The failure of Statism

Jayewardene won his referendum, but it was shortly after that that his government in effect lost control of the country. The anti-Tamil pogrom that forces close to him unleashed in 1983 led to disaster: having pushed the democratic Tamil forces out of parliament, he found himself no match for terrorists, supported as they were on high moral ground by India. In 1987 accordingly, unwilling to reach accommodation with Sri Lankan Sinhala or Tamil opposition forces, he accepted the Indo-Lankan Accord that was in effect dictated by India.

It was shortly before that that the Liberal Party had been established. Though some of Amaratunga’s associates suggested that the CLD should continue as a think tank, which was what they felt best equipped for, he argued that, even to be effective as a think tank, it was desirable to establish a party. He proved to be correct. When Provincial Councils were set up under the Accord, the Liberal Party, which had been officially recognized in February 1988, was in a position to contest. This was important because the other parties that contested the Councils accepted them under the Accord as the means of solving the ethnic problem, while parties such as the main opposition Sri Lanka Freedom Party rejected the Accord and therefore boycotted the election. The Liberal Party however, which had argued in favour of devolution on first principles, felt that while certain aspects of the Accord were undesirable, it was essential to grasp the opportunity to reduce the centralized controls that had damaged the country so much since independence.

Though the Party only won two seats in the Western Provincial Council, that period marked its emergence as an influential think tank. Through the Council the Party was able to bring together a number of intellectuals from all parties, who engaged in open discussion on the changes that were necessary. It was in those days that the term Liberal began once more to be respected, so that various other politicians began to talk in terms of restoring the Liberal Democracy that Jayewardene’s centralized, in effect guided, democracy had destroyed. One immediate consequence for instance was the acceptance by the government of international monitoring of elections, which Jayewardene had previously argued was an assault on national sovereignty. Fortunately more enlightened forces in his government had begun to realize that certain norms had to be observed if the country were not to be isolated.

The proceedings of the various workshops the Council conducted provided a framework for moving away from the statist socialism that no one else had questioned from a theoretical standpoint in the forty years since independence. Liberal ideas were in the forefront of the recognition that emerged of the need for pluralism, as opposed to the mMajoritarianism that had hitherto been deemed the only ‘democratic’ option. Along with this went acceptance of extending the scope of justiciable fundamental rights, of the importance of a free media over which government exercised no authority, of strengthening Civil Society. Liberal publications also promoted privatization while arguing against the monopolies that had characterized the crony capitalism of the Jayewardene years. The importance of choice as an essential element in a liberal democracy was, it should be remembered, an unusual concept for a society that had been dependent on paternalism for so long.

Other parties accept Liberal principles

The importance of Liberal ideas in the new politics that emerged may be deduced from the fact that Amaratunga was one of the chief architects of the manifesto of the Democratic People’s Alliance under which Mrs Bandaranaike, the leader of the SLFP, contested the Presidency in 1989. The proposals of that manifesto with regard to the ethnic question are now regarded as a useful model. Unfortunately when Mrs Bandaranaike lost, albeit very narrowly in a situation marred by violence, the Left Wing of her Party argued that it was because of Right Wing ideas that she had been defeated. Mrs Bandaranaike accepted their arguments, and did not appoint Amaratunga to parliament as agreed under the terms of the alliance. Instead she allowed her own right wing to be weakened, and permitted the party to be taken over by the supporters of her then very left wing daughter Chandrika, whose husband Vijaya Kumaratunga had been assassinated in 1988.

At this stage however, the newly elected UNP President, Ranasinghe Premadasa, proved much more willing to move towards liberal democracy than had been anticipated. His government was ruthless in suppressing the neo-Marxist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna insurgency that had been provoked by Jayewardene’s proscription of the JVP. However, after that was done he showed himself prepared to rebuild institutions that had been shattered over the previous two decades. Unlike Jayewardene, he was scrupulous about appointing judges in order of seniority. Radio and TV licenses were granted to independent companies, and a host of independent journals that were sharply critical of the government sprang up. Perhaps most important of all, from 1991 Sri Lankans were once again able to accept the results of elections, which from 1982 onward had been markedly suspect.

In such a situation the Liberal Party moved close to the UNP, though this was not without opposition from some of its senior members who resigned from the Party in 1993 when an alliance was agreed on. The assassination of Premadasa in May 1993 put paid however to the alliance, and his successor proved quite hopeless as to both policy and efficacy. He managed swiftly to alienate the minority parties which Premadasa had also cultivated. As a result, when the General Election was held in August 1994, the Liberal Party had an alliance with the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress, which was in turn allied with the People’s Alliance.

This latter grouping consisted of the SLFP now in effect led by Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, and her former Marxist allies. Though their democratic credentials were not in doubt at this stage, their economic policies still seemed suspect. As it happened though, Mrs Kumaratunga had by this stage developed a more modern outlook, and after she became Prime Minister it was clear that there would be no return to the statist socialism of the past.

Her residual suspicion of the Liberal Party however, according to the Muslim Congress Leader, prevented him from fulfilling his promise to nominate Amaratunga to Parliament, and he instead got the consent of the Liberal Party to nominate another member who was related to Mrs Kumaratunga and had her confidence. The member promised to resign in time to make way for Amaratunga, but instead converted to Islam and rapidly convinced both the Congress and Mrs Kumaratunga that he was indispensable.

As it happened, the new leader of the UNP. Gamini Dissanayake, then invited Amaratunga to prepare the manifesto on which he contested Mrs Kumaratunga for the Presidency. He however was assassinated, and his successor repudiated the manifesto which was again visionary in its proposals for devolution as well as its other proposals for constitutional change. It was left to Mrs Kumaratunga to produce some impressive suggestions but, as might have been predicted, apart from herself and just a couple of her ministers, hardly anyone in her government was anxious or able to promote the proposed package. It took several years and another election for her government to try to get the package through parliament, but unfortunately by then developments in the ethnic conflict meant that that alone was unlikely to be sufficient to achieve anything.

It could be argued that the Liberal Party was extremely unfortunate to have been the victim of various betrayals, as explained above. In addition there were two extreme strokes of fate that removed two leaders who in their different ways were emerging as statesmen committed to pluralism. When Chanaka Amaratunga died then, in a motor car accident in 1996, he was a disappointed man. However the ideas he enunciated, with a rare personal determination, and the impact they had on so many others, will ensure his place in the higher levels of political history in Sri Lanka.