The Crisis isn’t over Uncertainty ahead
Sri Lanka’s unprecedented political crisis is going into its second week with little resolved and only further troubles visible on the horizon. It is unprecedented because this is the first time since independence that a Prime Minister has been removed without the dissolution of Parliament or a loss of a vote of confidence in the House or the resignation of the incumbent.
What President Maithripala Sirisena has done in sacking Wickremesinghe and replacing him with Mahinda Rajapaksa is against the spirit of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.
Sri Lanka’s pristine record of changing the heads of Governments peacefully and in accordance with the law driven by the will of the people even through decades of civil war and civil strife is now broken. Sirisena will go down in history as the leader who took that fateful step. This is a Constitutional Coup that has rubbished the idealistic spirit that propelled the coalition that elected this President.
Constitutionalists remain deeply divided whether Sirisena’s actions were legal and in accordance with the country’s basic Law. While the experts may argue about various subsections of the Constitution, and the interpretation of the words, the premise of the 19th Amendment was to reduce the power that the President had to remove the Prime Minister. Now we have a situation where the country has two Prime Ministers, each claiming legitimacy, leaving the populace confused and afraid.
Sri Lankans displayed contrasting emotions to the news reflecting the deep polarization of our society. Rajapaksa’s supporters were jubilant, plastering walls with posters and erecting cutouts, while United National Party supporters as well as Civil Society activists were enraged at Sirisena’s actions.
The widespread anger drove these supporters to gather in huge numbers at a UNP rally in Colpetty in Colombo. The UNP had not drawn a crowd of that size in many years. The crowd comprised a range of people from die-hard UNPers, those who had accompanied their MPs from the villages and boroughs, to social activists appalled at Sirisena’s decision and others who wanted to show their disapproval of what occurred.
Whether this crowd would actually support a UNP Government led by Wickremesinghe in the future is not known, but the party which was moribund and meandering along without direction and purpose certainly got a shot in the arm as the country’s anger at Sirisena helped the grand old party look good, all of a sudden.
Finally the issue has to be tested in Parliament to see who, Wickremesinghe or Rajapaksa commands the majority of Members.
Frantic scramble for a majority
Clearly Rajapaksa had not been sure of a majority in Parliament when he was appointed.The three week prorogation has given Rajapaksa time to cobble together a majority. In the 225-member House the magic number that is needed is 113. As of Friday there were 118 MPs opposed to Rajapaksa’s appointment.
They gathered in Committee Room 1 of Parliament in the presence of Speaker Karu Jayasuriya and passed a resolution condemning the President’s actions as illegal and stating that whatever orders and appointments Rajapaksa made during this period were invalid in Law.
MPs who crossed over to the Rajapaksa side have been rewarded with Ministerial posts. Other MPs who were with Sirisena and may have left and joined Wickremesinghe have also been given portfolios to prevent them from jumping ship. This has left all Rajapaksa’s supporters without the perks of office signalling that once Rajapaksa consolidates his position there will most certainly be a Cabinet reshuffle.
This article being written on Saturday will not attempt to predict what the numbers will be when Parliament is reconvened. There have been a number of crossovers from the UNP to Rajapaksa and that process is on-going. The lack of morals, pure greed and shamelessness of the representatives that we Sri Lankans have chosen will ensure that these Members who are offering themselves like Courtesans to the highest bidder may skip hither and thither.
Sri Lanka Muslim Congress leader Rauff Hakeem said “there are dealers going around and trying to buy MPs as if it is a marketplace. This is a shame to the dignity of the MPs.”
The ferocity of the bargaining and scramble to get a majority was exposed by UNP MP Palitha Range Bandara saying that he was offered 500 million rupees to support Rajapaksa.”A proxy for Rajapaksa called me today and offered 500 million rupees to support the new Prime Minister and they also offered a Cabinet portfolio,” Bandara told Reuters.
He did not identify the caller but said he would go to the Bribery Commission with a complaint. Rajapaksa’s supporters dismissed the allegation. “We did not offer money to anybody, we don’t have money to offer to anybody,” said Joint Opposition MP Mahindananda Aluthgamage. However, there were reports that that Rajapaksa’s brother Basil was meeting MPs to make sure of their support.
The principal players in the drama
Temple Trees, the official residence of the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, has been occupied by a large number of UNPers ever since the shock announcement on 26 October. The crowd inside are in turn angry, jubilant and deeply worried as news of the rapid developments filter in.
Inside the maelstrom Wickremesinghe is staying calm. One of his staffers said that “everybody’s blood pressure is up, only Ranil’s BP is normal.” Anyone who comes to him is told “I am still the Prime Minister and will not leave Temple Trees until and unless I am voted out in Parliament.” A string of foreign correspondents have being interviewing him and basing their stories around the deposed PM.
Wickremesinghe’s patrician aloofness has been a contributing factor in his troubled relationship with Sirisena.
Supremely confident of himself and his views, Wickremesinghe comes from a class of people used to wielding power. Members of his family have been in politics and produced J. R. Jayewardene, the towering figure in post-independence politics and several other leaders in media and other influential positions.
Wickremesinghe is also surrounded by like-minded friends who are also powerful in the UNP and in Government. Sometimes getting to the PM is difficult as these associates act as a screen. Often suited in immaculate Western clothes and sometimes condescending, he is the very opposite of his erstwhile partner in Government - Sirisena.
