‘If Ranil becomes P.M. again ,I shall resign within 2 hours’ says president; 11 boycott meeting!

(Lanka e News – 01.Oct.2018, 4.15PM) President Pallewatte Gamarala who violated the constitution , and hitherto only proved throughout his tenure of office as a biggest cut throat cum buffoon of a leader the world has ever produced said before the UPFA group of MPs , if Ranil is going to be the prime minister (P.M.)again, he would resign his post within two hours.

The president made this revelation before the forlorn people discarded president’s group at a luncheon today at the presidential palace , while adding there is a conspiracy of the European union including the US to make Ranil the P.M. , and if that happens he will not be in the presidential post for even two more hours, he assured.

A UPFA Spokesman speaking to Lanka e news said , it is apparent the president has become frightened after seeing the mammoth people’s protest at Kollupitiya on the 30 th to defeat the MARA- SIRA junta , and safeguard Democracy.

During the discussion, the president also said , he made Mahinda Rajapakse P.M because Ranil conspired to kill him which story was endorsed by Dayasiri Jayasekera. The Dedigama organizer who stood up questioned is it right for the individual who says he is be murdered to go the one who is to commit it, while querying is this the dirty politics they want us also to engage in ? Following the Dedigama organizer’s statement , and some others speaking for him, the meeting was concluded by President and Dayasiri .

No Matter what conspiracy and underhand tactics the president is resorting to muster support through all this ballyhoo, 11 M.P.s including the ex general secretary Duminda Dissanayake boycotted the meeting.

It is clear now, this group when it began to muster the support of 113 they had with them 96 which has now dropped to 85. This means they need 28 M.P.s more even by paying Rs. one billion each ! So far they have bought over 5 M.P.s only. They are Wijedasa Rajapakse, Ananda Aluthgamage ,Vasantha Senanayake, Suresh Vadivel and Dunesh Gankande.

Meanwhile Mahinda Rajapakse announced , if the 113 members cannot be mustered , he would resign his P.M. post

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by     (2018-11-01 10:48:27)

Geopolitical implications of Lanka’s political crisis

China’s Ambassador Cheng Xueyuan meeting Mahinda Rajapaksa at his Wijerama Mawatha residence in Colombo a day after the latter was sworn in as Prime Minister by President Sirisena.

 2018-11-02

Sri Lanka’s democratic process, which suffered a devastating blow last Friday, is likely to be on the reverse gear in the coming months and years. The pre-2015 regime, seems to be moving hell and earth to re-establish itself in power, while the big powers have their eyes fixed on the developments in Sri Lanka. 
The constitutional crisis that erupted on Friday night following what is widely seen as President Maithripala Sirisena’s controversial and morally unacceptable move to remove the sitting prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, has its geopolitical implications, too.

Although at the centre of this geopolitical aspect of the Sri Lankan crisis are China, India and the United States, the spotlight is largely on China, the only country which permitted its ambassador to meet Mahinda Rajapaksa upon his swearing-in as the prime minister on Friday by President Sirisena.  Addressing a protest rally on Tuesday in Colombo, a United National Party lawmaker alleged that Chinese money was propping up the anti-democratic forces and helping them to return to power through the backdoor.  A few months ago, a New York Times article claimed that China had lavishly funded Rajapaksa’s 2015 botched re-election campaign for the presidency. 

China has much at stake in Sri Lanka, with Hambantota being the jewel in the crown of the soon-to-become world empire, which is not so naïve as to ignore the saying that whoever controls Hambantota, will control the Indian Ocean all the way to Antarctica. Given the propensity for a military confrontation between the United States and China against the backdrop of US apprehensions about China’s military rise, the trade war between them, the growing tensions in the South China Sea and the security concerns of India, Japan and even Australia, the importance of the Hambantota port has shot up manifold. 

When the government changed in January 2015, China had already built part of the Hambantota port for Sri Lanka and an airport in Mattala.  The two projects were commercial flops and had negative returns, adding further strain on the country’s growing debt burden.  Meanwhile, Chinese companies had penetrated Sri Lanka’s power, road and building construction sectors and started landfilling for the US$ 1.4 billion Colombo port city where the Chinese developers had been given a 20-hectare plot of Sri Lanka’s sovereign territory as freehold, with nary a protest from the so-called nationalists or blind patriots.  
The port city was a major security concern for India, as the new city developed by the Chinese was adjoining the Colombo harbour, through which 70 percent of India’s shipping cargo passed.  Heightening the security concerns of India, the US and Japan were the ‘secret’ visits of Chinese military submarines to the Colombo port. One such visit took place when Japan’s Prime Minister was on an official visit to Sri Lanka. 

The Rajapaksa regime put all its eggs in China’s basket and earned the displeasure of India, Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour, whose cooperation was sine qua non in the quest for a solution to the national question.  Yet, India stomached the Rajapaksa government’s China-leaning because it felt an all-out hostility would be a worse option. This appears to be India’s policy on the current constitutional imbroglio in Sri Lanka.
The post-2015 Wickremesinghe-Sirisena government took some corrective measures and renegotiated the port city deal. The freehold offer was annulled, but the government, in a desperate bid to tide over the deepening debt crisis, handed over 85 percent of the Hambantota port to China under a joint-venture deal.
Yet, Wickremesinghe performed his balancing act well vis-à-vis India, China, the US and Japan while the Indian Ocean region was fast becoming a flashpoint for a big power conflict, what with the US and India naming the Indian Ocean region Indo-Pacific and entering into pacts that have made them military allies.

India, Japan, the US and Australia have, meanwhile, intensified military cooperation and are reviving a quadrilateral defence arrangement to counter China’s military rise and its assertive diplomacy, especially in the South China and Indian Ocean regions.  It is against this backdrop that Sri Lanka has plunged into a political crisis with serious international implications.  It may not be an unintelligent guess if one were to assume that China precipitated the ‘constitutional coup’ in a bid to block Wickremesinghe’s proposal to hand over to India the development of the Colombo Port’s Eastern Container Terminal.  China was not so pleased when the Wickremesinghe government ditched Chinese companies and handed over to India a mega project to build tens of thousands of houses for the war-affected people in the North.

"The Rajapaksa regime put all its eggs in China’s basket and earned the displeasure of India, Sri Lanka’s closest neighbour, whose cooperation was sine qua non in the quest for a solution to the national question.  Yet, India stomached the Rajapaksa government’s China-leaning because it felt an all-out hostility would be a worse option"

The question that arises is whether the projects earmarked for India, including the ones in the north, the Colombo Port’s Eastern Container Terminal project and the project strategic oil tanks in Trincomalee, will now go to China, if the Rajapaksas ensconced themselves in power.  
With the bigger focus being the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections, China may, in a quid-pro-quo deal, waive part of the debt or offer concessions on debt repayment, in the event, Rajapaksa emerges victorious in a floor test in parliament in the days to come. This will enable the Sirisena-Rajapaksa government to take measures to ease the living cost burden of the people and further entrench themselves in the seat of power, notwithstanding the fact that a substantial segment of Sri Lankan society, especially the educated and politically mature people, have condemned their action as undemocratic, unconstitutional and immoral. 
Since there is no free lunch in politics, China’s largesse will come with a must-do list.  The Hambantota port may be used by China’s military vessels on one pretext or another.  China may place a request and obtain a tiny island near the Hambantota port on lease. The request had been turned down by the Wickremesinghe government.

