The UNP Crisis: Is The UPFA Government Taking Sides?
By Rajan Philips -October 20, 2013
Rajan Philips
It really does not matter who is in the middle of whom: whether the government is in the middle of the UNP crisis or whether the UNP is in the middle of the government. Beneath the all-powerful presidency the two major parties are seamlessly meaningless in parliament. For party differences and loyalties you have to go out of town. There you will find differences not only between parties but also within parties. At the last PC elections, the UPFA contestants were at war with themselves for the coveted Chief Minister position and the six crumbs (four Ministers, Chair and Deputy Chair) of the PC system. The UPFA battles are not over even after winning the elections, but a new battle has erupted within the UNP after losing yet another two elections. The Matara mayhem, as it has been alliteratively called, has exposed not only the seething discontents within the UNP, but also the two timing enthusiasm of the UPFA government over the internal affairs of the UNP.
The Matara mayhem is also a microcosm of the national malaise, to keep extending the alliteration. The bazar fracas showed many things, or everything endemic about our current politics. It showed the provincial turf wars and caste loyalties that are now among the drivers of national politics. One politically migratory bird (Mangala) took on another geographically migratory bird (Sajith). There was father-son solidarity that is as old as Lanka’s modern politics, but demonstrated now with the burst of gunfire. The usually missing-in-action national police were to ready to arrest even before a crime was committed. The UPFA – in parliament and elsewhere – has been gleefully sending out mixed messages. The beleaguered Ranil Wickremasingh is still the official Presidential favourite to lead the opposition. But some of the UPFA Ministers are cheering the disgruntled challenger, Sajith Premadasa. On whose side are these Ministers in the UPFA infighting in Kandy, where even the Prime Minister joined a street protest for his son who had been denied the Chief Minister position in the Central Province?
