Sri Lanka: People will vote to endorse the brewing “Political Crisis”
With Rajapaksa assumed to have another comeback, President Sirisena will have a harder time ahead than his “advisors” had calculated.
by Kusal Perera-( February 8, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Saturday is D-Day for President Sirisena and the Sirisena-Wickramasinghe “Unity” government. Independence celebrations over, 15.8 million voters would go to polls on Saturday 10 February to elect long delayed LG bodies in an election that virtually decides the political power in a three cornered do or die battle.
Politically, the first month of 2018 created many downturns and possible crises for the future. The LG elections itself became a forerunner of conflicts and political speculations. The SLFP campaign showed President Sirisena on a high risk political adventure in a bid to wrest control of the majority of the Sinhala popular vote. When he contested the presidency in 2015 January as the Common Candidate of the opposition led by the UNP, he was contesting against the “war winning” SLFP candidate Rajapaksa, highlighting mega corruption, authoritarian rule and a promise to return to decent, democratic governance. The urban middle class ganged up on those issues, the rural voter was not very much interested in, as relevant to their living. Candidate Sirisena didn’t then realise he would nevertheless be portrayed as the betrayer of the Sinhala Buddhist SLFP vote. As president he expected to take control of the SLFP by doling out cabinet positions and other portfolios to SLFP members in parliament. On that assumption, he worked overtime during the August 2015 parliamentary election to keep Rajapaksa reduced to a small patch in the Southern Sinhala map. He thus further angered the SLFP vote Rajapaksa singlehandedly mobilised against the UNP to bring 95 SLFP/UPFA members to parliament and restricting UNP to 106 and below the required majority.
When President Sirisena was dragged into hold LG elections he realised, he needs those Rajapaksa Sinhala Buddhist votes to consolidate himself in power. While maintaining his “pro War hero – anti war crimes investigations” patriotic image, he turned himself into a Sinhala “Anna Hazare”. He took the line “anti corruption” is present day “patriotism”. Him pitching the Bond scam investigation report against the UNP thus turned out as the major conflict in the Unity government. In urban society and in media, the demand to translate those promises into practical action, saw the arrest of Arjun Aloysius the owner of Perpetual Treasuries and its CEO Kasun Palihena while President Sirisena was celebrating 70 years of independence. He also threw out a nonpartisan facade and wanted 34 cases cited in the PRECIFAC Report to be debated in parliament along with the Bond scam report.
After much haggling between the JO/JVP and PM Wickramasinghe over the date for the debate, it was finally agreed for 06 February. That debate fizzled out with most MPs avoiding it. Meanwhile Rajapaka’s cousin Udayanga Weeratunge, a former Ambassador to Russia was detained at the Dubai airport with UNP leaders trying their best to have him extradited to Colombo. Surprisingly there is not much hype over that from presidential quarters. Perhaps afraid Gotabhaya will be directly linked to Udayanga on the MIG deal and that would impact negatively on Sinhala Buddhist votes Sirisena is wholly dependent on.
How much of all that would give him votes at this LG election is debatable and would be seen after the final count. With ‘Ward’ results made available on Saturday night itself, it would yet be easy to see the direction of the blowing. Some expect the UNP to win around 40 per cent of the LG bodies outside North-East that works out to around 105 Councils. That leaves Sirisena and Rajapaksa to share the balance 157 Southern Councils between them, assuming the JVP will not have control in any. If Rajapaksa manages 95 of that number leaving Sirisena with only 62 Councils, Rajapaksa would call the shots, not Wickramasinghe.
Either way, LG election results would catalyse the crisis in this government further that would not be restricted to parliament thereafter. If Sirisena comes behind Rajapaksa, the UNP will dictate terms in the government wanting to consolidate its power on the argument it is people’s mandate. How Sirisena would thereafter stick to his promise of a new beginning after February 10 will then be like him sitting in a game of chess without the front row ‘Pawns’ and the ‘Queen’. Despite what the results could be, leading government figures now on a divided election platform keep saying they will have a government of their own, after LG elections. For now while the people are yet to vote, the government remains fractured and beyond repair.
Even IF Sirisena gets that “miraculous majority” vote, it would not be easy for him to honour his resurrected and regularly made promise for “clean” rule with or without the Unity government. He himself has accused the UNP leadership of corruption after the Bond scam Report. There is also the possibility of UNP backed Colombo “civil society” groups raising the “warship” and the ‘Spectrum” deals in retaliation after LG elections to checkmate President Sirisena himself. Anti corruption turned the main election slogan over the past two three weeks could thus boomerang on Sirisena in post LG election 2018. Whether the urban middle class believes Sirisena or not, the demand to check mate “King” Rajapaksa would also gain momentum making compromises more difficult than he anticipated.