Hambantota is a key pivot in China’s Belt-and-Road initiative, which can certainly contribute to world peace through enhanced and inter-dependent trade. But at the same time the possibility of BRI ports becoming military facilities of China cannot be ruled out, with China’s yuan diplomacy pushing many developing countries into a debt trap and compelling them to do China’s bidding.

In this big power game, the leverage India and the US have is limited. They had lost the Maldives and just regained it with the defeat of pro-China President Abdulla Yameen.  Even if India and the West add pressure on Sri Lanka through the United Nations Human Rights Council process, the Sirisena-Rajapaksa government can overcome the crisis with China’s backing.  They may warn that Sri Lanka may lose the GSP Plus concessions on account of the country’s poor human rights record and weak democratic credentials.  The Rajapaksas have faced this before.  But the West and India will not sit idle if, under a Rajapaksa dispensation, the country becomes one with China.  Sri Lanka may become a key theatre in the coming world war. 
With undemocratic forces gaining upper hand in Sri Lanka’s political crisis, the bigger danger is the country adopting a Chinese-style virtual one-party political system.

Mea culpa! Step back to move forward? (Confessions of a Constitution reader...)

POWER: plays – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

 Friday, 2 November 2018


I am not often wrong. But when I err, I sometimes do so in spades. Sorry, but Homer nodded in his last column on many legal grounds. However, a ‘Mistake’ does not become a ‘Sin’ until or unless one refuses to acknowledge and rectify albeit inadvertent transgression. Therefore, with due apologies to my legal-eagle critics, let me at least attempt to set myself right and also set the record straight.

In my column published on Wednesday 31 October, I made several erroneous assertions based on an equal number of faulty assumptions:

For one, “that after 2015’s 19th Amendment, the prime minister can only cease to hold office by death, resignation, ceasing to be a member of parliament; or if the government as a whole has lost the confidence of parliament by dint of being defeated post the throne speech, budget, or a vote of no-confidence [Articles 46(2) and 48]; and that the president has been too literal in his interpretation of Article 42(4); that he has the right to appoint as PM whoever ‘in his opinion’ is ‘likely to command the confidence’ of the house”. This however has to do with the appointment of a premier and I appear to have missed that it doesn’t necessarily validate President Maithripala Sirisena’s unconstitutional removal of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Then again, “that Article 43(3) gives the president the authority to change the cabinet of ministers, and that the sitting prime minister ceases to function when the cabinet of ministers have been removed according to Article 46(2); and also that the president’s unilateral abrogation of the UNF-UPFA pact effectively terminated this cabinet and therefore its premier’s tenure”.

But the tenure or termination of the National Unity Government (NUG) is contingent on parliament, so its term can’t lapse until the House says so. There is, I am told, a specific provision for its continuity, and mere changes in composition will not automatically result in dissolution of the NUG or cabinet ceasing to function. In any event, as my pragmatic friends point out, the NUG continues its merry misadventures since the UNF and SLMC at least cohabit for the nonce.

There was also a succinct piece by that MP-cum-constitutional expert setting out why the removal of the sitting prime minister is unconstitutional. Which, having perused at close quarters, I find I must agree with unreservedly and with no leaning towards patronising inferiority but a lingering sense of shamefaced admission that my arguments were not rigorous enough. At least, as a citizen concerned about my nation-state, I am reading the Constitution increasingly intently!

Also, last but by no means least, I essayed: “So perhaps we will forbear to mention the UNP’s own short memory as it appears to have forgotten that their prime minister was also in a minority in government in January 2015 and was sworn in on the confident opinion of the president whose loyalty – or attention or anything else – he no longer commands. We need not even mention that if the born again democratic-republicans who are pounding the pulpit on legality and constitutionality now were to refer to the terms of the 19th Amendment, the not so small print would remind them that the cabinet of over 30 was in itself contrary to the spirit of the constitution – so let’s not lose too much sleep or waste airtime over the letter of the law not being honoured. On to impeachment of the incumbent president or a no-confidence motion against the now ensconced new premier or whatever the next fortnight brings.”

Well, perhaps what I could or should have considered is this: that Ranil Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister in January 2015, at a time when provisions for the removal of an incumbent premier were entirely discretionary, and at the whim and fancy of a president under the 1978 Constitution. When RW was seated in a minority government, he could have been defeated by a democratic parliamentary vote on any grounds, but his coalition partner the president would have asked him to continue despite not commanding a confident majority in the House under the writ that prevailed then.

Also, one must recognise (as I have done now, courtesy my critics) that this situation was turned on its head by 19A. The PM’s powers were extended significantly, which was not less than one expected of an ambitious RW then seeking to safeguard his tenure. Plus, conditions for his putative removal were clearly and precisely stipulated.

Ergo, if MS had tried to parachute RW into the PM’s chair vide 19A, he would have to first defeat incumbent D. M. Jayaratne in a No-Confidence Motion (NCM) or budget vote, or ‘persuade’ him to resign. What is more, at any time after the enactment of 19A, vis-à-vis April-August 2015, RW’s January 2015 appointment could have been challenged and defeated through an NCM in the House, which the UPFA would have won hands down by dint of superior numbers.

Last, 19A clearly sets out that when the so-called National Unity Government was formed, the number of cabinet ministers is a matter for parliament to decide. The 30-member limit is pertinent to a single-party government. So 45-plus ministers in the MS-RW administration of yore was “patently constitutional, if immoral”, as a political analyst has convinced me. And I am now persuaded that the letter of the law was not violated by the former regime.

But while it was wrong of me to suggest it, the spirit of that indefensible jumbo cabinet still bothers the Spartan in me – who once baulked at fat-cat politicos asking the burdened populace to tighten austerity belts while they drove to the House and back in super-luxury chariots. 

Be that as it may. I would like to republish my conscientious disclaimer of 31 October (Shades of 95 theses? Not!) that “I am no constitutional or legal expert.” But that could or should in no way invalidate what else I said: “But like most other politically aware readers, I know what I like to see in my democratically elected leaders.” So let me stand by some of the other broader statements I made about the state of politics today. To wit:

That we’re truly upset with Maithripala Sirisena that he has been much less than a democrat and much more than a deceiver. Also, that he’s been prone to play realpolitik – like a long line of many better and brighter republicans before him. And proven publicly that power tends to corrupt and executive power egregiously, which is no shock or surprise anymore. Especially if you consider that our head of state’s political DNA comes from tainted stock, the sterling common candidate of 2015 having been a stalwart in an authoritarian antidemocratic regime under two Rajapaksa administrations spanning a decade from 2005-2015. “Once bitten,” I wrote two days ago, “we the public and our pouting premier could or should have been twice shy.”

Therefore, I retract nothing of what’s immediately above. Rather, I add the charge of coup! and perverse political crisis brought on by authoritarian ambition and early antidemocratic leanings. Which, if left unaddressed by the supreme law of the land, might contour the slow and gradual descent into tyrannical hell redux, courtesy a brace of dictators in tandem?

However, rather than end on the same tenor of personal admissions as I began, let me conclude with the underlined assertion that a Mistake is not a Sin until or unless one refuses to acknowledge or rectify one’s transgression.

Sorry to say that on top of my charges against MS, that he was demonstrably motivated by ambitious realpolitik and a desire to secure an uncertain political future for himself by a political misadventure, I now also believe that he acted unconstitutionally and illegally.

