Inability to admit wrongs led to defeat of UNP - It needs a Nikita Khrushchev

By Our Political Editor

(April 17, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) This is the period of making post-mortems as far as the Sri Lanka's main opposition party is concerned. However, much of the post-mortems about the defeat of this political party do not show much sincerity on the part of the critics.Most who criticize from within the party do not really want to find out the actual causes that have resulted in these defeats. They are just looking for some kind of excuse, as they themselves are involved in the denial of obvious truths .

It is like the Sinhala saying that it is not possible to swallow medicine without the knowledge of the throat. The UNP cannot take any action which will significantly change its image in the country until they are willing to sincerely and thoroughly examine their own past. They are today paying for the very problems that they themselves created to the people. The legacy left by JR Jayewardene is their main problem. The UNP leadership in the past decades are unable to admit their own crimes and fundamental mistakes. The advantage of this goes to their opponents who also commit similar crimes and fundamental wrongs against their people.

The party needs a Nikita Khrushchev. It was Khrushchev who after the death of Joseph Stalin that once again brought some kind of life to the political system of Soviet Union. He thoroughly and unhesitatingly condemned Stalin and called for admission of the great mistake made by their leader. It was this confession that give rise to a new kind of politics which even then has taken many long years before the full realization of the abandonment of the Stalinist legacy.

However, the UNP leaders had no courage to admit the terrible legacy left by Jayewardene and Premadasa as Presidents. It was these leaders who attacked the very fundamentals of democracy in the country. What they did for their benefit is now benefitting the opposition party which they tried to suppress. The then opposition party is now ruling the country. But it only means that they have gotten to the shoes of Jayewardene and Premadasa. So long as they wear these shoes there is no need for the UNP to come back to do the same thing.

United National party is responsible for mass murder on large scale in Sri Lanka. To do this they also subverted the very framework of the legal system in the country. They twisted the constitutional base and Sri Lanka ceased to be a democracy once for all. The UNP ruled by repression.

What UNP need as a leader is a person who is willing to sincerely confess to the sins of the party’s past. To be reconciled with the people of Sri Lanka they need first of all to regret what they have done and demonstrate their regret to the people. The argument that the government is bad does not bring any benefit to the UNP because for the people the government is only as bad as the UNP itself. When the UNP with this bad record try to contest the government which also has the bad record it is the contest between two forces. None of them enjoys the confidence of the people.

Calling for the abandonment for the Executive Presidential system is a correct policy. However, without sincerely apologizing to the nation for the actions that the UNP has itself done in order to create this constitution under which no one will take them seriously. The fact is that the UNP today is not being taken seriously by the people because people know their terrible past. The attempt by the UNP leadership to say that their leaders have achieved something of economic progress and therefore they deserve to be recognized as a party that is capable of causing economic development only proves that the present UNP leaders underestimate the political depth of the people of Sri Lanka. People don't forget their sufferings so easily. And UNP caused too many sufferings to the people. In fact, they led the foundation for the destruction of whatever that the country may have achieved under the earlier regimes and even under the colonial power.