An Electoral May-2009 Moment Has Arrived for Most Politicians
Posted on October 12th, 2024
Dilrook Kannangara
The year 2024 is shaping up to be the most important year in Sri Lanka’s history. It already had unprecedented political changes and more are on the way. Over 100 once powerful politicians have been reduced to zero; most of them have given up politics and elections. This is indeed the May-2009 moment for them. They know what side of that moment they are in.
One may argue that the UNP was defeated pretty badly in 1956 but it bounced back. Similarly, the SLFP was defeated in 1977 and after languishing in the opposition for 17 years came back to power. Those events cannot be compared to what happens in 2024. Although the UNP lost the election in a crushing defeat in 1956 it still managed to win over 30% of the vote. Same goes for the SLFP in 1977. This is not the case in 2024. Parties of old political parties have fallen to 0%, 1%, 3% and the highest is just 17%. Two new parties, NPP and SJB, have already occupied the top two slots. If the NPP is to be replaced, that will be the SJB. If the SJB is to be replaced in future, that will be the NPP. Old UNP, SLFP, SLPP and the like have come to the end of the road.
Why did it happen is a worthless discussion. The country is in a debt crisis with a massive debt of $102 billion, it is bankrupt, has seen very large-scale violence since 1958 at regular intervals, millions of islanders have left the island for good and every institution has collapsed due to corruption, mismanagement and politicization. These are sufficient reasons for the electoral demise of all past political parties responsible for those calamities.
However, people will have to cut their expectations to realistic proportions. The island’s structural defects cannot be changed by replacing its rulers. Until those structural defects are fixed the island will remain a less developed nation shuttling between war and bankruptcy. Yet, within the new framework there is some hope of survival. Under the old system the nation did not survive.