By K. Govindan After 17 years of mis-rule, the defeat of the United National Party (UNP) in Sri Lanka's August elections has been greeted with relief and hope that the bloody war in the NorthEast can be ended.
The centre-left Peoples Alliance (PA) - dominated by the capitalist Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) - formed the government with support from the Muslim Congress and one independent giving it a razor-thin majority of one in Parliament.
Under the Gaulist constitution there is an Executive President with substantial authority, the incumbent being D.B. Wijetunge from the UNP. Presidential elections are due on November 9 and Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga will contest for the PA.
A strong challenge will be mounted by UNP nominee Gamini Dissanayake. Ironically both candidates are critics of the powers and functions of the President, which is blamed for dictatorial rule.
The UNP managed to retain 44 per cent of the vote despite human rights abuses including the murder of 60,000 Sinhala youth between 1987 and 1990, an expensive and unwinnable war against the Tamil nationalists in the North-East, and openeconomic policies which increased the gulf between rich and poor.
Left wing parties and movements were divided in the elections. The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party (CP) are staunch supporters of Chandrika and of a strategic alliance with the SLFP.
Others extended "critical Unsuccessful: Freedom Party leader Bandaranaike support" to the PA believing the removal of the UNP to be more important than the market-friendly manifesto of the PA. The Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) campaign was weakened when its Member of Parliament Vasudeva Nanayakkara split from the Party along with a few other leading members.
He opposed standing against the PA because he felt it would divide the opposition vote and allow the UNP to squeeze a victory. Instead Vasu was a LSSP candidate and topped the poll in his district.
While supporting the new government Vasu has announced his intention to form a united socialist party combining the LSSP and CP.
The NSSP fielded an independent list in two districts and extended critical support to the PA in most parts of the island except in the East where it backed the Tamil leftwing EPRLF. Tamil parties contested against each other in the mainly Tamil North-East province. The biggest surprise was in the East where the previously marginalised moderate TULF sent former Tamil militant groups to a crushing defeat. The PA has always been eager to assure creditors, the IMF and World Bank that they have rejected their old statist economics in order to be attractive to foreign capital.
They have promised to create "capitalism with a human face" oblivious to the fact that the Swedish model is extinct in the country of its birth.
The governments strategy will remain dependent on labour intensive low technology industries like garment factories, and on courting foreign aid and loans.
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No. 70, October 22 1994, Page 9