how chandrika fought with JVP... do we want to repeart history?

Alliance battle hots up Inside Politics By Suranimala While the clash between the JVP and President Chandrika Kumaratunga intensified last week following allegations and counter allegations of financial impropriety and corruption, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe was preparing the groundwork to declare his candidature for the 2005 presidential election at the UNP's December session. The crisis within the UPFA has been simmering for sometime now with regular reports reaching the President from SLFP organisers much to her consternation that the JVP was making inroads into the party's electoral base. To make matters worse, JVP members were also openly critical of the government on the handling of the economy, going so far as to promote strikes and on several occasions even threatening to topple the government unless their policies were adhered to.

Anura Dissanayake, Mangala Samaraweera, K. D. Lalkantha, Wimal Weerawans and Chandrika Kumaratunga

At the same time, the JVP also tied President Kumaratunga's hands with regard to resuming negotiations with the LTTE based on the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) proposals and unbelting the US$ 4.5 billion aid pledged in Tokyo, making it that much more difficult for her to deliver on the pledges made in the Rata Perata election manifesto.

Thus, on the one hand the JVP stymied Kumaratunga with regard to generating employment and development whilst on the other, led protest campaigns due to her failure in delivering on the promises made.

The net result was the growing unpopularity of the SLFP whilst the JVP continued to cater to the masses' disenchantment with vociferous protests and tapping into the SLFP base due to their growing disillusionment.

It is the culmination of these factors aggravated by the exclusive control the JVP wielded over the 10,000 small tank rehabilitation project which eventually got the President activated resulting in the floodgates being opened for charges and counter charges.

But even the JVP, which knows only too well the President desperately needs their support to abolish the executive presidency, did not anticipate Kumaratunga's counter-strike would come in the form of a cabinet note casting aspersions of financial mismanagement with regard to the tank project.

Battle

Try as the JVP might to get the cabinet note withdrawn, the President stuck to her guns with matters taking a turn for the worse after The Sunday Leader and its sister paper Irudina exclusively published the note with details of the battle which ensued over it in cabinet last week.