The President hails from a rural family and was a Government official before entering Parliament. He was attracted to Leftist politics. An intelligent man with supreme oratorical skills in Sinhala, Sirisena was obviously hurt at the way Wickremesinghe and the UNP Cabinet of Ministers regarded him. He once complained that when he speaks at Cabinet meetings the UNPers are “looking at their (smart) phones and poking at them.”
The UNP also cleverly kept leaking information to the Media that Sirisena was thwarting them from implementing their Neo-Liberal agenda. This was a sore point and at times Sirisena has shown his exasperation at the situation saying he finds out what the Government is proposing to do from the Newspapers.
After his surprise sacking of Wickremesinghe, Sirisena is under considerable pressure from the international community to act according to the law. The United States and the European Union have urged Sirisena to honour the Constitution and said Parliament must be allowed to choose its leader.
In addition, there is the implied threat of economic sanctions.The European Union could deny Sri Lanka duty-free access to its market if the island backs off its rights commitments, the grouping’s envoy has said. Sirisena told UN Secretary General António Guterres in a telephone conversation that “the appointment of the new Prime Minister has been done in keeping with the Constitution of Sri Lanka,” Sirisena said on social network Twitter.
Rajapaksa on the other hand comes from a family that has held traditional feudal power and political power after independence. His father was a leading political figure and Cabinet Minister for many years. His son, elder brother and various other close relatives are in politics. Blessed with charisma and great inter-personal skills Rajapaksa is a larger-than-life figure who is beloved by millions in his Sinhala-Buddhist base. The fortunes of his party hinge entirely on him.
A frequent visitor to Temples, Rajapaksa has spent the last few days helicoptering to Kandy to see the Mahanayakes of the Malwatte and Asgiriya Temples and thence to Kataragama to make offerings at the Devale. But he did not forget the Head of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith.
During his last years in office as President he was accused of favouring a select group of businessmen, friends and being oligarchic. He has also been accused of sheltering former Security Forces officers allegedly guilty of war crimes during the last phase of the war against the LTTE.
Normally, a sagacious political player it is surprising he had taken on the leadership of the country under Sirisena whom he has said he cannot trust, and also at a time when the economy is in dire straits. It was expected that he would have allowed the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe combine to muddle along until the end of next year where his party could have easily won the Presidential elections due in December 2019.It is also surprising, with his political acumen, that he took it on, without the security of an iron-clad majority in Parliament.
What’s next?
The Speaker, Karu Jayasuriya, told reporters on Friday that Sirisena had agreed to call Parliament on Nov. 7, following calls for an early session to end the crisis. But the President’s Office has not yet issued a formal statement. Asked about this a senior official in the Presidential Secretariat said “well the Speaker has said this and we have not been asked to deny it.”
It is still unclear whether reports that Jayasuriya has agreed to recognize Rajapaksa as the PM when Parliament is convened are true.
In case, Wickremesinghe is still recognized as the Prime Minister then the Rajapaksa supporters will have to move a vote of No-Confidence against him. If Rajapaksa has been recognized as the PM, then the UNP, which has already filed a Motion of No-Confidence against him, will ask for a vote.
A vote will also have to be taken if the Rajapaksa administration brings forward a Budget, or a Vote on Account which is a vote for spending on daily expenses of the Government for a specified period of time. This would be until the new Government puts together a Budget according to its own policies.
In any case, it is unlikely that Parliament would be dissolved as the 19th Amendment says that the House has to run for a minimum of four and a half years until March 1st 2020. Parliament can be dissolved by the President only if the House passes a resolution to do so by a two-thirds majority.
In case, Rajapaksa loses a motion of No-Confidence, the President may be able to ask another person of his choice to seek a majority. But as Constitutionalist Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne, a UNP MP, points out, the law dictates that the President chooses someone “who in his opinion” commands the confidence of the House. In fact, the drafters of the Constitution went to great pains to change the wording in Sinhala from the word kalpana which existed in the original document which means “thinks” to mathaya which means opinion.
“In presenting an opinion the President must, according to the law, show evidence for the decision,” he added. “It is a basic principle of Administrative and Constitutional law that in forming an opinion that person must present evidence to support it. So, in case, the UNP wins an NCM against Rajapaksa then the party will inform him that they have the numbers and he should choose whoever leads the UNP as the PM.”
In case, Rajapaksa is defeated, Sirisena has vowed he would “not stay for even one hour,” implying he would resign as President. Under the Constitution then Parliament would elect a President from among the Members of the House. It was under this provision that after President Ranasinghe Premadasa’s assassination, D. B. Wijetunga was elected as the fourth Executive President on 7 May 1993, unanimously by Parliament to complete the remainder of Premadasa’s term.
Tomorrow Rajapaksa’s supporters are due to flood Colombo and occupy the space near the Parliament in a mass show of support.
No doubt we all hope that this crisis, the President has plunged the country into, will be resolved without violence on the streets. It would be a sad sight to see violence returning to this country which is recovering from decades of war and years of the Rajapaksa’s oppressive rule where anyone who opposed their methods were assaulted, maimed or murdered.
The only thing that is certain is that uncertainty lies ahead.
