankan politics. The election that immediately followed the coup was historic because the SLFP candidate was not on the ballot as one of two major contenders for the presidency. The party of Bandaranaike was replaced by the party of the Rajapaksas and the SLFP has continued to fade in relevance since.

Today it is a junior partner in the ruling SLPP coalition with 14 seats in Parliament. The Government has an unprecedented two-thirds majority and commands at least 153 seats. It requires the SLFP only to pass a constitutional amendment or replacement. It is in this context that recent utterances with mild threats to the Government by former President Sirisena about his party’s support to maintain a two-thirds majority should be considered. If he is unhappy about how his party is being treated by its senior coalition partner, Sirisena and the SLFP should either grin and bear it or make a clear decision to quit.

If there is to be any hope of a SLFP revival one day in the future, its leaders must think beyond their personal ambition and the perks of government. The hour is already late, but if the SLFP has realised its recent follies, it should make a principled stand.

Unfortunately, former President Sirisena has proved time and again that his interest lies solely in political survival. Having already destroyed one of the oldest and most formidable political forces from within, all that is left for the former President to do is to drive the SLFP into oblivion. If the SLFP is to have any chance at a future, Maithripala Sirisena will need to get out of the way, and pave the road for fresh leadership.