And in addition to agreeing with “the common consensus that the common candidate has both disgraced himself and dismayed the people with his altogether common character”, let me add a clarion call: to subject to the full force of the country’s constitutional law the transgressor who refuses to acknowledge or rectify a Mistake that is rapidly concretising into Sin.

But not because I love one miscreant prime minister less than another malcontent premier more. But because I do love the once blessed island republic of which I am part… son of a small island with a greater destiny than self-serving politicos today have the vision and courage to see.

I end in the fresh hope that the supreme court of the land as much as its legislature will have a rectified vision and the courage to acknowledge that ‘a mistake was made’. It is not too much to hope – a new hope and trust, and one that grows weaker with the guttering flame of democracy being threatened extinction by preachy presidents and low growling autocrats returning to rule the roost – that the law in two other arms of government will not bow before tyrants or bend the knee to fearful expediency.

’Nuff said. The rest is silence. We hope and trust it will not be an enforced one.

(Journalist | Editor-at-large of LMD | Writer #SpeakingTruthToPower)

Prorogation of Parliament: The wider picture

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka before President Maithripala Sirisena at the Presidential Secretariat on October 26. Picture by Sudath Silva

Tennakoon Rusiripala-Saturday, November 3, 2018

There is a big debate going on about the President Maithripala Sirisena’s decision to prorogue the Parliament of Sri Lanka. Apparently foreign parties and missions too are getting involved in the commotion, according to the reports in circulation. It is prudent to examine this in more detail because of the underlying controversy.

Constitutional position:

In the original (1978) Constitution of Sri Lanka, before it was amended last under the 19th Amendment, the governing provision for the prorogation of Parliament read as follows;

70 (1) The President may, from time to time, by proclamation summon, prorogue and dissolve Parliament provided that;

Such an action would be subject to the other provisions in the sub-sections of the articles dealing with the dissolution and prorogation.

This section was amended under the 19th Amendment by repealing paragraph (1) quoted above of that article and by substituting the following;

“(1) The President may by Proclamation, summon, prorogue and dissolve parliament………..’
Provided such decision is taken in accordance with the provisions applicable for the dissolution and prorogation of Parliament.

As it stands for the purpose of our discussion the articles applicable for the dissolution are irrelevant. What is relevant and in force in the Constitution with regard to the prorogation are as follows;
Article 70 (3), A proclamation proroguing Parliament shall fix a date for the next session, not being more than two months after the date of the Proclamation: Provided that, at any time while Parliament stands prorogued, the President may by Proclamation-
(i) Summon Parliament for an earlier date, not being less than three days from the date of such proclamation, OR
(ii) Subject to the provisions of this Article, dissolve Parliament.

Article 70(4), all matters which, having been duly brought before Parliament, have not been disposed of at the time of the Prorogation of Parliament, may be proceeded with during the next session.

Accordingly, these are the only articles relevant to the prorogation of Parliament by the President.

Therefore there is no constitutional violation in the proclamation made by the President to prorogue Parliament. As he has acted under the Constitution there is no need for any external influence to urge him to convene the Parliament before the scheduled date.

The dates of the next session may have been fixed by the President taking into consideration the things that have to be done during the period the Parliament stands prorogued.It becomes totally an act of buffoonery to insist and demand an earlier meeting date of the Parliament disregarding the preceding actions and preparation required prior to the date fixed.

The Position of the Parliamentarians

The claim/demand to reconvene Parliament appears to be a move to appease the supporters of the constituent parties in the UNFGG who are tormented by the surprise move of dethroning their leader. Those who advocate and ostensibly hang on to such a ruse are doing so only to help the supporters to overcome their shock. They know very well that there are provisions clearly enshrined in the Constitution empowering the President to prorogue Parliament.

Prorogation of the Parliament is nothing new to Sri Lanka. From 1947 the Parliament has been prorogued about 50 times. After the New Republican Constitution in 1978, 25 sessions of Parliament have been prorogued. Parliament has been reconvened during the period of prorogation in 1958 by Governor General Sir Oliver Goonetilleke to declare a state of emergency. But for reasons best known to them certain foreign countries have expressed their concern about the recent prorogation.

The subject has been raised in the British Parliament and some members in the House of Commons have expressed views about the removal of Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister. They have to be informed that what the country has done is appointing a new Prime Minister due to the ceasing of the office of the Prime Minister under certain provisions of our written Constitution unlike in Britain (which does not have a written Constitution).

Due to the sudden withdrawal of the main constituent party (UPFA) from the National Government, it became necessary for the President to reconstitute the Cabinet in line of the Constitutional provision of limiting it to 30 members from the current numbers exceeding the maximum that could be accommodated under a normal coalition government. Arising out of this situation, exercising his powers under Article 43(3) of the 19th Amendment adopted under the Ranil Wickremesinghe Government, the President has taken steps to change the assignment of subjects, functions and composition of the Cabinet of Ministers.

But according to Article 46(2) The Prime Minister shall continue to hold office only during the period in which the Cabinet of Ministers continues to function. The office of the PM ceases when the Cabinet is reconstituted.

Then according to Article 42(1), the President shall appoint as Prime Minister, the Member of Parliament, who, in the President’s opinion, is most likely to command the confidence of Parliament.
Perhaps those expressing contrary views may be unaware of these legal provisions enshrined in our Constitution. Some of the foreign countries concerned about our issues have their own issues unsettled. Canada is still debating about the pros and cons of Prorogations. The country is still debating about inconsistent precedents regarding earlier prorogations.

Member of Parliament Ajit Perera who is the spokesman of the UNP showed Erskine May’s Volume in a media conference to give the impression that the former British Constitutional theorist Erskine May holds a different view about our situation in his book, Parliamentary Practice. But this is what he has stated;

“The prorogation of Parliament is a prerogative act of the Crown.”

He has further stated in his 24th edition: “The effect of a prorogation is at once to suspend all businesses including committee proceedings until Parliament shall be summoned again, and to end the sittings of Parliament….”

Ironically, MP Ajit Perera’s references remind us about his exhaustive intervention and attempt to include some irrelevant foot notes into the final COPE report on the Central Bank Bond Scam which everybody knew was aimed to whitewash the sordid episode.

Sri Lanka’s situation

The Indian situation is slightly different due to specific provisions in the Constitution. In India, the President who has the power to prorogue has to, in exercising this power act on the advice of the Prime Minister. The very fact that such a clause is included [in the Indian Constitution] shows that without such a clear directive there is no necessity for the President to consult anyone before exercising the power to prorogue. This is Sri Lanka’s situation.

MP Ajit Perera has to be reminded about the history of exercising of Presidential powers in dissolving Parliament suddenly on the day the 1st COPE report on the Bond Scam was to be tabled under the advice of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. No consensus was sought in that exercise but they relied entirely on the Constitutional powers disregarding unhealthy consequences associated with that dissolution.

Constitution of Sri Lanka (before and after all the amendments) clearly provided the powers to the President to remove the Prime Minister. The 1978 Constitution provided for the removal of the Prime Minister by the President issuing a letter to that effect under his hand.

In the amended version (19A) article 48(1) the circumstances under which the Prime Minister ceases to hold office are; By removal from his office; Resignation OR otherwise.

Removal from office is the same power given to the President under the amended Constitution which however was more fully elaborated in the previous Constitution.

