With the 50-day political crisis of Sri Lanka reaching to a temporary pause as Ranil Wickremasinghe was sworn in as prime minister on 16 Sunday, following a landmark judgement of the country's apex court, the ruling class in Colombo along with the media, the upper middle class milieu and academics have hoisted an euphoria of victory for democracy in the island nation.
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| Wickremasinghe takes oaths as prime minister |
Contrary to this assertion, the scenario that preceded Wickremasinghe's reappointment has shown that the whole ruling establishment - comprising of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government - is in rags and has shifted further to the right.
After assuming duties as the prime minister, Wickremsinghe tweeted, "today marks a victory not for myself or for the UNP", referring to his United National Party. "It is a victory for Sri Lanka’s democratic institutions and the sovereignty of our citizens. I thank everyone who stood firm in defending the constitution and ensuring the triumph of democracy.”
Deep divisions within the ruling establishment led to Sri Lanka president Maithripala Sirisena's anti-democratic sacking of Wickremsinghe as Prime Minister on 26 October, that triggered the immediate crisis. Wickremasinghe's swearing in followed two decisions by the Supreme Court - one challenging Sirisena's unconstitutional dissolution of the Parliament in the event Rajapakshe was unable to secure a majority, and the other on an appeal lodged by Rajapakshe against an interim order issued by the appeals court preventing him and his cabinet from functioning till the hearing of the case, which effectively left the country without a functioning government for nearly two weeks.
In both decisions the Supreme Court ruled against Sirisena-Rajapakshe faction, holding that the dissolution was unconstitutional and refusing to stay the appeals court decision. The next day Rajapakshe resigned as prime minister, leading to Wickremasinghe's reinstatement.
Just after the verdict was pronounced, Wickremasinghe declared, "the judgement given by the Supreme Court is a result of the steps taken by the ‘Yahapalana’ government to make the Judiciary independent" and that it "confirms the Judiciary as being an independent institution”.
A jubilant writer to The Island praised the judiciary by calling people to "honour the thinking of Hulftsdorp [where the country's apex court complex is situated] that gave new meaning to democracy, fundamental rights, and the sovereignty of the people". A dailymirror columnist wrote, the "unanimous verdict of the seven-member supreme court bench" "upheld democracy and constitutional governance".
Prominent among these writers is Jayadeva Uyangoda, a university professor and a political analyst highly hailed by the upper middle class milieu, who wrote to The Island on 15 December, boosting the bourgeois illusion with the judiciary: "The judges have also assured Sri Lankan citizens that in their fight to defend Sri Lanka’s endangered democracy, the judiciary is now a reliable arbiter". In another article in srilankabrief, Uyangoda praised the country's apex court, which he says has re-emerged with a "clear sense of institutional autonomy and independence", for its "role in restoring constitutional governance for Sri Lanka’s democracy".
The intervention of Sri Lanka's apex court in settling the political crisis within Colombo's ruling class does not show anything more about its 'independence' than the fact that it was rather concerned with the increasing public disillusionment with the so-called 'democratic institutions' including the parliament and the entire ruling establishment. It was an expression of fears in ruling circles that the flagrant breach of constitutional norms would further fuel growing working class struggles against the capitalist rule.
The political crisis erupted in the context of growing geo-political tensions engulfing the island and the South Asian region where United States, its European allies and India are engaged in countering what they refer to as "creeping Chinese influence". Throughout the period of the present crisis, US sent warning signals to Colombo and urged immediate resolution of the political crisis, delaying of which could compound "uncertainty in Sri Lanka" and undermine its "international reputation".
The stance of the Supreme Court is also a clear response to this unavoidable geo-political pressure largely by US imperialism, though its eighty-eight paged judgement interpreting the provisions of the country's constitution has no mention of anything of that sort. However, Court has expressly admitted that, "practical considerations rather than formal logic must govern the interpretation of those parts of the Constitution which are obscure", and that it should "take into account social, economic and cultural developments which have taken place since the framing of the Constitution".
The portrayal of the judges and courts as defenders of democracy is a dangerous trap fixed against the working class.
Evgeny Pashukanis, the renowned Soviet jurist and early Bolshevik wrote, "without the work of legislators, judges, police and prison guards (in a word, of the whole apparatus of the class state), law would become a fiction".
Wickremasinghe and the other commentators wilfully conceal one basic fact which Pashukanis emphasizes: the capitalist state is class-based and the judges and courts are part of that class rule.
The constitution as the fundamental law of the class rule is not just the words in the text adopted by capitalist parliament. Its basic structure is formulated by neoliberal dictates and imperialist demands, in line of which every judicial branch of a country of belated capitalist development is compelled to frame its 'thinking'.
The 'triumph of democracy' has nothing to do with the rights of the working class and the oppressed masses, except for a temporary settlement of capitalist class rule.
In State and Revolution Lenin explains:
"A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell… it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.”
The 'whole apparatus of the class state', including courts, are assigned this task of unshakably securing the 'political shell for capitalism', which is bourgeois democracy.
During the seventy years of 'independence' from colonial rule, the two major ruling parties, Sri Lanka Freedom Party(SLFP), now headed by Sirisena, and Wickremasingh's UNP, bestowed upon the working class of the country only poverty, inequality and massacres of youth in the North and the South and brutal suppression of working class struggles, in the name of 'democracy'. All factions of the Sri Lankan ruling elite are determined to crush working class opposition to the attacks on living and social conditions demanded by national and global big business.
The Supreme Court nor the appeals court had any hesitation in resting all powers of the cabinet of ministers with Sirisena when its decision was to effectively leave the country without a functioning government. Sirisena immediately stepped into strengthen the autocratic and repressive powers of the executive presidency. Apart from his position as defence minister, which he holds under the constitution, Sirisena obtained the law and order ministry, under which is the police, and the media ministry.
These are all warnings that the ruling class is rehearsing authoritarian measures to build up police state conditions in preparation for responding to deepening class tensions.
After swearing in as a minister of Wickremasinshe's new cabinet, UNP deputy leader, Sajith Premadasa called everyone to be ready to work overnight to complete ten years work during ten months. This is an indication of the ruling class's unequivocal readiness to impose the burden of their crisis upon the working class.
The working class cannot place any faith in any of the institutions of the class rule, which are placed at the disposal of the ruling class to suppress the growing opposition and protests, using whatever means necessary including the military and police. To win true democracy, what is necessary is the independent mobilisation of workers, youth and the poor on the basis of an international socialist program to fight for a workers’ and peasants’ government. In Sri Lanka and internationally, it is only the Socialist Equality Party that advances this revolutionary perspective.
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