Political Column

Political Column

CBK has her say, JVP its way
By Our Political Editor

Crisis in the alliance: But every thing seems to be hunky-dory for alliance partners on the surface as they address a UPFA news conference in Anuradhapura. Pix by Ishara S. Kodikara

JVP leader Somawansa Amerasinghe was all set to embark on a momentous journey last week -- to Chandigarh in India's once volatile northern state of Punjab.

He and party colleague Bimal Ratnayake were honoured guests at the 19th annual sessions of the Communist Party of India (CPI). Since returning to Sri Lanka after a long exile in the United Kingdom, this was the JVP leader's second official visit abroad. That it was to foster ties with a like-minded group in India was significant. A red carpet welcome awaited the red leaders.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Amerasinghe and Ratnayake took that first step by walking a few yards from the party office to board a Double Cab. It was to take them from Colombo to the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) last Monday. But that journey was short lived.

The vehicle stopped at Peliyagoda. There was no diesel. Some of the petrol stations nearby were closed. Others had lengthy queues. There was no way the leader of the party that is the junior partner of the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) Government could jump queues to obtain diesel to get to the airport on time for the flight. That was ironical enough.

There was a paradox too. It was the trade unions of Amerasinghe and Ratnayake's Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna that had threatened trade union action - a strike - if the Government went ahead with plans to re-structure the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) and have the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) take on as its second partner India's Bharat Petroleum. A threat that precipitated the pandemonium on the streets and filling stations on Monday.

A special Cabinet meeting had been scheduled by President Chandrika Kumaratunga for that evening to decide on the future of the two ailing state institutions. It was the JVP that had mounted stiff opposition to this move. Now, its trade union action was boomeranging on its leadership. Amerasinghe and Ratnayake were stranded. With no vehicles available, it was the Police who helped them out. No wonder Amerasinghe says the JVP will not leave the Government.

A police vehicle drove the JVP duo to the airport to catch the flight to New Delhi in the nick of time. As they were airborne, winging away to across the Palk Starits into neighbouring India, the trade union leaders of the JVP, the ones given the licence to slam the Kumaratunga led Government, were busy in a tough behind-the-scene campaign to have the Cabinet meeting postponed. They succeeded with ease, what with the mayhem out on the streets that day.

A thoroughly frustrated President Kumaratunga, who initiated moves to have the emergency Cabinet meeting, and obtain approvals for two memoranda she had put up, was mad. She could not contain her emotions. So much so, she declared she could not work "with these idiots " - "mewage pissan ekka ratak karanna ba" - an allusion to the JVP.

In a clear reference to their obstructing the re-structuring the CEB and expanding the CPC's partners (both Indian companies), she excelled in her inimitable style of firing from the lip saying that these institutions are not - "thamange budale" - "These are not anyone's personal inheritances", she said in reference to a small section of employees in these two state ventures holding the country to ransom. Never in the history of the chequered coalition politics of this country has one party slammed the other in the same coalition with such venom as is being witnessed today. Speaking to the country's nurses - another strike prone sector - the President of the Republic said she was determined to go ahead, whether the JVP liked it or not, with the Government's proposed 're-structuring programme', the modern lexicon for old fashioned privatisation.

President Kumaratunga's anger is explainable though her outbursts, as usual, are not. It was she who presented the memoranda at the Cabinet meeting on March 16. One was to re-structure the CEB and the other was to give a third of the fuel distribution stations of the CPC to India's Bharat Petroleum Corporation. At present the CPC holds a third and the state owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) holds another third. The two matters were to be taken up for discussion and a decision at the Cabinet meeting on March 23.

Trouble began at this Cabinet meeting. The long festering issue of privatisation a.k.a. re-structuring of the CPC and CEB came to a head- between the JVP and the President. Even the Minister in charge of the portfolio Susil Premajayanth, who is a joint secretary of the UPFA coalition (from the SLFP side) has long indicated that he would like a transfer to another Ministry. His heart is with the JVP demands, though his loyalty is with the President. And SLFP stalwarts were blaming him for not resolving the outstanding problem between the Government and the trade unions.

At that 23 March UPFA Cabinet meeting, there were as many as 45 cabinet papers tabled for discussion. Cabinet meetings have got so unwieldly nowadays that Ministers cannot get their business through on one given day. They sometimes drag on for hours on end, so much so that Ministers take a breather sometimes by going for a drive, attending a wedding or cocktail party, and get back after some fresh air.

The President also had two cabinet papers to present that day. They were cabinet paper No. 40 and No. 41, which referred to the 're-structuring' of the CPC and the CEB. Only days earlier, her trusted economic adviser Mano Tittawella had brought to her attention the fact that Japan which was providing the funds for the exercise (1/3rd had already been granted to the UNP Government), was due to hand over the second tranche of the loan. The Tittawella led Strategic Enterprise Management Agency (SEMA), which oversees this 're-structuring' programme had told President Kumaratunga that there was a deadline to meet - March 31, for this tranche to be obtained.

Thus, the urgency on the part of the Kumaratunga Government. No doubt, one would say that it was a typical case of a last minute rush, the hallmark of this administration. So, having presented these cabinet papers 40 and 41, President Kumaratunga proceeded to support her papers to privatise, sorry, re-structure the CPC and the CEB.