It is therefore clear that the removal and appointment of a Prime Minister, a new Cabinet of Ministers and the prorogation of Parliament are acts in conformity with Constitutional provisions.

Sri Lanka: Stepping Back from a Constitutional Crisis

Brussels, 31 October 2018

The return to power of controversial former President Mahinda Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka's prime minister is unconstitutional and destabilising. International actors should make future security and economic cooperation contingent on parliament reconvening immediately to select a prime minister through legal channels.

What’s new? On 26 October, Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena abruptly dismissed the prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and appointed controversial former President Mahinda Rajapaksa to the premier’s post, in a move that contravenes the constitution and threatens to destabilise the country.

Why does it matter? Rajapaksa’s appointment has already emboldened his supporters, with their actions provoking violence. More unrest is likely as the president and the new prime minister seek to consolidate support. The struggle for power jeopardises progress on reforms, ethnic reconciliation, and prospects for peaceful and fair elections in 2019.

What should be done? The U.S., EU and other international actors should continue to urge Sirisena to reconvene parliament to select a prime minister through legal channels. They should back these calls by making clear that Rajapaksa’s appointment, if it stands, threatens the future of security and economic cooperation.

I.Overview

President Maithripala Sirisena’s unexpected decision on 26 October to sack Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and replace him with the former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, could seriously destabilise and set back Sri Lanka. In failing to follow established legal procedures, Rajapaksa’s appointment, should it stand, would be the country’s first ever unconstitutional transfer of power. The power struggle now underway between Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe has already turned violent, with the new prime minister’s supporters attempting to stop a recently ousted minister from entering his office and clashing with his security detail. Risks of further bloodshed are high, particularly if mass protests by Wickremesinghe loyalists continue over the coming days. Questions over the legitimacy of Rajapaksa’s administration could heighten tensions in the run-up to local and national elections scheduled over the next year.

The U.S., EU, India and other governments with influence should press for parliament to be immediately convened so that Sri Lanka’s elected representatives can choose a prime minister through constitutional procedures. The U.S., EU and European governments should stress to President Sirisena that retaining Rajapaksa without parliamentary approval jeopardises the future of economic support and security cooperation.

II.An Unconstitutional Change of Power

The current crisis carries many contradictions. Sirisena was elected president in January 2015 after he left then-president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s cabinet and challenged him with the backing of Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP), a wide network of civil society groups, and a small number from Sirisena’s – and Rajapaksa’s – Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Sirisena was elected on a platform of democratic renewal and reconciliation, and backed by an unusual coalition of Tamil, Muslim and more liberal Sinhalese voters. He promised to hold members of the Rajapaksa administration and family accountable for alleged corruption and assassinations, and to deliver justice for war crimes committed during the military campaign against the Tamil Tigers. He also pledged to end the executive powers of the presidency, which long have been criticised as anti-democratic and have contributed to Sri Lanka’s history of political instability and grave human rights abuses.

Within months of taking office, Sirisena won parliamentary approval for the 19th amendment to the constitution, which weakened – but did not remove – the president’s executive powers, restored the independence of several government oversight bodies, and reimposed the two-term limit on the presidency, which Rajapaksa had lifted in 2010. In the August 2015 parliamentary elections, the UNP won a strong plurality of votes and formed a national unity government with the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), the coalition headed by Sirisena’s party.

 The president and the prime minister have never formed a strong working relationship. Each has taken steps to undermine the trust and respect of the other. 

The national unity government, headed jointly by Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, succeeded in restoring media freedoms and the independence of the police and judiciary, at least as compared to the situation under Rajapaksa. But its failure to improve the economy for most Sir Lankans, widely publicised reports of ongoing corruption by senior UNP figures – which they strenuously deny – and the lack of prosecutions for high-profile crimes committed during the Rajapaksa presidency have severely damaged its credibility as an engine of reform. The government has grown increasingly unpopular over the past year, as the population contends with rising oil prices and a falling rupee, and as Sirisena and Wickremesinghe have regularly and publicly reversed each other’s policies – notably on the economy and ethnic reconciliation. The president and the prime minister have never formed a strong working relationship. Each has taken steps to undermine the trust and respect of the other.
The divisions and mistrust between the two men grew sharper after elections in February 2018 when Rajapaksa’s newly formed Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) won a large majority of local councils and humiliated both Sirisena’s and Wickremesinghe’s parties, which campaigned more against each other than against the SLPP. With the SLPP widely expected to win the next presidential and parliamentary elections, Sirisena has struggled to find a way to remain in power after his term expires at the end of 2019. Blaming the prime minister and the UNP for his precarious situation, Sirisena has been actively searching for ways to remove Wickremesinghe. With the failure of a parliamentary no-confidence vote against Wickremesinghe in March, which Sirisena was widely believed to support – he made little secret of his desire to see the prime minister defeated – the president was known to be in discussions with Rajapaksa and the SLPP about a new governing coalition. Given Wickremesinghe’s ability to retain majority support in parliament, however, it seemed Sirisena would be forced to maintain the status quo until the presidential election due by November 2019.

The timing and the procedure used to remove Wickremesinghe as prime minister on 26 October thus came as a surprise. Sirisena and supporters argue that the president’s formal withdrawal of the SLFP-led UPFA from the national unity government meant the cabinet was dissolved – and this in turn meant that the prime minister’s position was vacated. Few independent constitutional experts accept this reasoning, pointing to clear provisions in the constitution stipulating that the prime minister can be removed only if the government has been defeated at the formal statement of its policy during the first sitting of a new parliamentary session, at the presentation of the budget or through a no-confidence vote.

Sirisena’s decision on 27 October to suspend parliament for three weeks suggests that he and Rajapaksa do not believe that they have the votes yet to defeat Wickremesinghe in the legislature. Suspending parliament further undermines the legality of Wickremesinghe’s dismissal, who has from the beginning claimed he retains majority support and demanded a chance to prove it in a vote. Sirisena’s and Rajapaksa’s strategy seems to assume that they have a better chance of gaining a majority in parliament once the latter is installed alongside new cabinet ministers who control all levers of state power, a process that began on 29 October. Sri Lanka has a long tradition of parliamentary crossovers from one party to another, which in the past allegedly have been induced by offers of money and perks, and sometimes by threats.

Rajapaksa’s appointment has generated resistance among parliamentarians. The speaker, Karu Jayasuriya, a veteran of the UNP but a man respected for his non-partisan approach, has written to Sirisena challenging the prime minister’s removal and calling on him to reconvene parliament. The head of the main Tamil party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, who is also the official leader of the opposition, has written to the speaker and urged him to “uphold the rule of law by summoning parliament forthwith”. The leftist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a bitter critic of both Rajapaksa and the UNP, has also called for parliament to be recalled immediately.

The levels of support Wickremsinghe and Rajapaksa currently enjoy in parliament are uncertain. Prior to Wickremesinghe’s dismissal, the UNP had the backing of 106 parliamentarians, while Sirisena’s UPFA, now fully behind Rajapaksa, had 95. Were the 225-member parliament to choose a new premier (likely through a vote of no confidence in Rakapaksa), then 113 votes would carry the day. That said, were the JVP’s six parliamentarians to abstain in their anger at both candidates, as most observers expect, 110 votes would be enough. In the days since Rajapaksa claimed the prime minister’s office, he appears to have won the support of at least six additional members, leaving him with nine more to win over. For Wickremesinghe to survive, he will almost certainly require the backing of all sixteen votes from the Tamil party, the TNA, which are not guaranteed.

