The NPP Government and Multi-Party Democracy

Questions continue to be speculated about the true intentions of the JVP in orchestrating the NPP government — whether the JVP is still committed to its old Marxist-Leninist policies and whether it may or may not implement them through its NPP front.

- BY RAJAN PHILIPS

Further, will the JVP/NPP allow Sri Lanka's multi-party democracy to continue or resort to one party governance like in countries where a Communist Party is in power. The fact that local government elections were held under an NPP government after a seven year hiatus is conveniently forgotten. That the LG elections had previously been postponed and cancelled by non-Marxist governments is now never mentioned.

And then the scaremongering - if the NPP government were to fail and suffer defeat at the next election, will it pave the way for the return of the Rajapaksas, yet again, but this time under a new generation led by the supposedly hugely talented Namal Rajapaksa? There were pre-election predictions that Namal Rajapaksa and the rump that is left of the SLPP might overtake Sajith Premadasa's SJB in the LG elections. That did not happen.

The Rajapaksa scion is still safely in third place by quite a distance after the SJB and its lackluster leader, the slightly older but still the only young Premadasa in Sri Lankan politics. For company, they have a really old man, i.e., Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is capable of many things, but gracefully retiring is not one of them. At least, and to his credit, he lives in his own house and takes no residential perk at government expense unlike all the other ex-presidential freeloaders.

Philistine Preoccupations

It is not unfair to say that most of their commentaries are nothing but philistine preoccupations passing for serious politics. The word 'philistine' was a favourite term of Engels (the second fiddle to Marx's first violin) and it is appropriate now since Marxism is at the tip of the tongue of everyone who wants to take a shot at the NPP government.

The term is also apt to fling at the right wing populists, who are now becoming less popular in their western backyards thanks to their greatest specimen - Donald J. Trump