All kinds of bedfellows

There is some jubilation in media circles and in the dovecotes of intelligentsia that the pressure that was exerted by them has been able to stave off immediate constitutional amendments, effecting changes in terms-limits for the presidency.
The answer to the question, is this jubilation justified - - is a yes and a no. The media and intellectual resistance to constitutional change was justified, and went a long way in buttressing the policy position against constitutional tinkering taken by the left parties and the JHU against the extension of these term limits.
But when it came to the crunch, the decision to defer the matter came because the government just would not have the numbers in parliament to pull through the amendment without the support of the left parties.
This shows amply that the people voted wisely in withholding a two thirds majority from the ruling UPFA, despite the fact that this was expressly asked for by the party leadership. The government is six votes short of a two-thirds — but the left has considerable heft when considering that five votes can be deprived by them to add to the six that the government lacks in terms of that majority.
However, knowing the history of recent Sri Lankan politics, it is inconceivable that the government does not cobble together the two thirds it hankers after, given adequate time.
This is why the civil society ferment on the issue of constitutional change is even now the pivotal factor in this issue. If the constituent parties of the UPFA find that they cannot go against their constituencies, and if opposition MPs feels that crossing over and supporting the constitutional amendments would be political suicide for them considering general voter sentiment, the government would face a real challenge in getting the contemplated constitutional amendments passed.
What it all goes to show in the end is that there is no such thing as unbridled popularity. Even at the zenith of their power, there is a valuable check that is being kept on the UPFA, which has been returned to power handsomely by the electorate.
Democracy, it is seen - - at least for the moment - - is certainly not the tyranny of the majority.
The difficult part would be to keep things that way. Looking at the road ahead, therefore, it is a happy augur to see that entirely disparate forces such as the old left, the JHU, and the civil society intelligentsia and large parts of the media have come together in this task of staving off obnoxious changes to the constitutional document.
These are strategic alliances that can be made among disparate forces in the cause of preservation of democracy, and this shows that on certain issues, if there is the determination and the political will, even NGOs and markedly anti-NGO forces such as the JHU can make common cause.
The JVP has already been here, so to say. The JVP’s political space, which was the Sinhala constituency vis-a-vis the ethnic issue, for instance, was usurped thoroughly by president Mahinda Rajapaksa who conveniently occupied this political space, displaced the JVP, and became the champion of the pro-Sinhala forces.
The JVP found itself rudderless and floundering, and without a stand to take.
Yet, the JVP saw the political opening that was offered with the increasing constriction of the free space for dissent —- in other words, the gathering onslaught on democracy and good governance.
Soon, wittingly or unwittingly, the JVP found itself making common cause with the strangest of bedfellows, even with the opposition UNP, in the pursuit of the party’s new found politics as champion of people’s rights and freedoms.
It is not accidental that the JHU would also look towards this political space. After all, the JHU’s political position has also been comprehensively usurped by the president.
No party with a modicum of real political ambition would want to play second fiddle in the long term, even though making alliances in the cause of short term expediency is to be expected.
The surprise outcome of the pre-emptive and unrealistically hasty moves to engineer constitutional transformation has the unexpected result of putting in place a new agglomeration of political forces that eschews one party political hegemony in the country.
One could say this is real Sri Lankan democracy at work, because as said earlier in these spaces, though people may talk about the Singapore example until the cows come home, this country is no Singapore with her deep-going democratic traditions.
Basically, two political tectonic plates are gnashing against each other — the UPFA political juggernaut, expecting to establish Mahatir style one party-rule, and the democratic rearguard drawing its sustenance for a peoples’ desire to be free of a newly imposed oppression that interferes with their enjoyment of long held democratic traditions.
Usually, when tectonic plates rub against each other, there is seismic upheaval. But it is heartening that this stand-off shows signs of resolving itself with one party seemingly backing down considering the forces it is up against.