An appeal by Wickremesinghe or others to the Supreme Court is possible. But the Court is unlikely to intervene or to rule against Sirisena’s appointment of Rajapaksa. That appointment has generated a great deal of criticism within politically engaged circles in the capital Colombo and among UNP supporters, but there is as yet no sign of widespread public resistance, in part because Rajapaksa remains popular among many Sinhalese who make up three quarters of the population, and even more so when contrasted with the increasingly dysfunctional Sirisena-Wickremesinghe “unity government”.

III.The Risks Ahead

Should Sirisena stick to his guns, as appears likely, Sri Lanka’s political stability will be at risk. As the president and Rajapaksa spend the next three weeks jockeying for support and buying votes in parliament, the struggle for power could easily turn violent as both sides try to prove they have support on the streets. While Rajapaksa may not yet have the votes in parliament, he is believed to have the backing of much of the military, police and key supporters with a track record of using threats and violence.

One person died and two others were wounded when pro-Rajapaksa crowds attempted to prevent the dismissed petroleum minister, Arjuna Ranatunga, from entering his ministry on 28 October and Ranatunga’s bodyguard opened fire (the bodyguard and Ranatunga have both been arrested in connection with the shooting). Crowds of government employees from pro-Rajapaksa unions forcibly occupied government TV stations after Wickremsinghe’s dismissal. Former minister and close Rajapaksa ally Wimal Weerawansa has threatened that his supporters will remove Wickremesinghe by force if he fails to leave his official residence. The UNP’s large public protest to support the ousted prime minister in Colombo on 30 October passed peacefully, but future protests could turn violent, with many fearing that the security forces will use a heavy hand or fail to prevent attacks on those opposing Wickremesinghe’s removal.

If Rajapaksa succeeds in establishing himself and a new government in power on the basis of an unconstitutional manoeuvre, Sri Lanka will face other dangers. In a context of heightened tensions and political polarisation, the provincial and parliamentary elections Rajapaksa has said he is committed to holding as soon as possible could also see violence, with pro-Rajapaksa SLPP supporters feeling empowered to attack UNP candidates and supporters, many of whom may already be primed to avenge their loss of power.

 Should Rajapaksa’s position as prime minister be ratified in parliament, his return to power will likely end Sri Lanka’s flagging efforts at ethnic reconciliation. 

 

Should Rajapaksa’s position as prime minister be ratified in parliament, his return to power will likely end Sri Lanka’s flagging efforts at ethnic reconciliation. He will almost certainly try to weaken or abolish the recently established Office of Missing Persons, tasked with determining the fate of thousands missing or forcibly disappeared during the war, and the Reparations Office, which is designed to compensate those who suffered damages from the war, both of which Rajapaksa and the SLPP campaigned against. He is likely to maintain or strengthen the heavy presence and activities of the military in Tamil-majority areas in the north and east. Tamil activists and journalists, who already face intense police and military surveillance, as well as threats of violence, will be at risk of increased harassment or worse. So, too, will critics of the Rajapaksa family and dissenters throughout the country.

Tamils are already frustrated at the failure of the current government to deliver on its most important promises. These include drafting a new constitution with greater devolution of power to the provinces, establishing a hybrid court to prosecute war crimes, demilitarising and reforming the security sector, repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act and releasing Tamils detained under its harsh provisions. A strong Sinhala nationalist, Rajapaksa will only accelerate the spread of political alienation among Tamils and bolster those in the security services who favour tough measures to suppress dissent.

Sri Lanka’s Muslims, who suffered four days of violent attacks on mosques, businesses and homes by militant Buddhist nationalists in March, could also be at greater risk under a resurgent Rajapaksa administration. A key suspect in the anti-Muslim violence was released on bail from prison on 29 October, following a concerted campaign by Sinhala nationalists with connections to the military and to Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda’s powerful brother, formerly in charge of the police and military. Two days earlier, Gotabaya held a press conference to defend Wickremesinghe’s removal in the company of the Buddhist monk Ittakande Saddhatissa, who has been arrested multiple times for his involvement in violent protests.

Rajapaksa’s government also can be expected to reverse the growing independence of the judiciary, police, Human Rights Commission and other bodies. Police investigations and prosecutions of crimes allegedly committed by members of Rajapaksa’s family and close associates when they held power have been proceeding, albeit slowly. They will almost certainly be halted, with many believing that a desire to hamstring the judicial process was one of the Rajapaksas’ main motivations to return to power now, rather than wait for elections in 2019 and 2020. The small remaining window of opportunity to challenge the culture of impunity for grave human rights violations, which has plagued Sri Lanka for decades, will likely close.

IV.What Can Be Done

While Sirisena and Rajapaksa may currently have the upper hand, the outcome of the power struggle is still undecided. Influential governments and international institutions should support those who are peacefully challenging Rajapaksa’s appointment from within the country by sending strong messages that the unconstitutional move will bring significant costs for Sirisena, Rajapaksa and the Sri Lankan state. They should continue to call on Sirisena to reverse his decision and allow parliament to reconvene with immediate effect, follow the constitutionally sanctioned process and allow the two sides to test their support through a vote of no confidence.

The U.S., EU, UK, Australia, India and all governments with influence should urge the military and police to enforce the law fairly and without bias and refrain from cracking down on peaceful protest by the UNP or citizens’ groups, as many fear is possible. They should make clear that they will reduce or end training programs and other forms of cooperation with Sri Lanka’s military and police if those bodies actively back Rajapaksa’s power grab.

Foreign governments and organisations also should reconsider any economic support linked to democratic governance. The EU should make clear that preferential trade benefits, only restored to Sri Lanka in 2017 thanks to its improved compliance with human rights treaties, could be lost again should Rajapaksa retain the premiership on the basis of an unconstitutional change of power. The U.S. should immediately suspend the process for final approval of $450 million in economic development funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a program designed in part to reward good governance. Governments should also begin to consider applying targeted sanctions against Sirisena, Rajapaksa, their families and their close associates should Sri Lanka’s constitutional coup proceed.

 An unconstitutional change of power puts at risk Sri Lanka’s democracy itself. 

A reborn Sirisena-Rajapaksa alliance with illegitimate beginnings will increase concern among some member states of the UN Human Rights Council when it considers Sri Lanka’s situation in March 2019. Many governments on the council are already unhappy with the limited progress Sri Lanka has made in implementing the reforms stipulated in the Council’s 2015 resolution on reconciliation and accountability. This is particularly true with regard to Sri Lanka’s failure to investigate credible allegations of war crimes and grave human rights abuses that took place during Rajapaksa’s presidency, including by both government forces and the Tamil Tigers, whose separatist military campaign was defeated in May 2009. With a Rajapaksa-led government likely to scrap most, if not all, of the reforms the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government initiated, Council member states should commit to working toward a new resolution that will maintain its oversight role and continued reporting by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, which will otherwise expire in March 2019.

