How JVP/ NPP govt begins… and ends

The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna/National People’s Power candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake rides high on opinion polls, social media posts, Twitter and Facebook likes and the crowd size.

While none of them offers a credible measure of popular support, some local pundits take pride in parroting them, which are then regurgitated by foreign media and embassy cables. Funny enough, the election analysis in this country has become yet another echo chamber of a small incestual circle of participants and data. (That’s how NGO activism in this country happened in the past). 

Anura Kumara Dissanayake

For starters, those opinion polls smack of manipulation, either deliberately or due to prohibitively small and corrupted sample sizes. That gives the impression they are part of a greater scheme of things. As far as the social media hype is concerned, the JVP has a dedicated cadre base to undertake the laborious work,  even though similar services and more could be purchased for a modest sum in countless Telegram groups.  

Realistic number 

A more realistic number for Dissanayake would be around 20 per cent of the popular vote under the most optimistic scenario, which is way short of the presidency, though a great leap forward from less than Five per cent the JVP polled in the past. 

However, given the real or feigned popular enthusiasm for a JVP presidency and a JVP government, let’s consider a hypothetical situation where the JVP is in the driving seat of the presidency and the government. 

 Given that there is no historical precedent of a JVP-controlled government, analysing its future conduct would be a tall order. Interestingly, that lack of exposure to the art of governance, other than the short stint of Co-habitation with the Chandrika Kumaratunga administration in early 2000, has become the raison d’etre to vote for the JVP. 
In the absence of a comparable local precedent, one way to predict the behaviour of a JVP government would be to analyse how similarly ideologically inclined parties who also share a similar lived experience (i.e. a militant past) conducted themselves when in power.

 
Placing JVP’s left  in the international Left

Political Left spans a wide spectrum as wide-ranging as Scandinavian social democrats in one extreme to French and British left and similarly positioned selected Latin American left parties, such as in Lula de Silva’s Workers Party in Brazil to one party states in China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea in the other extreme.   

They are vastly different. The Scandinavian Left is deeply rooted in the free- market capitalist system and electoral democracy. They emphasise redistribution of social justice and wealth, which they can afford, given the surplus wealth generated over time and high-income tax collection. Whereas the JVP, which claims to represent the poor, opposes the even modest income tax threshold that affects only the country’s upper 20-30 per cent income brackets.  

Listening to the social welfare policies of the JVP, one might ponder whether it is a sister party of the Swedish Social Democrats. However, the stubborn reality is that such an extensive array of welfarism is not feasible within the means of Sri Lanka, which had a meagre 9.8 per cent of tax revenue to GDP in 2023. At the same time, Sri Lanka is still a more expansive welfare state than any of the Communist one-party states,  from Cuba to China. 
 Similarly, the most successful party states, Vietnam and China, are more capitalist and mercantilist than the majority of capitalist European states. The difference in the one-party state is their near absolute monopoly in political power, which leaves no room for dissent.

Thankfully, the JVP cannot replicate that amount of absolute control without remaking the constitution in Sri Lanka.  

So, where does JVP fit in? In between the above two extremes, there is another identical set of parties: the chaotic, militant Left that is still dominant in Latin America, in countries such as Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, etc. Those parties are not necessarily card-carrying electoral democrats, but they have come to power through elections. They do not offer viable economic policies, though they have done well during commodity booms in dolling out the state’s riches and cultivating large patronage networks.

Welfarism

 That is the kind of welfarism one should expect from the JVP, a ruinous and perilous economic exercise that comes at the expense of the nation’s future.

There is another similarity between these parties and the JVP, differentiating them from the traditional European or South Asian Left.

The traditional Left considers elections the only legitimate source of power. In contrast, these groups, given their militant past and ideological orientation, believe in hybrid sources of power, including the use of force- the barrel of the gun- and populist legitimacy alike. 

When their populist legitimacy wanes due to their miserable economic handling, they resort to force. That may explain why ruling parties in these countries have refused to give up power after losing multiple elections. It is not an exaggeration that the JVP shares all their traits. 

 If you want to look for where a future JVP government would fit, don’t look for Sweden; look for Nicaragua. 

First two years of JVP govt.

AKD presidency would naturally be followed by  a VP government, and initially, there would be an all-encompassing positive vibe. A comparative local analogy would be Chandrika Kumaratunga’s presidency, ending the 17 years of UNP rule. We all know how it turned out at the end. Like Chandrika, the JVP would be a prisoner of its stakeholders and its own ideology. Economic rot will set sooner than the ink dries up in appointment letters to the JVP ministers. Thanks to Ranil Wickremesinghe and the Central Bank Governor, the JVP has US$ 5.6 billion to splash over its promised freebies and salary hikes. But these monies will run out soon, and with the rupee on a free fall, Sri Lanka will enter Gotabaya Part 2 in no less than two years. But, don’t expect the JVP to give up power willingly because the JVP, like any revolutionary party with a militant past, believes in hybrid sources of power. It may fail in a complete state capture in two years so that it could send a compliant military to crack down on the protest. But that need not to be. The hordes of party cadres would do the job. One reason why Bangladeshi protests became exceedingly violent was due to the militant student union of the ruling Awami League taking on protesters. 

Never ends

If the JVP manages to avoid the immediate economic collapse,  it would have three more years. During that period, hard-line Marxists would take control from gullible professionals and social liberals who had joined ranks under the National People’s Power.

The JVP’s economic policies have been tried before. The left-leaning Sirimavo Bandaranaike government in 1970-77 was the most infamous and ruinous. The JVP’s five years in power would be as bad as that or worse. Sri Lanka would add another five years of lost growth.

 However, the international experience across much of Latin America tells that the militant Left does not leave power when they lose elections. When that happens, Sri Lankans would remember Gotabaya Rajapaksa as a convent nun, compared to the horror they would encounter. Avoid that eventuality before it becomes real.

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