She told her Ministers that the Chinese had already backed out of the process - a matter the UNP was howling about - and said that only Bharat Petroleum of India was now left to take what is left of the CPC. And as for the CEB, she said that electricity charges will ave to be raised by 100 per cent unless CEB was - ' re-structured '.

The JVP Ministers were not impressed or amused. Anura Kumara Dissanayake, the Agriculture Minister, objected straightaway. He told the Cabinet that the UPFA did not stand for any of this kind of economic strategies. Even Trade Minister Jeyeraj Fernandopulle raised a query. He asked whether this whole process is going to see another LECO, the troubled private subsidiary of the CEB. As the JVP insisted that "more time" was required, Urban Development Minister Dinesh Gunawardene pleaded for a postponement.

By which time President Kumaratunga's blood must have been boiling. She did not want to see any more dilly-dallying on the issue. There was enough of it, already. Most of her strongest allies were not even backing her up. Nobody inside that room wanted to talk straight to the JVP that they were jointly and severally running the country's economy down the dumps. All the all-powerful President could ask for in the circumstances, was a short-date - an emergency Cabinet meeting in five days time. So it was fixed for the evening of Monday, March 28.

On Saturday, March 26, Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera, notwithstanding having being pulled up for his overt flirtations with the JVP, called a meeting of the Treasury big boys to his house for a pow-wow. He realised that the matter was serious, with dreadful ramifications for the UPFA coalition, and he would have had the President's nod for the meeting. Dr. P.B. Jayasundera, the Treasury Secretary, was at hand, so was the Deputy Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage. Poor Susil Premajayantha got a roasting for having failed in his job. He was tried, and hung, in absentia.

Dr. Jayasundera had explained that the non-privatisation of the CPC and the CEB would result in a snowballing effect - the next two victims would be the two state banks, Bank of Ceylon and the Peoples' Bank. The two loss-making institutions (CPC and CEB) owed millions upon millions to the state banks, which were themselves under severe strain, he pointed out. JVP's Wimal Weerawansa too was present. He pointed out, simply, that there was no prior intimation of the Government's sudden move to the JVP, to do all this.

Meanwhile, JVP trade unions were already flexing their muscles when its political leadership, the politburo met at their weekly meeting on Sunday, March 27. At the meeting, presided over by Somawansa Amarasinghe, the Marxists decided that the President is in the wrong, and that she could not go ahead with her cabinet papers no. 40 and 41.

And then, lo and behold, they discovered something else. The cabinet papers 40 and 41 refer to Annexures to the document, but the set of papers they had with them had no Annexures. Now, what on earth was going on? Even the usually alert JVP Ministers had not noticed this at the Cabinet meeting. This became a side issue at the JVP politburo, but the leadership had already decided - we shall not go along with President Kumaratunga on this one.

They were going to ask for a postponement of the Cabinet meeting scheduled for the next afternoon, and go ahead with their plans for strike action if the Government was to proceed with the 're-structuring' programme. The next morning, now the morning of the emergency Cabinet meeting, the Finance Ministry once again became a hive of activity.

This time Finance Minister Sarath Amunugama was presiding. Amunugama, Jayasundera and Premajayantha were discussing the bleak future. So was the EPDP's Thavarasa. The outlook is always bleak from those old corridors of power. JVP's Wimal Weerawansa also came in for the meeting. Outside, on the streets, there was chaos. The JVP strike threat had caused fuel shortages all over Colombo and the surrounding areas. Some were blasting the Government. Others were blasting the JVP (as if they were not the Government) saying that not only the CPC and the CEB, but the political system should be privatised.

Nothing materialised at this meeting. Elsewhere, at 'Visumpaya' the former ' Ackland House ' to be precise, now the official residence of Minister Anura Bandaranaike - who has sworn that the PA-JVP coalition will last six more years - the minister was having his own meeting to ensure that the UPFA will last at least till they can celebrate their first year in office, which falls next week. Wimal Weerawansa was busy shuttling, also trying to keep the peace. JVP's trade union firebrand Minister K. D. Lal Kantha was also present, so was the SLFP's trade union veteran Alavi Moulana. A notable absentee however was Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse. Again, Weerawansa urged the cancellation of that afternoon's emergency Cabinet meeting called for by the President.

The JVP's message was now ringing in the ears of the SLFPers in the UPFA coalition. They couldn't ignore the noise and chaos on the streets outside caused by just a little strike threat from the JVP. Despite all she could say, there was nothing she could do. The President called off the emergency Cabinet meeting that night, and backed off.

It must have been a bitter pill to swallow. She spent some time on a long and monotonous interview on state run TV with her Finance Minister nodding in agreement to everything she said about the need to privatise the CPC and the CEB. Obviously, the JVP was either not listening, or refusing to hear what she was saying.

Her verbal outburst at the nurses graduation ceremony on Thursday, calling the JVP, by innuendo, "idiots" was a mule's kick, but the JVP have a thick hide. And it is now clear that they are themselves aiming at keeping their own options with their own identity, making the most of Government office, and in the process, playing the role of Government and Opposition at the same time.

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