Domestic and international resistance to Sri Lanka’s change of government is not about rescuing Ranil Wickremesinghe and the UNP. Their many mistakes over the past three and a half years have directly contributed to the difficult situation they face. But much more is at stake than the relative power of Sri Lanka’s different political parties. An unconstitutional change of power puts at risk Sri Lanka’s democracy itself, which, while deeply flawed and regularly failing to represent and protect ethnic and religious minorities, nonetheless has provided an important safety valve for conflict over the decades. To prevent Sri Lanka’s descent into a darker future, and to limit the risks of violence and lasting political instability this would bring, urgent action from within and outside the island is needed.

Brussels, 31 October 2018

Why this sudden concern for following the Constitution?

by REV. FR. VIMAL
TIRIMANNA, CSsR-November 2, 2018, 9:45 pm 

Since President Maithripala Sirisena officially dismissed his own hand-picked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last Friday (26th October) and installed his bête-noir Mahinda Rajapaksa in his place, more than the surprise element inherent in this action, there have been endless debates as to whether the President acted according to the Constitution or not. Interestingly, the EU, the USA, Britain, India and a few other countries have even urged Sri Lankan leaders to follow the Constitution as if they were the guardians or god fathers of this country. Still worse, one British Member of Parliament has gone even to the extent of saying that the so-called "international community" (which is a carefully coined Western term to refer to the Western countries themselves) recognizes Ranil Wickremesinghe as the Prime Minister. Mark the implication: it is they the so-called "international community" or the West that would decide as to who the Prime Minister of this country should be, and not our own Sri Lankan citizens! When he faced the exit orders last Friday from the Executive President, Ranil Wickremesinghe himself did not first turn to the citizens of our country or the judicial system or the constitution of Sri Lanka but to the so-called "international community" by calling their ambassadors for a special meeting at Temple Trees. Thus he has not only shown his true colours but also revealed who his real allies and sponsors are.

What amazes and amuses this writer is the sudden awakening in some vociferous quarters – both local and international – to the central issue of whether the events unfolding in Sri Lanka since last Friday are in accordance with the Sri Lankan Constitution or not. More or less the same voices could be heard before January 2015 too, crying foul with the then government of Mahinda Rajapaksa and haranguing that democracy was at peril in Sri Lanka, so much so they dared to call the eventual election of the common candidate Maithripala Sirisena as President "a non-violent revolution in Sri Lanka" that saved democracy in the country. However, the same voices could not be heard at all since 2015 till last Friday, simply because they had simply assumed that those who came to office were immaculately clean in upholding democracy and the Constitution in Sri Lanka. One wonders where they were really in Sri Lanka, somewhere else in the world or in a remote corner of outer space? Where were they when democracy was threatened and the Sri Lankan Constitution was openly flawed by the government under President Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. Suffice it to enumerate and highlight just the following undemocratic and unconstitutional events/issues that were carried out in broad day light by the so-called "yahapalanaya" without a whimper from those who were vociferous for democracy before their election to office in January 2015:

The installation of Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister with just 46 seats in a parliament of 225 members. The then Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne and his party enjoyed 141 seats at that time. Let us not forget that what we had on 15th January 2015 was a Presidential Election (to elect a President) and not a Parliamentary Election (in which the leader of the majority of members elected would be nominated as Prime Minister). Simply put, in January 2015, people elected a new President and not a new Parliament or a Prime Minister. But Ranil Wickremasinghe with just 46 seats was appointed Prime Mininster by the new President!

The betrayal of the millions of UPFA voters who voted (against the UNP) at the last General Elections in August 2015 when the leaders of the UPFA (headed by President Sirisena) undemocratically and unilaterally decided to join the UNP to form what they themselves called a "National/Unity Government". To do this, they did not have a mandate of their supporters (who voted against the UNP just as the SLFP asked the voters to do at the general elections), and so, it is undemocratic and a betrayal of the voters of the SLFP/UPFA.

The deprivation of the post of the Leader of the Opposition to the Joint Opposition which had some 54 seats as against 16 held by the Tamil National Alliance whose leader nevertheless was given on a platter the post of the Opposition Leader, violating all traditions of parliamentary democracy.

The undemocratic appointment of those candidates rejected by the voters to the parliament through the back door by both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe within their respective parties.

The establishment of the non-democratic and extra-judicial institution of FCID to investigate the alleged crimes of only those who opposed the National/Unity government.

The shameless efforts of the ruling UNP and its leading Ministers and Deputy Ministers to sweep under the carpet the Report of the COPE (with their now well-known footnotes and appendices to that Report!) which first found the then Governor of the Central Bank Arjuna Mahendran (who was a personal friend and special nominee of Ranil Wickremesinghe) allegedly guilty of serious financial fraud linked to the biggest financial fraud in the history of Sri Lanka.

Arjuna Mahendran himself testifying before the Bond Commission of Inquiry that the Prime Minister was directly involved in recommending the immoral and faulty auction method that was at the base of the Central Bank Bond Scam. Moreover, the appointment of the same Mahendran as an advisor to the Ministry of Finance by the Prime Minister.

The secrecy that surrounded the Bond Report of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry and the missing parts of it (some 103 pages) that were hushed up thanks to the dedicated efforts of the yahapalana government of Sirisena/Wickremesinghe to keep the obvious culprits safe. Even non-political civil societal organizations such as CaFFE raised the issue with the government in January 2018 but without any success.

The sidelining of the Elections Commission in the process of enacting the Provincial Council Elections Amendment Act as alleged by no lesser person than the chairman of the Commission, Mahinda Deshapriya himself.

The utterly undemocratic and anti-Constitutional way in which the Provincial Council Elections Amendment Act was finally bull-dozed through the Parliament in March 2018 which the Island Editorial of 9th March 2018 called "The Rape of Democracy"! The Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) too pointed out that the due parliamentary process was not followed in passing this Act.

The above-mentioned Act was rushed through and passed in parliament when the Supreme Court had given a clear ruling that the extension of the terms of the Provincial Councils or a postponement of their elections would require a referendum in addition to a two thirds majority in parliament. The yahapalana government completely sidelined this Supreme Court decision and had their way in order not to have provincial council elections, thus robbing in broad daylight the franchise of the people guaranteed by the Constitution.

The continuous and shameless postponement of the holding of Provincial Council elections with all sorts of whimsical reasons though it is already overdue with regard to at least six Provincial Councils. It was just last week that no lesser person than the Chairman of the Elections Commission himself who said such undue postponement of elections and letting the Provincial Councils to be run by government officials tantamount to a sort of a "dictatorial" style of governing!

The postponement of the holding of local government elections with all sorts of flimsy and ludicrous reasons given by the government till they were finally forced to hold them in February this year.

The government’s efforts to bring in a new Constitution (to suit their own whims and fancies) without a mandate to do so when they, the rulers (of the past three years) could not muster even a proper, decent mandate to rule the country!

The tear-gassing and suppression of peaceful protests for just causes such as the most recent protest by the up-country tea plantation workers to raise their daily salary to 1000 rupees.

The refusal of granting the venue to the Joint Opposition for their recent protest rally in Colombo by the Colombo Municipal Council controlled by the ruling UNP a couple of months ago, though the organizers of the rally had booked the place long before with all the payments, reservations,…etc. made weeks ahead.

