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In Sri Lanka, dynasty at the crossroads

Nirupama Subramanian

It is a delicious twist that a Bandaranaike comeback to the centre-stage of politics could now depend on the victory of arch-enemy Wickremesinghe.

WHEN SOLOMON West Ridgeway Dias Bandaranaike, an Oxford-educated lawyer, began the Sri Lanka Freedom Party over half a century ago, he may not have thought he was setting the foundations for a modern-day political dynasty, the democratic world's first. He had stormed out of the United National Party when it became clear that he could never climb to its leadership. Within a few years, riding a wave of resurgent Buddhism and with sweeping promises to promote the interests of the religion and its adherents who form the majority in Sri Lanka, the SLFP was voted to power. That was in 1956.

A year from the 50th anniversary of that event, the Bandaranaikes have for the first time in the SLFP's history lost effective control of the party. With Sri Lanka's Constitution barring the President from seeking a third term, it was known that Chandrika Kumaratunga, the outgoing President and daughter of SWRD, would not be a contestant for the November 17 election. Her successor as the SLFP candidate, Mahinda Rajapakse, also belongs to a popular political family from Sri Lanka's deep south — his father was the trusted ally of SWRD, and, later, his wife Sirimavo. But unlike his father, the younger Rajapakse was not content with being the loyal factotum for ever, and made no secret of his ambition to take charge of the party some day.

With his nomination, he has come close to realising his ambition; victory will seal it. For Ms. Kumaratunga, it has not gone entirely according to script. Twenty-four years younger than President Junius R. Jayewardene at his retirement, she should have transited by now to Prime Minister of an SLFP government in a Westminster-style democracy. At least, that was the plan.

Elected first in 1994, President Kumaratunga's main programme was to change the Constitution in order to devolve power to the Tamil minority. Along with this, she wanted to bring in changes that would revert Sri Lanka to a parliamentary democracy, in which the Prime Minister is the executive, as in India. President Kumaratunga could have contested parliamentary elections and, provided the SLFP won, followed up her presidency by becoming Prime Minister in the new set-up.

Her re-election as President in 1999 only made constitutional reform all the more important to her political career, because of the constitutional two-term limit on the office. But her efforts to bring in a new Constitution failed. At no point in her presidency could she muster a two-thirds majority vote in Parliament required for constitutional amendments. Even so, it remained her objective until as recently as this year, when she believed she could remain in office up to 2006, counting the allotted six years for each term.

Indeed, she may have continued as President until next year had she made use of an ambiguous provision in the Constitution and delayed being sworn in following her victory in the 1999 presidential election — held a full year ahead of time — to a date after the originally scheduled end of her first term in 2000 (the Constitution provides for this). That belated realisation seems to have been the main reason that President Kumaratunga got herself sworn in by the Chief Justice a second time at a private ceremony in 2000, attended only by them and a presidential aide. President Kumaratunga was depending on this second oath-taking to keep her in office until late next year. An extra year may have given her time to reopen the project of constitutional change. But with the Supreme Court decreeing the second "secret" ceremony invalid, there was little choice but to step down and call the presidential election this year.

With her own children too young to enter the political arena, Ms. Kumaratunga's only other immediate alternative to keep the party reins within the family was to nominate her brother Anura Bandaranaike. So why did she not do this? Perhaps it was a realistic assessment of Mr. Bandaranaike's chances. The youngest of the three children of SWRD and Sirimavo, a chagrined Mr. Bandaranike left the SLFP in the early 1990s to join the UNP when his mother anointed Ms. Kumaratunga as party leader (Sunethra, the eldest of the siblings, has kept away from politics).

Ms. Kumaratunga had only then returned to the SLFP. She had left in the 1980s to form a separate party with her film star husband, Vijaya, shutting it down after his assassination in 1989. Her brother felt his loyalty to family and party had been overlooked. From then on he devoted his energies, from the UNP camp, to the political defeat of his sister and the SLFP.

