What do the results of November 14 mean for Sri Lanka?

The November 14 results essentially reconfirm the outcome of the presidential election held on September 21. There are several significant dimensions to the collective impact of these two elections. For the first time in Sri Lanka, political power has shifted toward a movement representing the subordinate social classes—the poor, non-elite, and middle-class citizens who have been direct victims of the continuing economic crisis and corrupt governance. This shift occurred peacefully and without violence. In any other society, such a transition in social/class basis of political power would have required or even generated violence.

Since independence—actually since 1931 when we got the universal adult franchise—political power through elections has always been the monopolistic privilege of Sri Lanka’s elite social classes. Democracy didn’t change that; it only gave electoral power to voters to elect their rulers periodically. But in 2022, we saw a significant citizens’ protest movement against not only the ruling elites of all political shades but also the political order created and sustained by those upper-class elites as their exclusive class privilege.

After the economic crisis?

Yes, after the economic crisis and the public health crisis from COVID-19. The economic crisis had led to two other levels of crisis, social and political. The social crisis was marked by an increasing social discontent and anger among the many social layers of citizens who suffered a government-induced wave of pauperization. The core dimension of the political crisis was the unprecedented loss of public trust in the government as well as the dominant political elites and their political parties. This in turn led to a spontaneous mass protest movement marking a paradigm shift in Sri Lankan politics, demanding what the protestors had termed as a “system change”.

People took to the streets and demanded their sovereign right to own democracy. This challenged the authority and dominance of the elite ruling classes. The citizens’ protest forced the President and Prime Minister to resign. While it didn’t lead to an immediate government change, its impact has been so significant and far-reaching that the outcomes of both the presidential and recent parliamentary elections are culminations of this process of change initiated by the citizens themselves. In terms of which social class rules the country, the outcome of these two elections represents a very significant and positive transition at a time of deep crisis.

So, you mean political power has, in a sense, gone out of the hands of the Colombo elite?

Exactly. That’s precisely what has happened—at least temporarily. Consolidation and sustaining of this transition require the continuation of the broad ‘coalition’ forged during the past two elections between the NPP, its government now, and the people of diverse class, social, and ethnic backgrounds.

The other dimension is that the National People’s Power (NPP) has even won three out of six seats from the Jaffna electoral district. People appear to have crossed ethnic lines to vote in this election. Why do you think that happened?

This happened due to several reasons. In the Sinhalese majority southern areas as well as northern Tamil society, and Muslim society, there’s been a parallel, and somewhat identical, transformation in politics. It is the alienation of the people from the traditional political leaders. It showed that people have lost their trust in the traditional political parties and leaderships. In the southern Sinhalese majority society, this had caused no political vacuum. The NPP could step in and provide leadership to the politically awakened citizens for electoral and political change. But in northern Tamil society, there’s still no agency from within to fill that vacuum. They couldn’t find an effective alternative to traditional leadership from within the Tamil polity. The NPP could appeal particularly to the disenchanted Tamil voters and youth who were looking for political alternatives. That’s how the NPP has been able to change the electoral map in the Northern Province and, to a significant extent, the Eastern Province and the Malaiyaha Tamil districts as well.

Professor, what are your hopes from this government?

There are many popular hopes and expectations. One hope is for sustainable and permanent change in who governs the country—that this political power shifted away from the elites won’t return to them.

So, it shouldn’t be just a one-off?

Yes. There may not always be the NPP, but other political parties could emerge to represent the interests and demands of the subordinate classes who represent the actual majority in Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and Upcountry Tamil societies. Actually, the traditional political party system, dominated by centre-right and right-wing parties, is fast disintegrating. Dialectically, this massive political vacuum can also be the new space for new left-wing or centre-left political formations to emerge. In my view, that should not be a bad development in the future of Sri Lankan politics. A plurality of progressive agendas and champions for rebuilding Sri Lanka will also be quite useful for sustainable democratisation under evolving political circumstances.