With Rajapaksa assumed to have another comeback, President Sirisena will have a harder time ahead than his “advisors” had calculated. If given a new lease of life, Rajapaksa and his JO will not allow President Sirisena any breathing space to sit back and work out new strategy, without a stake for them. It would thus leave this “Yahapalana” government tottering along for sometime, though PM Wickramasinghe assures this “unity” government will continue whatever the LG election results would be.
President Sirisena projecting a totally different image to what he carried during the 2015 August election, would not allow him to be the “anti Rajapaksa” – “pro Wickramasinghe” President he was, once the February 10 elections are over. His own men in the cabinet will not allow him to play safe with the UNP for long. At LG level, his SLFP men cannot in anyway support the UNP to take over any Council where the UNP lead without an overall majority. Thus, out of the 105 plus LG bodies the UNP is tipped to win, if SLFP and SLPP Councillors workout a coalition between them (they will not wait till party leaders compromise) at local level, they may take on a further 15 to 20 Councils under them from the UNP.
Politically, the post February period would usher in serious uncertainties. Western interests that worked for a regime change and was visiting Colombo in drones after the 2015 January elections and helped the Sirisena-Wickramasinghe Unity government to compromise on a co-sponsored UNHRC Resolution that’s now almost shelved, stay very much annoyed. Most Western countries now face difficulties in compromising with Tamil Diasporic factions in their own electoral constituencies with demands to censure the Yahapalana government becoming loud with every new day. That is quite evident from the EU GSP ”Plus” Report covering the period 2016-2017. Its plain the EU is not happy with this government’s performance.
That will raise the next question, will the West accept a new coalition between Sirisena and Rajapaksa? For now in how the post election scenario could unfold, they will not be able to think of any change of regime immediately. If Sirisena is pushed into a new compromise with Rajapaksa by ditching the UNP, they may nevertheless accelerate their campaign demanding the GoSL to honour the co-sponsored UN Resolution. They may also weigh in the “Wickramasinghe factor” in the UNP as an alternative viable factor. “Who else?” will be the question that would keep them hesitant in taking immediate decisions.
As much as the West, the ITAK leadership in TNA will also be left without any headway in pushing for Constitutional Reforms after LG elections, even if they are voted with over 80 per cent control of LG bodies in the North and close to 50 per cent in the East. That vote would mean nothing with a fractured Unity government in Colombo, left without any teeth to bite into Constitutional reforms as ITAK wants.
The ITAK leadership in TNA will therefore find themselves in troubled and deep in hot waters without any acceptable excuse for piggybacking the UNP for 03 long and unproductive years. With the TNA leadership deciding they will opt for electioneering instead of taking a position on mega corruption at the parliamentary debate, also proves they are no more interested in principle political positions, but live on blind belief they can still persuade the discredited UNP leadership to push ahead with Constitutional Reforms. It’s their blind beliefs that leaves a veteran Octogenarian politician like Sampanthan with close to 60 years of active politics incapable of reading this Unity government’s politics right. At least in the way the protesting women in Keppapilavu read the duplicity of this government. All of them at the helm of TNA will now have to search for excuses for their failure to deliver on loud political promises made from election platforms not just this time, but in 2015 August elections too.
The South cannot be any better with political instability and serious economic decline. Neither Sirisena nor Rajapaksa has any alternate workable development programme to compromise on. They would only compromise on a power equation with numbers and positions. Whoever takes control of government thereafter is destined to live with China and corruption. The economy will not be redefined in any way to channel adequate benefits for the rural poor who voted more with the SLFP and SLPP. Colombo and its “filthy rich” will remain with an advantage in a seriously rotting economy. That again would mean nothing new in Sri Lanka. That with heavy polarising of forces in the Sinhala South during election campaigns giving way to Sinhala populism, Sri Lanka would be left with ethno-religious politics deciding what North-East Tamil and Muslim people should live with in year 2018 too.
In brief, the Unity government after the LG elections will be left as fragile as no other coalition government had been in mid term before. Election campaigning by President Sirisena had already laid the ground for the political crises ahead despite how the people would vote on Saturday. What the EC would read out as official results will only add salt to the bitter pickle on the boil.
