Interview with representatives of the Socialist Party of Sri Lanka (SPSL)

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1. Back in November, the nationalist ex-general Gotabaya Rajapaksa was elected president of Sri Lanka with 52% of the vote. He was the candidate of the SLPP, the Sinhalese-Buddhist nationalist party. How do you explain his victory?

Yes, President Gothabaya was elected with 52% of the votes This is the first time in Sri Lanka that a candidate used religion and language in his election campaign. As the slogan...they raised the idea that we need a Sinhala Buddhist country... and they ignored the Tamils and Muslims. One organisation called Bodubalasena (ultra-chauvinists) appealed for the incumbent in the 7000 temples to organise 1000 votes for each temple for Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and on the other side they said Ranil and Miethree (former chiefs of the government ) had failed to protect the country and the people, using the Easter Sunday attack, and that they failed to provide a strong security plan for the country. Those were the main reasons for the victory. But no opposition could have predicted the unprecedented victory.
 

2. Last year’s election came just seven months after the Easter Sunday bomb attacks, in which hotels and churches were bombed by groups claiming to be Islamic fundamentalists, killing more than 250 people. Can you explain the background to these bombings and their impact on Sri Lankan society in general?

As we explained, the Easter Sunday attacks were against two hotels in the capital (Sinnamon Garden and Kingsbury Hotel) and three main Muslim mosques, Kochchikade in the capital Colombo, Katuwapitiya near Negombo, and another in Batticaloa in the east. A report revealed that it was planned by extreme Islamic fundamentalists (IS) with support from a jihadi group based in Sri Lanka, the organisation created by the present president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to face the LTTE in the past and which he supported to maintain it. The report says after the presidential election. Because of those attacks the Cardinal of the Christian churches vehemently attacked the previous regime and appealed to the people to vote for Gotabaya Rajapaksa (not directly)  according to his speeches in the churches. Maithree and Runil (former leaders) were accused by the Gotabaya side for the attacks of Easter Sunday.
 

3. Given Rajapaksa’s history, many are concerned he will use the old and tested method of divide and rule, pitting the different ethnic groups in the country against each other. The majority Sinhala Buddhist population, in fact, backed in the main Rajapaksa while the minority Muslims and Tamils voted for Premadasa. What policies do you expect Rajapaksa will carry out?

After he defeated the LTTE, Mahinda Rajapaksa became the hero of the Sinhala Buddhist people. Especially the media built up Rajapaksa to make him the hero of the Sinhala Buddhist. No one was against and they unanimously accepted the idea created by the media. Rajapaksa’s slogan was that there is no national question and that all are one nation, and that the Sinhala, Tamils and Muslims are living the country with equal rights. In actual fact, the minority were very innocent and afraid of the campaign launched by the Rajapaksa supporters. The chauvinist Sinhala majority was applauded Rajapaksa and they made Mahinda Rajapaksa the patriotic leader of Sri Lanka, and he exploited this opportunity for Gotabaya 's victory.
 

4. The candidate for the outgoing UNP party, Sajith Premadasa, won 42%. Can you explain what differences there were, if any, between the two candidates.

RANIL, MITHREE came to power in 2015 making lots of promises, among them the abolition of the executive presidency, and an amendment of the constitution, to solve the question of Tamil speaking people They made some amendments to the constitution  but not as they had promised, and it created the contradiction between president and prime minister. In the meantime, they proposed to sell the fort in Hambantota, and signed the pact with Singapore and also the trade agreement with India. All these things were not beneficial for the country. The opposition and the left also made protests against those proposals made by the government. In the last two years before the presidential election, Mithree and Runil started to fight each other and Mithree dissolved the parliament and appointed Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister. There was a dispute but finally he appointed Ranil again as the prime minister. During the last six months of the presidential election, within the UNP there was another dispute regarding the candidate of the UNP, whether it should be Ranil or Sajith. However, finally the UNP decided on Sajith as their candidate. There was unrest and unpleasant and depression situation all over the country. But the Rajapaksa family got all the advantages and they put forward Gotabaya unanimously and started campaign six months earlier, and this was the reason for the higher majority for Gotabaya in addition to the q.1` INCLUDES AND 42% SAJITH.