There are many popular expectations. Sri Lanka is in a terrible economic crisis, which has caused this political change. People expect economic relief because the cost of living and inflation have risen dramatically, making economic survival difficult. The vast majority of the Sri Lankan people have already experienced the predatory nature of the neoliberal market forces. After tolerating this for three years, people need state support through welfare programs, subsidies, or other forms of economic relief. It is not for nothing that the voters have twice punished, within the brief space of two months, a heartless and socially insensitive neoliberal President and his government

The issues of corruption and abuse of political power are also key reasons why people voted the NPP into power. The NPP has promised to investigate corruption, serious political and human rights violations, and a variety of political crimes. People want those responsible to be caught and punished. That is one aspect of “justice” that the people seek from the NPP government. They’ve already punished the political class by voting them out of power, but people aren’t satisfied with just that outcome.

Catching and punishing the corrupt and recovering the stolen wealth are goals enormously challenging to achieve. The interim government of Bangladesh too is facing this challenge. An international coalition of countries as well as civil society movements to facilitate eradicating corruption and recovering stolen wealth is an idea that can be pursued by both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. One factor that complicates the eradication of corruption is that the main actors with corruption allegations are powerful political leaders, leading bureaucrats, and influential business elites. Therefore, any new government with a mandate and commitment to catching and punishing the corrupt will certainly be exercising some caution too from the “deep state” actions.

Speaking of massive mandates, we saw a huge mandate for Gotabaya Rajapaksa a few years ago. Now there is similarly a massive mandate for the NPP—two very different political approaches, two very different political leaders. Within a couple of years, we see this shift. How do you read that?

In 2019, Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s mandate was built on Sinhalese nationalist mobilisation and ideology. Questions of economic justice, social justice, social transformation, or democratisation weren’t on the agenda. What’s different this time is that all these things are on the political agenda for change. That’s why the NPP describes itself as a transformative agency for change, not merely for reform.

In my view, it’s better to describe the NPP as a party committed to economic, social, and political transformation rather than reform. It’s not merely a reformist party—it has a transformationist agenda. That’s the difference between the two big mandates.

What’s your sense of how the NPP will negotiate the IMF conditionalities already imposed on Sri Lanka, given these obvious restrictions on policy?

During and before the election campaign, they took the position of wanting to renegotiate the IMF conditions. But I think they’ve slightly modified their position since coming into power. They don’t want to change the agreement that President Ranil Wickremesinghe entered into with the IMF—there are many practical difficulties in doing that. Their new approach can be described as pragmatic. Actually, the NPP is facing a somewhat unkind dilemma, a sort of conundrum. To manage the debt crisis, President Anura Dissanayake seeks to work with the IMF within the policy parameters already framed through an agreement between the IMF and the previous Wickremesinghe administration. The new government also has a political and moral commitment to fulfilling the pledges to the people, pledges that require freedom from that policy straightjacket.

My feeling is the NPP government will try to negotiate something similar to a social welfare program to provide economic assistance to low-income families. This could include reducing value-added tax on essential goods, education and health, to lower the cost of living and increase the monthly social support allowance as will. This might be seen by the IMF as transgressing its policy prescription for severely restricting the public expenditure. However, it is also a political and moral commitment which the government cannot easily ignore.

The IMF will also have to flexible and in turn respect the mandate the government has received from the people. The way the IMF dealt with Mr Wickremesinghe won’t be repeated—it won’t be easy for either the IMF or the government to repeat that mode of negotiations without modification. Mr Wickremesinghe has paid a massive political cost for ignoring the social and political cost of the socially insensitive strategies of debt sustainability. Although it may sound rather silly, I insist that the IMF should also need to be pragmatic, and indeed flexible, to a considerable extent in order to be able to to honour and respect the popular mandate given to the NPP by the sovereign people of Sri Lanka. Economic sovereignty and pro-poor economics are aspects of that mandate.

