Presidential politics: As Gotabhaya is studying Donald Trump, Vasudeva flies a trial balloon 

by Rajan Philips-April 1, 2017, 7:54 pm

There has been active speculation about former Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa (GR) coming forward as a presidential candidate at the next presidential election, whenever that is due - 2019 or 2020, depending on whose constitutional interpretation turns out to be convenient to the incumbent president. While he has not formally announced it, Mr. Rajapaksa has given every indication that he is more than inclined to enter the fray. He is not modest about his accomplishments – in the war, which is not surprising, and in what he considers to be ‘urban development’, which is not unquestionable. He was one of the firsts in Sri Lanka to celebrate Donald Trump’s victory in the US and hold it out as an example for Sri Lankans to follow and elect non-career politicians to office. Last week, GR admitted to considering Donald Trump as his ‘model’ and that he was "looking at him and studying him."

There is also a chorus of voices egging him on to do a ‘Trump’ in Sri Lanka. The shrillest and the silliest of them has put on his shoulders the pseudo historic task of delivering Sinhalese civilization into 21st century modernity after its allegedly long interruption by South Indian (Tamil) and European (colonial) invaders. A more convoluted variation of Trump’s "Make America great again" slogan. In fairness to Mr. Rajapaksa, he harbours no such delusions, but he could become a victim of insane expectations. Organizationally, for all intent and purpose, Viyath Maga, the self-styled forum of professionals, might be becoming Gotabhaya Rajapaksa’s new van - of the political kind. Socially and politically, Viyath Maga represents a constituency and compulsions among the Sinhalese that are quite different from those that inspired the yahapalanaya movement in the south and opened an inclusive passage for the Tamils and Muslims in the 2015 elections.

What might be common between the two is the frustration with the government of the day and the desire to get rid of it. But there are important differences. Those who now make up today’s Viyath Maga were direct and indirect beneficiaries of yesterday’s Rajapaksa government. Oftentimes, there were allegations that the benefits under the then government were disseminated nefariously and even unlawfully. This constituency is illustrative of the twin allegations of corruption under the Rajapaksa government: rampant, but also ‘egalitarian.’ The beneficiaries were not frustrated with ‘their’ government, but they are frustrated with the new government. They want ‘their’ government back in power. No one is better than Gotabhaya Rajapaksa to lead them back to their lost fortunes. Democracy is too cumbersome and inconvenient to making quick returns in business. What other licence would you need when you invoke the sanction of patriotism?

The yahapalanaya forces, on the other hand, were fed up with the Rajapaksa government’s corruption; its concentration and abuse of presidential power; and its coercive and authoritarian suppression of dissent and even the elimination of dissenters. Those who were in the forefront of the yahapalanaya campaign did not become material beneficiaries of the new government. They became political beneficiaries, like all Sri Lankans, insofar as the new government put an end to authoritarianism and suppression of dissent and critics. But the yahapalanaya campaigners are frustrated with the government for different reasons: its inability to do anything conclusive about the previous government’s alleged corruption and the perpetually unresolved ‘emblematic’ cases. Worse, the new government has opened its own account on corruption and the partakers include its traditional supporters as well as leftovers and crossovers from the previous government.

Unlike the Viyath Maga organizers who are over the moon with their new presidential candidate, the yahapalanaya forces are scrambling for a saviour to salvage whatever that is left of the 2015 election victories. President Sirisena is still their best hope, if not the last, provided he does not make a reverse defection to the one he executed so dramatically in November 2014. He could end up third in a presidential race if he were to run as the ‘official SLFP’ candidate. He would have his best chances only as a ‘common candidate’ of an alliance of forces similar to what propelled him to victory in 2015. What about Prime Minister Wickremesinghe?