The reader ought to note that the events listed above are not mere subjective opinions but objective facts that unfolded in this country since January 2015 till last Friday. But ironically (it has been this writer’s experience) whenever such objective facts are mentioned, the immediate reaction of those self-appointed "defenders/advocates of democracy and the Sri Lankan constitution" is invariably: "Are you a Mahinda supporter?" Why one of my fellow Catholic priests even went to the extent of saying: "Yes, all those are true, but when you mention them, you are supporting MR (Mahindata Kade Yanawa)". Such emotional, highly prejudiced and one-sided remarks are the main reasons for getting blinded deliberately to the above-mentioned objective facts that are clearly undemocratic and anti-Constitutional.

Let us not forget that all those above-mentioned events happened under the government that was headed by the same President who now claims that he acted according to the Constitution last Friday in removing and installing the persons for the post of Prime Minister. The now eloquent voices clamouring to uphold the Constitution, both local and foreign (including the religious, political and civil organizations who claim to be independent politically and the NGO’s) were all silent when these glaring aberrations and serious violations of democracy were in full swing during the last three years under the same President with the able support of Ranil Wickremesinghe. Did any of them find fault with the then government for not holding local/provincial government elections on time, for example? Did any of them ever openly state the need to implement justice fully in the case of the Central Bank Bond Scam that was allegedly hushed up by the then government? Did any of them ever raise even a feeble voice for the democratic need to give the post of the Leader of the Opposition to the group that enjoyed a majority in parliament as it has always been done? Most of all, did those who are very vociferous today about following the Constitution with regard to removing and installing the Prime Minister ever utter a single word when a party leader with just 46 seats was installed as Prime Minister while the incumbent had already the support of 141 members, and thus, seriously violating the Constitution? In short, during the past three years where were those champions of democracy who are now shedding crocodile tears for democracy and the upholding of the Constitution? One cannot resist but raise the question: why this sudden concern for democracy by these voices while they were in deep slumber when democracy and democratic institutions were seriously throttled and threatened in recent times? Is it because their favourite political party is now in apparent danger of losing power? Or else, it ought to be pure political hypocrisy, on the part of both religious and political/civil leaders (both local and international) who now make a loud cry all of a sudden for democratic values and the upholding of the Constitution. After all, the same President who allegedly "violated the Constitution" last Friday was the head of the government when the above-mentioned anti-democratic things were done violating the same Constitution during the past three years. Things could not be simply right then and wrong now! Such an attitude would lead us to moral relativism. Those who had decided to conveniently and deliberately be indifferent during the past three years when the Constitution was violated openly, have now become very alert and concerned about upholding the Constitution. Those who had decided to forget the need to uphold the Constitution have suddenly remembered the utmost need to uphold the same Constitution! Talk about selective forgetting/indifference and selective remembering, and here we are! Such persons seem to have had a miraculous healing of their self-imposed, selective Alzheimers’ last Friday with President Sirisena’s unexpected decisions. But then, was it really a ‘miracle’ or was it the dire need to support their political cronies which has now healed such a deadly disease as selective Alzheimers’ of those who are very vociferous about democracy and the upholding of the Constitution?

Sri Lankan Parliament to be reconvened on Nov. 7

UNP parliamentarian offered US$ 2.8 million to cross over to the government

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( November 2, 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has said that Parliament will be convened on November 7.

The statement was made while addressing a special party leaders meeting held at the Parliamentary complex, a short while ago.

Meanwhile, UNP parliamentarian Palitha Range Bandara has publicly divulged that he was offered US$ 2.8 million to cross over to the government.

MP Bandara made this statement at the special party leaders meeting that was held at the parliamentary complex today.

He also said that he will file a case at the Bribery commission in this regard.

Full Text: Sri Lanka’s Ambassador To Russia Dayan Advises Fake Premier MR On Countering “Reactionary Forces” Against Constitutional Coup

NOVEMBER 1, 2018

A document that is now in the public domain has revealed that Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Russia, Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, has advised former President and “fake prime minister” Mahinda Rajapaksa on sustaining his government formed after a “constitutional coup”.

The document is a printout of an email sent to Mahinda Rajapaksa by Jayatilleka through “comrade” Vasudewa Nanayakkara – a Parliamentarian of the Joint Opposition. The email is titled “Urgent for PM Mahinda Rajapaksa via Comrade Vasu from Dayan.”

The email offers seven pieces of advice to Rajapaksa, in point form, to counter the pressure exerted by the Western countries against the constitutional coup engineered by the Rajapaksa-Sirisena alliance.

He opines that the statement issued by the US Department of State was a blatant interference in Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

Jayatilleka, despite being a diplomat actively in service, suggests Dinesh Gunawardena to become the Foreign Minister. The email crystalizes that Jayatilleka, under the new regime, has become a privileged individual under the new government who could suggest who his boss should be.

“The counterrevolution is mobilizing internationally and the Us embassy in Colombo, which has four officers posted from Ukraine, will attempt to destabilize the new government,” the diplomat says.

“In the battle of arguments, ideas, and ideology, the enemy is on the offensive and we are on the defensive.”

Connecting on the email when the Colombo Telegraph editor has published the email on his personal Facebook page, Jayatilleka admitted that he was the originator of the email. He added, “(I) don’t think it’s ethical to obtain private emails and publish them, but yes, I sent it way before the Cabinet was selected and I fully stand by the analysis. Please note the date and the email address– this is not from my official email or in my new designation and capacity

Responding to Jayatilleka’s claim, Colombo Telegraph Editor Uvindu Kurukulasuriya said, “this is not a private communication since you have written to your prime minister. For me the “fake” prime minister.”

Jayatilleka also stated, “if I use my private email and sign with my first name, do not use my designation or have an official title and an indication of status, then that’s private. I wrote FROM my private email and AS a private citizen, to someone I’d known and supported long before he became PM. Furthermore I haven’t addressed it to him officially as the PM. Surely you know how a letter is written. This was a note. So it wasn’t ethical of you to post it, unless either the author (me) or the recipient (MR/Vasu) had released it to you or into the public domain. No matter: I stand by what I have written in it!”

Kurukulasuriya, however, maintained that the e-mail was a matter of public interest as it was delivered by the Prime Minister office from the citizen of the country.

Note: Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka has sent us the response below:

I STAND FULLY AND FIRMLY BY WHAT I SAID, BUT IT WAS AS PRIVATE OPINION

RIGHT OF REPLY BY DR. DAYAN JAYATILLEKA

Uvindu Kurukulasuriya (whom I regard as a friend, though less so now) has posted on his FB, and subsequently posted on his website Colombo Telegraph which he operates from London, a scanned or photocopied printout of a private email sent by me. I am not questioning the authenticity of the email and its contents, of which I am indeed the author, in my private capacity. 

I say “private email” because I have (a) used my long-standing private email address (b) not addressed the new Prime Minister, former President Rajapaksa officially in the body of the email or (c) signed even my surname let alone my designation. For these reasons I regard the posting/publication of this email, or otherwise releasing it to the public domain, as unethical.  

As a citizen of Sri Lanka deeply concerned about national and public events, I have every right to communicate with whosoever I choose to, and strive to provide inputs I regard as in the national and public interest, thereby influencing outcomes in a direction I think best, so long as I do so privately– and I have every right to expect my right to privacy to be respected. As such it was sent as a private email to a person I regard as a political leader of long acquaintance, and certainly not as part of an official communique from an Ambassador to the Prime Minister appointed by the Head of State, who is my appointing authority.  

As a public intellectual I have given political advice freely in the public domain since the 1980s, i.e. for over 30 years. For the last 5 and half years before this appointment, I have done this in my fortnightly political analysis program on national television, as the Sri Lankan public is well aware. The attempt to portray the suggestion of a name for Foreign Minister as some privilege accorded to me is ludicrous.