Professor Uyangoda, you referred to the massive mandate. This means constitutional changes are very possible if the government decides to move forward with them. I understand the NPP is also committed to abolishing the executive presidency. But we’ve seen in the past that parties and presidents who promised to abolish the executive presidency often change their minds once they assume power. Do you think this time will be different?

There’s a major difference this time—it is about the political will. Previous governments lacked real political will to abolish the executive presidential system. The maximum they achieved was the 19th Amendment in 2015, which merely reformed the system and reduced the Executive President’s powers rather than abolishing the presidential system. This time, the government has the political will and faces no institutional or constitutional barriers. With its two-thirds majority, the government can pass the new constitutional package in Parliament and easily win a constitutional referendum as well.

My concern is different: there will be many uncertainties if the IMF programme continues without major changes in the direction of finding pro-poor economic policy alternatives. The economic burden people are suffering from will continue. The question is how much the government can contain social discontent and disenchantment caused by continuing economic hardships even under a leadership that has promised relief. How would the government abolish the executive presidential system and move toward the parliamentary system in such circumstances of social unrest and some degree of instability? Will there be unforeseen circumstances that might compel the government to slow down its democratisation pledge? That would certainly be a huge challenge, and I hope the government’s political will enables them to overcome it.

However, moving toward a parliamentary system isn’t enough. We have a history of governments and political leaders abusing political power in arbitrary, authoritarian, and autocratic ways, with or without the so-called executive presidential system. The new parliamentary system in Sri Lanka needs a strong framework of checks and balances to prevent abuse. There are enough fresh ideas and proposals floating around in Sri Lanka designed to prevent the parliamentary government from being abused for autocratisation. The NPP government does not have to reinvent the wheel. What is nevertheless needed is ensuring people’s participation in the process of constitution-making.

What’s your sense of the ethnic issue? We had a 26-year-long LTTE insurgency that ended in March 2009. What we really have now is the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution. Many friends have told me that India is perhaps more attached to the 13th Amendment than Sri Lanka is. If there’s eventually a rewriting of the constitution—if not now, perhaps in a year’s time—what do you think the NPP will extend to the Tamil people? Will they look at it traditionally? In the past, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has advocated scrapping the 13th Amendment. Now that they have such support from the North and East, do you think their approach will be different? What would be a good approach now?

I want to make two points. First, the Tamil polity has changed. The traditional political class and leadership that stressed the importance of the 13th Amendment and greater devolution—like “13 plus”—has been partially defeated by voters in Jaffna and the Northern and Eastern Provinces. They’re no longer the sole voice in Tamil politics. In the Tamil polity, there seems to be a new generation of politicians and citizens who do not attach much political and emotional significance to the 13th Amendment. Incidentally, the 13th Amendment or the provincial council system it created have not been fully implemented since its introduction many, many years ago, in 1987.

Second, the JVP/NPP’s position indicates that they’ll continue the provincial council system and 13th Amendment. Yet, they don’t want to use the same discourse or political language that the previous generation of politicians—whether in the South, North, or India—have been using about devolution and the 13th Amendment. They want to redefine the political discourse on ethnicity very differently, in a new political language that does not reify ethnic divisions, but celebrate unity as citizens. This position appears to be coming somewhat close to the European concept of ‘constitutional patriotism’

My interpretation of the NPP’s approach is this: they recognise there are serious economic, cultural, and political demands from the Tamil polity that haven’t been met at all, even with the provincial council system. The provincial council system under the 13th Amendment has been defunct for about 10 years now. However, they don’t want to eliminate the provincial council system as such. They’ll continue with it and the 13th Amendment until a strong state of reconciliation is achieved among Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim communities.

