E-Paper
JVP: New star in the political horizon
These polls mark astounding performance of the radical Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, reports PK Balachanddran.
One of the striking features of the April 2 Sri Lankan parliamentary
elections is the meteoric rise of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a radical-Marxist-Sinhala-Buddhist party.
The JVP contested 39 seats, as part of the United Peoples' Freedom Alliance (UPFA), and won 36.Further, in terms of preference votes in the electoral districts, the JVP's candidates stood first in nine of the 22 districts, namely, Anuradhapura,Kalutara, Kurunegala, Gampaha, Badulla, Kegalle, Kandy, Matale and Monaragala.
The party's candidates were second in 11 districts, namely, Colombo, Anuradhapura, Kalutara, Kurunegala, Galle, Gampaha, Puttalam, Matara,
Polonnaruwa, Kegalle, Hambatotta and Ratnapura.
The JVP candidates were in the third position in the four districts of Colombo, Gampaha, Digamadulla (Amparai) and Matara.
Fast Growth
The JVP has grown very fast indeed. Ten years ago, in the 1994
parliamentary elections, which it contested as the Sri Lanka Progressive Front, it won only one seat. In the October 2000 elections, which it constested as JVP, it won 16 seats.In the December 2001 elections, it increased its tally 16. Come April 2004, it upped its tally to 39 (including National List seats).
Interestingly, it was on April 5, 1971 that the JVP first made a bid to capture, and that was through a putsch which included a plan to abduct the then Prime Minister, Sirimavo Bandaranaike.
Thanks to a timely tip off, Sirimavo crushed the revolt before any significant damage was done. Upon a SOS, the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had rushed a small force to Colombo, which proved to be a morale booster for the Sri Lankan security forces. The Indians did not go into action actually. The JVP was banned.
But in the second half of the 1980s, it had come into its own again, this time as a mass based organization whipping up class and nationalist sentiments. Violence and the elimination class enemies were its credo.
The Indians too became a target, thanks to the induction of an Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to implement the India-Sri Lanka Accord of July 1987. The JVP saw this as a bid to establish Indian hegemony over Sri Lanka and organized a violent "Indians Go Home" campaign in which Indian shops and establishments were torched.
President Premadasa put down the movement with brute force. But for one
member, Somawansa Amarasinghe, the JVP lost its entire politburo.
Joins democratic mainstream
Thereafter, the JVP underwent self criticism, gave up violence and entered the democratic mainstream. In the face of the continued challenge from Tamil militancy and separatism, the JVP also shed its anti-Indianism and became a votary of close ties with India.
The 1994 parliamentary elections was used to stage a comeback in a
different "avatar". And it is clear now that this change has yielded rich dividends. Thirty three years after the 1971 putsch, the JVP is at last in power now, albeit as part of the UPFA.
Having entered the corridors of powers, the JVP is even becoming
magnanimous. When its alliance partner, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, wanted a few more seats to satisfy its members, the JVP surrendered two seats to which it was entitled under the National List.
Harbinger of new political culture
The JVP's top-most leaders have decided not to accept cabinet ministerships. "The Island" daily reported on Wednesday that JVP frontliners, Wimal Weerawansa and Nandana Gunatillake, were not going to be in the cabinet.
Keen on fostering economic development at the grass roots level, the JVP has asked for and got grass roots development-oriented ministries like Agriculture, Lands and Irrigation, Rural Economy and Fisheries and
Aquatic Resources. In view of widespread fear among the masses (69%
according to a survey) that Western economic and Christian missionary
influences are threatening the traditional culture of Sri Lanka, the JVP has taken the Ministry of Culture also.
Generates hope as well as fear
From the voting percentages it is clear that the JVP is a favoured party among the Sinhala-Buddhist hoi polloi of Sri Lanka, but that it has been rejected by the minorities, whether Tamil or Muslim.
To the ruling class (irrespective of ethnicity), the JVP is dyed-in-the-wool radical Marxist party capable of launching another armed struggle. The ruling elite is more scared of the JVP than the separatist LTTE because the JVP threatens its lifestyle and its economic and political power.
Despite assurances that it will not upset the basically capitalist economy of Sri Lanka, that it will not curb imports and foreign investment and that it will only make necessary corrections, the entrepreneurial class is gravely apprehensive. The Cassandras of Colombo's cocktail circuit keep saying that the stock market will collapse and foreign investors and tourists will cease to come to a land ruled by a set of "blood thirsty Reds".
To the minorities, the JVP is a Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinist party which
also believes in violence. Indeed, the JVP is against devolution of power to the provinces created on an ethnic basis, especially a Tamil province ruled by the separatist LTTE.
But the JVP has been pointing out that while other parties had taken to
violence, it has not committed a single political murder since the last
insurrection in the late 1980s.
It is also not chauvinist in the way as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. It was the only party to put up a burqa-clad Muslim woman and make her win in the April 2 elections. For the post of Prime Minister it backed Lakshman Kadirgamar, a Tamil Christian, while the rest of UPFA pressed for a Sinhala-Buddhist!
In a country known for an elite which indulges in conspicuous consumption, the JVP has been fighting for austerity. It has said that MPs should be given only Maruti-800s, the cheapest car in Sri Lanka.Its leaders travel about in rickety vans rather than posh Mitsubishi Pajeros and Toyotas. It has been campaigning for smaller cabinets and smaller ministerial overheads in a country notorious for its jumbo cabinets and scandalous ministerial perks.
Supporters of the JVP believe that it will be able to get back to Sri Lanka a sense of nationalism and pride, which it had lost. Since the late 1970s, when liberalization became the watchword, the poor have had a raw deal. But under the new dispensation, with the JVP in the driver's seat, the poor hope that the state will care for them too.