His return to the party familias following his mother's death in 2000 was not received with the same warmth as Ms. Kumaratunga's. Perhaps the crucial difference was the absence of Sirimavo. She commanded the respect and loyalty of the party's old guard as well as its young bucks. As long as she was alive, she kept the various factions of the party in check. With Sirimavo gone, Mr. Bandaranaike's return to the SLFP lacked the stamp of authority that his sister's had, and he would find himself challenged repeatedly within the party. It is doubtful the SLFP would have thrown itself into a campaign for him in the way it has done for Mr. Rajapakse. It is even more doubtful if he would have had the support of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the party of radical rural Sinhalese youth, which is virtually leading Mr. Rajapakse's campaign.

In this situation, Ms. Kumaratunga had little choice but to let the party take precedence over the family that founded and led it for over half a century. She did expect that both Mr. Rajapakse and the SLFP would continue to accept her political guidance, but this has not happened. The Rajapakse campaign has for all practical purposes sidelined Ms. Kumaratunga, even though she remains party leader. The SLFP candidate has declared he will appoint her brother Prime Minister if he wins, but the two fell out in the early stages of the campaign, and that promise is now in doubt.

Still, it may be too early to write off the Bandaranaikes, their present marginalisation notwithstanding. At a rare election meeting Ms. Kumaratunga addressed on behalf of her party's candidate, she announced that she would retire from politics after these elections. But she also seems to be exploring avenues to stay on in some capacity. For instance, she and Mr. Wickremesinghe held a meeting recently at which both reaffirmed their commitment to solving the country's problems. The UNP candidate has said that if elected, he intends to form a national government comprising all parties.

It is a delicious twist, very novel-like, that a Bandaranaike comeback to the centre-stage of SLFP politics, and to the politics of the country, could now depend on the victory of arch-enemy Wickremesinghe. During her two terms in office, President Kumaratunga made her dislike of the UNP leader quite public. The two were at daggers drawn during the period from December 2001 to December 2003 when President Kumaratunga had to cohabit with Mr. Wickremesinghe's UNP-led government. But it does not stop there.

Old rivalry

The UNP candidate is from an important political family that has an old rivalry with the Bandaranaikes. Jayewardene, who clashed with SWRD back in the early 1950s, was an uncle. The UNP is not a dynastic party but has chosen most of its leaders from an extended clan to which Wickremesinghe belongs, and is snidely called the `Uncle-Nephew-Party.' The family has still not forgotten the state takeover of its Lake House group of newspapers including the flagship Ceylon Daily News in the 1970s by the SLFP and Sirimavo-led coalition government of the time. For their part, the Bandaranaikes have not forgotten the disenfranchisement of Sirimavo by the UNP when it came to power in 1977.

If Mr.Wickremesinghe defeats Mr. Rajapakse in the coming contest, the SLFP may well voice a demand for a return to dynasty. After all, it was Sirimavo who built the SLFP in a way that even SWRD may have not planned after she was persuaded to run it following her husband's assassination in 1959. Later, their charismatic daughter led the party to one election victory after another in the period from 1994 until 2000.

But the choice of upfront roles for Ms. Kumaratunga would be severely limited. In a situation where party leadership is linked to electability to the highest office, any future responsibility for her is bound to be circumscribed by the constitutional bar on her contesting the presidential elections again. The parliamentary elections are still open to her. But that would be a highly unconventional course to take for a former President. Two Sri Lankan Presidents, Jayewardene and D.B. Wijetunge, chose retirement over returning to politics through entry-level positions. Of course, Ms. Kumaratunga could opt for a less upfront role, with or without her brother at the helm.

It used to be said in Sri Lanka, only half-jokingly, that the country was run by just 10 families. That has clearly changed, and the rise of the JVP has contributed to this more than anything else. The last year of Ms. Kumaratunga's term showed how much this party has occupied Sri Lanka's political stage. In fact, it is not just the Bandaranaikes whose continuance in politics is in question. Win or lose, the future of two other political families, those of Mr. Rajapakse and Mr. Wickremesinghe, also hangs by the results of Sri Lanka's presidential election.

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