The NPP also seems to argue that the provincial council system and the 13th Amendment were needed when these communities viewed each other as enemies and threats to each other. Their reading of the new circumstances in the North, East, and South is that real possibilities for reconciliation now exist. The NPP government wants to be the agency for that new project of reconciliation. Once the communities achieve new understanding as friends and fellow citizens and enter a new phase of reconciliation, people can then look for better alternatives to the 13th Amendment and the provincial council system, though that alternative isn’t yet clear. I feel when the new government pursues a new constitution, they’ll need a clear framework and proposals for a constitutional settlement.

So, the confrontational approach between Tamil and Sinhalese politicians that has marked Sri Lanka for decades has, in a sense, ended?

That phase seems to be over. The important point the NPP is making is that the confrontational phase is now over. There are new post-1983 or post-1987 generations of Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim people. They want to look for other solutions and options worked out by themselves—a new version of a homegrown solution, developed by the new generation of Sri Lankan citizens. That’s my interpretation of the NPP’s approach.

With the new government formed and ministers now known, what’s your sense of the talent tapped by the President and Prime Minister?

Looking at the Cabinet, you can see that many are professionals. It is a kind of meritocratic Cabinet. However, most MPs of the NPP aren’t like that; most of them are NPP/JVP political cadres who’ve been in politics for many years with extensive experience. Yet, the Cabinet is a meritocratic, technocratic entity which in charge of managing a crisis-ridden capitalist state.

Since independence, particularly after 1956, Sri Lankan politics has always inducted new people, actually newcomers to the legislature, into the Cabinet. So the narrative of freshmen to parliamentary politics in the Cabinet is indeed not new. I think this whole “inexperience” narrative comes from the defeated Colombo political and social elite. During both election campaigns, the Colombo elite reacted to the NPP’s emergence as a formidable political force primarily from a perspective of class and cultural superiority, asking “who are these people?” Some even criticised their English-speaking skills—displaying that kind of rather crude cultural, class, and social prejudices.

The current “inexperience” narrative expresses a sense of despair among the urban upper-class elites. The traditional ruling elite is traumatised because they’re not only out of power but also feel greatly insecure. They don’t feel that there is anyone around to protect them. When the Rajapaksas were in power, Wickremesinghe’s camp knew that the Rajapaksas wouldn’t harm them. When Wickremesinghe was in power, the Rajapaksas knew that despite their political differences and mutual hatred, the other side would nevertheless protect them. Now this defeated political class and their backers feel very vulnerable because they don’t have relations or friends in the system to protect them.

I see from the newspapers that including the Prime Minister, there are two women in the Cabinet, plus there’s no Muslim representation. Does that detract from the nature of the government that’s been formed?

I really don’t know. I’m also surprised that there’s not a single Muslim included in the Cabinet. That has become a topic of conversation in Colombo. I can’t answer that question—I was also surprised by the absence of Muslim representation. Hopefully, this will be rectified when the deputy ministers are appointed.

How will this government deal with the rest of the world? Of course, we discussed the IMF, but how will they handle equations with Western countries, especially the United States, India, and China?

My sense is that this government has a very pragmatic foreign policy approach towards India, China, the US, and other regional and global powers. In other words, it is not an ideology-driven approach. Some people say the government might be pro-China or pro-India, or even defy the US and the IMF. That kind of wishful thing reflects a rather narrow way of understanding this government’s policy dynamics.

This is a pragmatic government run by a political party with a Left-history, and a bit cautious of the unwanted political consequences of such labelling. Being branded as Marxist, Leftist, or radical has toxic consequences in a world dominated by neo-liberal economics, right-wing politics, and the media. President Dissanayake and the NPP obviously want to succeed and politically survive as a government, not just as a political party. They cannot be expected to create problems for themselves by taking the wrong steps and jeopardise a chance they have got after waiting for many decades to implement a substantive agenda for change through parliamentary means. Even during the past two months in power, President Dissanayake has indicated he’s very careful in whatever he does or doesn’t do.

Can we expect a very pragmatic approach?

