Statement on upcoming elections in Sri Lanka

In the upcoming Sri Lankan elections of August 5, Vikramabahu ’’Bahu’’ Karunaratne, chairperson of the NSSP, will be a candidate in the Kalutara district for the United National Party (UNP), in support of former prime-minister and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. It is clear that the UNP is a bourgeois party, a right-wing party and traditionally one of the ruling parties of Sri Lanka.

The NSSP is one of two organizations in Sri Lanka associated with the Fourth International but electoral candidacy on the list of a party like the UNP is in clear contradiction with the principles of the Fourth International. We cannot agree with the NSSP’s explanation that Bahu’s candidacy is an example of an ’’united front’’ with social-democrats as the UNP is not a social-democratic party. Rather, it is a bourgeois party of the capitalist class, a full member of the International Democrat Union, sitting alongside the US Republicans, the British Conservatives and Narendra Modi’s BJP.

We call on progressive forces in Sri Lanka not to support the UNP, nor the SLPP or any other bourgeois party but instead strengthen the social and political organizations of the working class and of socialism.

Executive Bureau of the Fourth International

30 June 2020