There must be serious disappointment even among Ranil Wickremesinghe’s staunchest supporters about their leader’s inexplicably fatal mistakes. The most grievous of them all has been his handling of the Central Bank from Day One. There is no point in regurgitating what everyone knows and what everyone has said on the Central Bank and its goddamned bonds. But the question that will be endlessly speculated upon and might never be answered is: why? Why do this after making the supreme sacrifice of foregoing one’s party’s candidacy twice in five years? The more consequential question is what is Ranil Wickremesinghe going to do now? What will the UNP do with or without him? What is funny, perhaps not funny, is that Sri Lankans can change their president despite the constitution that the UNP gave them, but nobody can displace Ranil Wickremesinghe as leader of the UNP. Will he make a graceful exit before it is too late? Politics will be a boring business without speculation.

Vasudeva’s trial balloon

Enter Vasudeva Nanayakkara. In his heyday, the old LSSPer was famous for his film star looks, political theatre and sincere camaraderie. It is gratifying to see that the Left’s penchant for viewing politics as a manifestation of the pulls and pushes of class and social forces has in turn left a mark on his thinking. Philip Gunawardena, it used to be said, could "smell the mass mood months ahead." We do not know what mood Vasudeva Nanayakkara is smelling; but he has let fly a trial balloon proposing a realignment of political forces. That he has let loose a cat among political pigeons may turn out to be more accurate, figuratively speaking. He has called for protecting the presidency of Maithripala Sirisena by the Joint Opposition, progressive SLFPers in government and, lo and behold, anti-Ranil forces in the UNP.

To turn to a third metaphor, Vasudeva Nanayakkara (VN) is trying to hit two birds with one stone: Ranil Wickremesinghe, whom he politically despises (please ignore the echo of the p-word); and Gotabhaya Rajapaksa because VN doesn’t think highly of anyone else other than Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Rajapaksa family entourage. It was one thing to defend Mahinda Rajapaksa as a necessary tool of history, but supporting Gotabhaya Rajapaksa would tantamount to leaping into the dark world of authoritarian politics. VN was also photographed on the front row of the recent Viyath Maga presentations in Colombo. But he may not have felt quite at home there. After all, he had spent the formative years of his political life sitting among giants of a superior kind. I should not get ahead of myself and say that Vasudeva Nanayakkara is starting a new political line as I am describing it here. What is important is that the idea of a new alignment of forces that VN has suggested may take a life of its own, regardless of what VN’s subjective intentions are and what he may or may not do in future. In fact, it already has.

The same commentator who habitually swings from one extreme pole to another, and who has both condemned Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as the most dangerous ‘securitocrat’ in the Mahinda Rajapaksa government and now sees him as the new messiah, has taken to Vasudeva’s idea, calling it Plan A, or Plan B, or whatever, and identifying potential new leaders in the UNP. More significantly, Basil Rajapaksa has shot down the prospect of the Joint Opposition (JO) protecting the Sirisena presidency, or supporting a future Sirisena candidacy. Now Basil Rajapaksa does not speak anymore authoritatively for the JO than Vasudeva Nanayakkara. That’s the whole point: political forces are in a flux and the presidential-cum-proportional representation system has eroded party boundaries and discipline and individuals and group and move from pole to another far more freely than at any time before.

There is another interesting dimension. Basil Rajapaksa has been closer to Ranil Wickremesinghe than he has ever been to Maithripala Sirisena. Adding intrigue to political speculation is another related news report yesterday – that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe has given orders that the Joint Opposition be provided with all necessary state facilities for its upcoming May Day rally at the Galle Face Green. On the face of it, it is a positively democratic government gesture to the opposition. But the cynics would also see it as a provocative shot at the Sirisena faction of the SLFP especially given its shivers about coming up a distant third once again in May Day crowd comparisons. What profound political criteria that preoccupy our political masters!

Mr. Gotabhaya Rajapaksa may read all he wants about Donald Trump. But he would do well to focus on how Trump won the election rather than try to learn from him as how to run a government. America is a big country and it can easily survive the Trump presidency, but a similar offering for a small country like Sri Lanka will be truly disastrous. I for one would like to think that deliberately or otherwise, Vasudeva Nanayakkara has thrown open the discussion for considering a range of alternative possibilities of political alignments. This may not be to the liking of Viyath Maga organizers. But the yahapalanaya forces have more than one option.