Yes, and they want to be in power for five years. They don’t want any major crisis that would derail them. This approach might dishearten many of the NPP’s radical and left-wing supporters and critics.

How would you assess India-Sri Lanka relations? We know they’ve been through good and bad periods—it’s a very deep relationship. How would you assess the current state and how might it develop?

India should be sensitive to the Sri Lankan public opinion. Take the Adani investment in Sri Lanka: there’s a growing concern among Sri Lankans about the environmental impacts of the wind power projects in the north, and about the excessive power Adani’s company will have over Sri Lanka’s power generation, distribution, and pricing. Similar to what happened in Bangladesh recently. People understand these complex consequences of close economic relations with India. There is now a greater sensitivity to, and awareness of, issues that negatively impact economic sovereignty, energy sovereignty, risks of being close to regional powers with global ambitions, and the emerging uncertainties of an almost anarchic global disorder.

India, rightly or wrongly, has a complicated history with Sri Lanka. People don’t want to forget that history. When the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government came to power, India supported the Rajapaksas and created a bad image of India among Sri Lankan citizens. India’s closeness to the Rajapaksa family even before had caused much concern among politically sharp citizens. Now the NPP government presents a challenge for the Modi government, how to deal with how to deal with a new generation of political leaders who do not utter the old slogans, the political phraseology or the rhetoric. I don’t think the Indian politicians, bureaucrats, or the media expected the NPP to win; they all probably thought, or hoped, either the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) or Wickremesinghe’s new coalition would win. This indeed is a learning experience for all of them. The fundamental lesson the Indian politicians and officials should learn from past experiences is to respect the changing public opinion in Sri Lanka and recognize the political astuteness of the citizens.

Sri Lanka seems to be one positive spot in South Asia currently. Most South Asian countries are going through their share of troubles—economic, political, religious, social, cultural. How would you situate Sri Lanka in all this?

One comparative lesson from Bangladesh’s situation is that in Sri Lanka, the NPP was there to fill the political vacuum—a new agency to utilise the political momentum created by the mass movement. Bangladesh doesn’t have that at present. Hopefully, it will emerge. My fear is that in Bangladesh, like what happened in Egypt after the popular uprising, right-wing Islamic groups might come to power through elections because Bangladesh does not have a moderate, secular, and progressive political force that can make claims to national political power. The Awami League historically represented that secular moderate democratic wing in Bangladesh politics. But the degeneration of the League into an autocratic regime under Sheik Hassina even prevented viable political alternatives from developing in Bangladesh.

Nepal has a continuing political crisis. India presents one of the most complex political situations in South Asia—moving toward a relentless process of autocratisation and Hindu majoritarianisation of the state, politics, culture, and even intellectual life. The Congress party is no longer able to significantly influence or intervene in politics to change India’s negative and de-democratic political directions.

Pakistan’s crisis is slightly similar to India’s—there’s no significant opposition force that can change the political directions toward demilitarisation, democratisation, or bringing the divided country together.

Sri Lanka’s current change suggests that the NPP has emerged as a political force that can bring society together—an agency for reunifying a divided society. In societies like India and Pakistan, which are deeply divided, there’s no political force that can bring the entire society together with positive democratic political hope for a better, inclusive future.

So overall you see a rather bleak—

Such is the sad picture of South Asia. South Asia is in continuing turmoil. Sometimes we were joking with our South Asian friends that they should come and obtain Sri Lankan citizenship because even in very bad times Sri Lanka remained an open society. It’s difficult to repeat what Sri Lanka has done recently—it’s a tiny country, but look at how the society has transformed itself.

Sri Lankan democracy has been altered by citizens themselves. In 2022, against the backdrop of severe economic crisis and increasing autocratisation, people decided to take ownership of democracy back into their hands. This only partially happened in Bangladesh with the student movement—they decided to take the political process into their own hands, but beyond that, there’s no agency capable of giving political direction to society. You have the same crisis in India on a massive scale.