Understanding history

Wherein lies the staying power of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party? The answer to this most pertinent query was given by President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga at the election rally held in Wariyapola on Tuesday, in support of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse's candidature for the post of President.

The President could be said to have brought into focus a cluster of issues at this rally which could determine the future course of the country. Accordingly, the highlights of her address need to be dwelt on for the deep political insights they offer.

The SLFP, the President pointed out, has won 11 out of 13 elections since 1994. She has made us understand that the reason for this string of electoral successes is the SLFP's ability to respond to the needs of the day.

For instance in 1994, at the time of the President coming to power, the concept of ethnic peace was not very much in vogue. However, the President made ethnic peace the cornerstone of her political career. In fact, peace was given a pivotal position in the SLFP's vision for Sri Lanka and it was clearly spelt out that power devolution was the means to this cherished goal.

Thus, we would not be wrong in saying that the SLFP was made to respond positively to the needs of the times and it is widely acknowledged that a negotiated political solution is the key to resolving our conflict.

Today it is all too obvious that a political solution is the favoured option of the people, whether they reside in the North-East or South. For, no responsible personality or group advocates war. Peace is indeed the common plea.

The proposition of power devolution has its detractors, but here too no alternative path to peace has been outlined by them. Accordingly, opposition to power devolution cannot be taken seriously because an alternative vision and strategy to bring peace has so far not surfaced. Destructive criticism of well-intentioned policy initiatives, thus, needs to be rejected out of hand.

Therefore it could be seen that under the direction of President Kumaratunga, the SLFP has been made to respond to the historic challenges faced by the country. In 1956, when the SLFP swept to power on the basis of a popular upsurge for genuinely people-based governance, President Kumaratunga's father, the late SWRD Bandaranaike, who was at the helm of the SLFP, had moulded the SLFP into a vehicle of the people's aspirations.

He was, in short, responding to the needs of the times. Decades later, President Kumaratunga has remoulded the SLFP, to meet the demands of a different historical epoch.

However, there is a thread that binds these phases in the post-independence political history of Sri Lanka. That is, the need to forge genuine nationhood. If power was vested in the people by constitutional means in 1956, following its prolonged monopolisation by a Westernised elite which was narrowly-based, the issue of the nineties was national unity and peace, which are essential preconditions for nation-building.

The unfinished business of 1956 was left to be completed in the nineties with the advent of President Kumaratunga.

We hope these observations would help to put our national development in the correct perspective. The principal challenge now is national unity through peace and a political settlement through power devolution.