5. The two main candidates won between them 94% of the vote. What other parties stood, and in particular were there any openly left candidates who stood, and how did they do?

Yes, as we know we can’t consider the JVP candidate as being on the left, because their program is social democratic. The Frontline Socialist party decided to contest alone. However, we met with them before the Presidential election and proposed a common candidate of the left, but we did not succeed in this. Generally, the USP (CWI) contested alone too. We tried for a common candidate of the left, but failed. However, we decided to contest the presidential election based on the revolutionary program. Our candidate was a female comrade, an environmentalist but with no experience with the revolutionary program of the party. We used her to get publicity for our program and win some of the voters to the party. We call it a party but actually it is a group, but with a well-known leadership with a lot of experience from the old LSSP. The majority of the leadership comes from the LSSP. The results of the election were: JVP nearly 450,000 votes; Frontline Socialist Party nearly 8000; the USP nearly 3000; the WSWS people (samanatha pakshaya) nearly3000; and the SPSL 27500.

6. Can you elaborate on the economic and social situation in Sri Lanka? What is the level of poverty? How much unemployment is there? What are the main economic issues concerning Sri Lankan workers?

According to official statistics, people living below the national poverty line are 4.1% and unemployment is 5.1%; people under malnutrition 1.1 million, the majority of the estate workers families. The main income of the country is from foreign employment (house maids in the Middle East) and the textile industry and tourism. But there are no trade union rights in the free trade zone area.
 

7. How strong is the trade union movement? What percentage of the workforce is organised? What kind of leadership do the unions have? There was a major strike wave back in September, with many sectors involved. What were the strikes about and how did they end?

The trade union movement is very weak. Mainly after the 1980 defeat of the general strike there was fragmentation of the trade union movement. There are no progressive TU leaders either; they are all opportunists. Last September pro-raapaksa 's union leaders launched the campaign against the government to get the political advantage in support of Gotabaya’s election campaign. All the campaign stopped for the promise of rajapaksa. it me ans raapaksa was the person who made this type of campaign. There are only a few trade unions. They say they are independent, but actually they are not independent without politics. They used the campaign not to put slogans against the government. It’s a big challenge to build the TU movement in Sri Lanka. We have a small union in the public sector, clerical services, health services, and teacher’s union. We are not strong enough to organise an independent campaign.

8. Sri Lanka in the past had a strong left-wing tradition. It was one of the countries where the Trotskyists were able to build a sizeable force, embodied in the old LSSP. What happened to that tradition and what is the Left doing today?

The traditional left was destroyed by the leaders themselves after the coalition politics in 1964. Now they are only talking and have supported Rajapaksa's politics since 1982. They are only a name now. After their bourgeois politics in 1964 the Fourth International expelled the LSSP. (accusing them of Pabloism). After the USSR collapsed in 1989, the communist party started to die. None of the old leaders of those parties are left and no new members have been recruited. They are finished. There is now a vacuum on the left. The Socialist Party of Sri Lanka is trying to fill the vacuum, but it is still only a nucleus.
 

9. You stood in the elections. Explain to us a little about your organisation, and how do you see your role in Sri Lankan politics today? What programme do you stand on and what are your aims?

Our organization was established in 2006 after two comrades, Mahinda Devage and Bandula Devaraja, were expelled from the USP proposed by Peter Taaffe not for political reasons, but based on stories produced by Siritunga (the leader of the USP). Since then we found the League for the Fifth International in 2008 and continued our work and they expelled us in April 2020 because of our contesting in the presidential election. We believe we used the electoral tactics, but it’s true that the candidate whom we chose was a mistake. But it is not mistakes that should be sued to expel the section. We issued an apology but they did not consider our apology and expelled us. However, we did not agree with their electoral tactics. They said we are not a party but a group. And, yes, we admit that. But how are we going to become a party without intervening in mass action? We predict the election, also mass action as in the colonial country, with no strong left, no strong TU movement. We think the working class and the oppressed masses need an alternative. The JVP, NO LLSP and CP and FSP also are nota the alternative. We were the only party that put forward the revolutionary program and fought in the presidential election.