The announcement by the United National Party (UNP) that it is “repositioning” itself on the issue of a political settlement of the ethnic conflict has been received with praise for pragmatism in certain quarters but mostly consternation, disappointment and confusion in others.
The UNP which in government was party to the Oslo Declaration of 2002 and the Tokyo Declaration a year after, will not now use or insist on the mention of the word federal or federalism but will stress the need for meaningful power sharing as the pivotal idea on which a solution best suited to the needs of the country will be founded. .
The repositioning of the party’s position is being presented as a constructive avoidance of semantic arguments and labels, but in reality is surely intimately connected to the plans to defeat the government on the budget and force a general election. The immediate objective appears to be to become more palatable to the JVP whose support will be crucial if the government is to be defeated in parliament.
Beyond this, it appears to be to win more Sinhala votes — the votes of the constituency that put Mahinda Rajapakse into President’s House. As to whether the party will ultimately succeed on any of these fronts remains to be seen. What is clear though is that there are risks — the UNP may not gain any Sinhala votes and may well lose the Tamil votes it has been able to take more or less for granted in electoral contests since 1994.
Consequently, reminiscent of 1956, the Faustian bargain may yield nothing more than ignominious defeat and the reputation for desperate opportunism in the haste to capture power. More importantly, it could well be seen as yet another instance in which moderate Tamil opinion placed its trust in a predominantly Sinhala party only to be let down and badly. Anandasangaree for one, has said as much.
The statement issued by the party on its position, however, did provide some relief. In essence, the statement remained faithful to the power sharing idea, even if it did seem to be positing the 13th Amendment as the best example of it. The question therefore arises as to whether labels and semantics aside, the UNP’s position is that of maximum devolution under a unitary state a la Chinthanaya? Furthermore, whilst the UNP has dropped explicit mention of federal, has it also dropped explicit mention of unitary, in the search for allies and broader acceptability?
These questions have to be answered cogently and clearly or else the party will be taken to the cleaners for having jettisoned the open espousal of the one idea that distinguished it as both bold and imaginative in the local political firmament against all odds. The ambiguity that surrounds the current position smacks too much of trying to be all things to all constituencies and will no doubt allow the JVP to go to town with the charge that a rose by any other name or no name at all, is still a rose and with thorns.
The issue also arises as to what impact this will have on the position of the National Council and the SLFP (M). Samaraweera, it has been reported, is perturbed and has met with Wickremesinghe. Is he now mollified? Is it not time for the council to spell out its policy for conflict resolution and seek support for it through open advocacy?
At the end of the day, in politics, perceptions matter. So do labels. The UNP cannot assume that the entire country has accepted its repositioning and that all is well. The entire country may well believe that the Chinthanaya has set the agenda for conflict resolution and that it owes the UNP no special favours or thanks for having finally fallen into line. And in electoral terms why go for a recent convert when you can choose the original true believer?
As for labels, an often quoted argument is that the Indian Constitution does not use the terms federal or unitary and it has survived and held the sub-continent together for six decades. It is worth noting that in the Indian case it was only in 1994 that the Supreme Court took action in respect of the Centre’s dismissal of a state government and laid down criteria for such action. That was some 40 years after the constitution was promulgated. Without explicit characterisa- tion of the state in our case, it is quite possible that the whole conflict resolution settlement could fall apart in a matter of years.
The UNP statement seems to be aware of this and a key redeeming aspect of it is the acknowledgement that power sharing does not confer on the centre the unfettered power and authority to override, undermine or take over the powers conferred on the devolved units. The statement refers to the need to have a ‘system to safeguard the devolved powers.’ This needs to be spelt out.
The federalism debate is clearly not over, however inconvenient it may be to political parties. There is no escaping the simple fact that if the root causes of terrorism are to be addressed as the UNP statement says they should be, the federal idea retains its relevance and centrality. Whatever the constitutional hybrid designed or euphemism manufactured, there is a clear contradiction between meaningful and effective power sharing and a unitary state in which all power is concentrated in the centre.
There are circles to be squared into the future.