All of 47 years and 10 Parliaments is what it took for Sri Lanka to undergo a near-complete political reset. ‘Near-complete’ because some remnants of the previous ninth Parliament who were earmarked for replacement have somehow managed to crawl back by either the flimsiest of margins or through the National List. However, the impact they could potentially have on the newly-elected Parliament that is dominated by the newest political force in the country, the National People’s Power (NPP), is almost negligible.
The last time a reset of this magnitude occurred was way back in 1977 when J.R. Jayewardene’s all-conquering United National Party (UNP) secured a thumping five-sixths majority, which enabled that administration to steamroll not only through Parliament but through the ranks of the administrative setup as well. It is the latter that is widely identified as the starting point of the politicisation of the State, leading to mass-scale corruption over the years – the repercussions of which the country will have to bear for generations more.
Given this state of affairs and if the NPP is serious about its desire to be different from the rest, then it will have to be the first party since 1977 to resist the temptation to fill up State entities with its cronies. Not only that, it will also have to take the unpopular decision to cut the fat in State entities and make them more competitive.
It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. With absolute power already thrust into its hands, the NPP can rely on recent history to guide it towards better, more effective governance in accordance with the people’s aspirations.
Drunk with power, the JR administration did everything it possibly could to prolong the tenure of that Parliament, even resorting to the tactic of conducting a referendum instead of a General Election in 1982. The idea was to retain the unprecedented majority which incidentally was obtained through the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system. JR, being well aware of the dangers of one party wielding such power coupled with the executive presidency as well, subsequently devised the Proportional Representation (PR) electoral system as part of the 13th Amendment to act as a counter-balance and ensure some form of equilibrium in parliamentary governance.
However, the unprecedented victory secured by the NPP at the 14 November General Elections has effectively breached this long-standing safeguard as well, becoming the first singular party to secure a two-thirds parliamentary majority as well as the executive presidency since JR’s UNP in 1977. With so much power lying in the hands of one party, one can only hope that history will not repeat and President Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) will resist the multifaceted temptations of absolute power. He and his party must make the call to veer away from repeating history. This is all the more important given the NPP’s promise of introducing a new constitution as well as a new hybrid electoral system, adding to the sense of déjà vu.
Therefore, it is somewhat comforting that President AKD used the Throne Speech at the inauguration of the 10th Parliament last week to reiterate, among other things, the importance of democratic parliamentary governance and the need for multi-party representation. Speaking of which, there is hardly any balance in the new Parliament, with the NPP enjoying a supermajority of 159 seats in the 225-seat House, leaving just 66 seats to be split between six recognised political parties and six independents who have qualified for seats in the new Parliament under the PR system.
As far as the six parties are concerned, they will have to navigate the messy business of choosing between pleasing their coalition partners and merely filling up numbers with members likely to have little or no impact, or instead nominate proven performers in the vocal department who could counter the NPP juggernaut. At the end of the day, people will be eagerly watching the performance of those whom they elected, and for an Opposition that is now down in the dumps, the name of the game must necessarily be impact – and every one of the MPs it nominates on the National List must be able to create it. If not, this new Parliament will turn out to be a reincarnation of the first Parliament under the 1978 Constitution, with a nominal Opposition unable to ensure the necessary checks and balances.
Ideally, given that most of the elected NPP members have inherent debating skills that resonate well with the masses as reflected in the recent results, the collective Opposition will be doing themselves a favour by utilising the available National Seat slots to accommodate their heavy artillery in the debating department who failed to make it at electorate level. While it is natural for there to be a clamour for the few vacant seats, with at least two members having already proceeded to help themselves to these seats, the respective party leaderships must crack the whip and act in the interest of their parties and not individuals.
Another interesting dimension the NPP will do well to keep in mind is that despite the addition of thousands of new votes since the last General Election in 2020, it still failed to beat the record set by deposed President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who secured 6.9 million votes in 2019. Besides, the NPP’s supermajority in Parliament comes in the backdrop of a disturbing trend of just 11.8 million voters out of 17.1 million eligible voters taking the trouble to cast their vote. Out of this number 667,240 have been classified as rejected votes.
Therefore, out of 17,140,354 registered voters, only 6,863,186 have voted for the NPP, meaning that the greater majority of 10,277,168 have decided to either vote against or not vote for the NPP. In effect, though the NPP enjoys a supermajority in Parliament, it is the opposite outside of it. It is this reality that the party needs to be mindful of if it plans to stay on for the long haul and not fizzle out like the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), which too entered in similar style but lost its way soon after.
What is striking about the results of the last couple of elections is the advent of a new segment of voters who have taken on the role of electoral avengers. Consisting of a sizeable number of around six million voters, they are quick to avenge non-delivery of promises by voting in an alternate party whom they believe will do the needful. That is the most plausible explanation for the SLPP surrendering its total vote base to the NPP over the course of a single electoral cycle and for the SLPP inheriting the NPP’s longstanding 3% base.
The NPP, which arguably has the strongest grassroot organisation among all currently active political parties, having nurtured its organic growth over a long period of time, will no doubt have a headstart in mobilising the masses towards achieving its goals, but the real challenge ahead for the party is to keep the avengers happy. As illustrated by the results of the last couple of elections, the avengers are unwilling to accept no for an answer and there lies the greatest challenge for both the President and his NPP to deliver on the promises made.
Even as the new Parliament gets ready to reconvene in the first week of next month, the Opposition appears to have already scored by highlighting the regime’s increasing tendency to go back on its word over the many promises it made. This scenario already appears to have put the avengers on notice.