Who now has the last laugh?
By N. Sathiya Moorthy-2018-02-23Only the 'blindest' of the blind would pretend that the local government (LG) election results should not upset the 'national unity government' experiment, and SLFP President Maithripala Sirisena and UNP Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe should continue, as if it were business as usual. It would have been so if they had stuck together still, but not in the way these 'well-wishers' would have wanted but in the way the duo had brought down the image of their 'national unity' Government in the esteem of the very people who had campaigned for them hard without political benefits for the self, and their voters, who did not anyway get anything in return, even if they had hoped and/or aspired for it.
And who are these 'well-wishers', or what is their motive(s)? They could be the 'international community' (read: West), Sri Lanka's very own self-styled/self-confessed (?) 'liberals' (read: 'Colombo Seven' elite), and busy-bodies representing the nation's second-largest industry after the 'war industry' earlier, but possibly the single-largest industry, post-war. The reference is to the NGO/INGO outfits, who have branded phraseology to convince anyone on anything on any issue of their choosing, and also at any time of their choosing.
Grant it to their grit and determination, their never-say-die attitude and approach to the mission on hand. They did not want Mahinda Rajapaksa then, they do not want him now, but for once they (too) cannot wish away the pointers from the nation-wide LG poll results.
If they had been keen on the longevity of the 'coalition' Government, they would have done their bit very long ago – or, be seen and heard as doing the same very long ago. As is their wont, they do not get to see, or do not want to see, better still, not seen as seeing and hearing whatever the rest of the humanity sees and hears, until they want it, and have chosen their target, time and issue. Today, they do not still want Mahinda R back, whatever be the verdict of the Sri Lankan population, they have not wanted Maithri S on the latter's term, they wanted (only) the 'economic liberal' of the UNP/Ranil kind. But when things take their own Third World ways (including the exposure that the Central Bank Bonds scam got – not that the scam per se, was/is unacceptable – they are at their wit's end).
Last supper
It is on this score that Mahinda R too seems to be meeting his detractors halfway through – or, possibly the whole hog. He too wants Maithri out of the way. Going by media reports, Mahinda would rather 'believe Ranil's one word than Maithri's seven signed documents'. It is his experience possibly flowing from his 'last supper' with Maithri, when the latter had reasserted his loyalty to the then leader, even when cornered with facts, but would cross over the very next morning, to contest and defeat Mahinda, in the days and weeks to follow.
Victory can do things to the victor more than to the loser. The Tamil victims of the war, and more so the 'war crimes' (whether they still feel that the war itself was the crime?), and also the Muslim victims of BBS attacks, both oral and physical, were focussed and determined to have Mahinda, or the Rajapaksas, out of what they considered was the harm's ways. Like Maithri and Ranil, they too had their way(s). Rather, they were the ones who made the way for the other two to take, and take strides.
Against this, Mahinda was still in the victor's world. Whether or not the war victory blinded his eyes to the prospects of peace and a political settlement post-war, he definitely was blinded to the realities of the moving moss around him. Maithri's moves were known even 18 months prior to when he actually stuck, but Mahinda would not know, nor possibly would he have believed it, if known.
Taking big leaps
Today, when the LG polls victory is his, Mahinda wants to settle scores first with Maithri than to take big leaps, forward, or attempt to do so – and/or, be seen as doing so, or attempting to do so. Going by reports, he would rather want Maithri's Party Presidency first than the nation's Prime Minister's post.
Rather, he at least seems convinced than some of Maithri's SLFP-UPFA members that the President does not have the power to sack the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, in this era of 19th Amendment.
Yet, man still proposes and God disposes. Whether it was Mahinda's decision to advance the Presidential Polls to January 2015, if only to beat the inevitability of the anti-incumbency that he saw mushroom just three or four years after the war victory, or that of those that planned the Maithri candidacy for 2015, they could do only so much.
Mahinda wanted a third term, got the Constitution amended to facilitate his contest - but as TNA's R. Sampanthan said, at the time, it was for Sri Lanka's voters to decide. And they decided against him.
Ahead of the twin polls of 2015, those that planned Maithri's elevation, did not think of the 'day after' or the UNP's inherent compulsions to go it alone in the Parliamentary polls. When that happened, they did not have the time, inclination, or energies (not to speak of the strategy) to counter it, if only to keep Mahinda out. In a way, the people kept Mahinda out of power, even in the second, parliamentary polls of that very year.
Even today, by voting Mahinda massively in the LG polls, the voter has sent in a message - not to ensure that Mahinda returns instantly, but to tell the duo that they would not mind, if it came to that, and it is for the latter to decide, here and now.
Who then is the real victor - or, who does not have, or is anyone at all laughing, whether first or last?
(The writer is a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, the multi-disciplinary Indian public-policy think-tank, headquartered in New Delhi. email: sathiyam54@gmail.com)