Now that my private email is in the public domain, I think it best to reproduce the full text, so it can be read clearly rather than speculated upon. It was as follows, and I quote:

Read More

The halo slips: What the UNP lost 

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“Maithripala Sirisena is a decision I don’t regret.” 
- Ranil Wickremesinghe

 2018-11-02 02

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“I believe that Mr. Wickremesinghe and his group of closest friends, who belonged to a privileged class and did not understand the pulse of the people, conducted themselves as if shaping the future of the country was a fun game.” 

- Mathripala Sirisena

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Political alliances are marriages of convenience. When nothing warrants them, they become a convenient front against a common enemy. But when that common enemy forms an outfit far more popular (that is, outside the parliament) than the coalition and its allies, rifts are bound to materialise. It’s not easy to hide those rifts. Sooner or later, they are bound to lead to a collapse. And the more the collapse of these alliances gets delayed, the worse it gets for everyone.  

In other words, the UNP and UPFA, by carrying on a premature dalliance for more than three years, screwed the people. There was nothing that called for the coming together of these two traditional foes. It was merely a front against one man. Mahinda Rajapaksa. You can argue that, yes, he was getting it into his head that he was a king (and not the “temporary custodian” he said he was in 2005) of this country, but even accounting for this, the coalition was a convenient way of battling an inconvenient political future. Inconvenient, that is, to Ranil Wickremesinghe.  

When the likes of Ajith Perera and Mangala Samaraweera claim that the people are on their side and that they will somehow prevail, I get amused. “The people” gave up this government a long time ago. “The people” voted for an outfit the UNP and UPFA had excluded from the legislature for more than three years. “The people” roundly rejected the IMF-driven measures the government was imposing on those who had no access to the car permits or privileges those they had helped bring to power were indulging in. “The people” were getting tired of the small victories that were being scored and the larger victories that were being evaded.  
In other words, “the people” were showing signs of disenchantment. The government, by trivialising those signs, was being very stupid. And the result of that stupidity was the most unconstitutional coup an opposition could bring about, with the collaboration of the President, in the history of this country.  
The Mahinda-Maithripala alliance was promoted by two ideologically different camps driven by one goal: a front against the enemy. Nalin de Silva was in one camp, Dayan Jayatilleka in the other. But given that most of Rajapaksa’s supporters wanted the man to go alone, such an alliance seemed inconceivable. To put it into perspective, it was much easier to imagine Mahinda and Chandrika in the same room.  

And yet, here we are.  
Whether it was the best combination, whether it will go up or come down, time will tell. In the meantime, we can confidently say this: that the alliance represents, outside the parameters of constitutional legality and legitimacy, a political expression of the people’s fury against the UNP government. One would have to be a kepuwath kola type or an Old Left apologist to claim otherwise.  
How did it come about, though?  
The UNP-UPFA coalition moved ahead with a programme that was “social democratic”. It was hard to find out which side of the political spectrum it belonged to, because it belonged to a mishmash of conflicting ideologies, from the Jathika Hela Urumaya’s sustainability drive to the UNP’s pro-business programme. As long as the coalition stuck to its reformist manifesto, however, this didn’t matter.  

It mattered when the parties tried to translate that manifesto to a meaningful economic programme. To put it briefly, one party had its roots in a populist platform, while the other, despite its championing of a vaguely defined social market economy, had its roots in a compradore, pro-privatisation agenda. It was easy to square the reformist thrust of the political programme with the populist roots of the UPFA. It was harder, though, to square it with the austerity measures the UNP was imposing on the people, ironically in their own name.  
The ultimate snub came, for me, when Mangala Samaraweera held a placard bearing an equation that was supposed to be the fuel price formula. No, it was not the equation that infuriated the people. It was the image of Samaraweera and Eran Wickramaratne laughing. With themselves. At a press conference. The symbolism was hard to put off: the political elite, in an air-conditioned room, trivialising a formula that was crushing the people, most of whom had voted for them in 2015. The joke was on those same people. How could you not expect a backlash from them?  
There’s more.  

"When the likes of Ajith Perera and Mangala Samaraweera claim that the people are on their side and that they will somehow prevail, I get amused. “The people” gave up this government a long time ago. “The people” voted for an outfit the UNP and UPFA had excluded from the legislature for more than three years"

For decades, the UNP was associated with an anti-rural, anti-Sinhala, anti-Buddhist face. This was known. What was also known, though more recently, was the crass elitism that the UNP kowtowed to, after the 2015 election.  
In March 2015 the New York Times ran an article (“A Cricket Match with Politics in the Spotlight”) that dwelt on the Big Match and its place in a regime dominated by the Prime Minister’s Old Boys. The implication was clear: the members of the Club came from more inclusive backgrounds, while the Rajapaksas, who had lost power, came from a background that rejected such inclusiveness. It was a triumph of elitism over ethnicity, underscored by the decision of the Prime Minister to appoint many of the members of the Club to the government. As Gayantha Karunathilaka and Harsha de Silva, quoted in the article, put it, they were bringing the “values” they had picked up from their school to the country. Rajpal Abeynayake, who criticised the UNP, put this into perspective rather cynically, “They are back in charge now.” Harsha added, not a little jubilantly, “And everyone here [at the Match] is celebrating that.”  

The UNP “came to power” in 2015 with a set of beliefs which led them to impose external, ethnic, and security policies that, as Dayan Jayatilleka implied in an article written hours after Sirisena appointed Rajapaksa, “affronted the national identity of a majority.” It was a set of beliefs cut off from the people. A set of beliefs more at home in Reid Avenue than in Ruwanwella. A set of beliefs rooted in a crass form of elitism, as shown when, for instance, Ranil was praised by his Reid Avenue worshippers for “making use” of Maithripala (an act that was seen for what it was: a member of the elite enriching himself through an outsider who could never join his ranks). It was, from a sociological perspective at least, fascinating. But also repelling.  
I distinctly remember the kind of sentiments harboured by those who affirmed this outlook. It was based on certain crude political differentiations. The Rajapaksas stood for the past, our heritage, the UNP stood for the future, our destiny. The Rajapaksas stood for the old, the UNP stood for the young. The Rajapaksas would take us to the nagula, the UNP would take us to an industrial hub. The Rajapaksas were bumpkins, the UNP were of a more refined order. The Rajapaksas were savages from Beliatta, the UNP were gentlemen from Kurunduwatte.  

" Ranil was praised by his Reid Avenue worshippers for “making use” of Maithripala (an act that was seen for what it was: a member of the elite enriching himself through an outsider who could never join his ranks)"

There was one post in particular that made the rounds on social media. It carried a photo of Ranil and it bore the following caption: “I may not carry your baby, but I care more for your child’s future than those who can.” An entire generation who had grown to admire the man on the basis on his school tie, and elitist credentials, voted for the UNP believing in that message. It was simply too hard to resist.  
Where are we now, though? Closer to Reid Avenue, yet far, far away from Sri Lanka. 
For three years, the UNP spread the myth that only those who came from their class (and schools) could do and deliver. Well, it turned out that they could neither do nor deliver. The beliefs they bandied have, clearly, gone to the dogs. While I do not claim this is the reason behind the indifference of the people towards the perceived illegality of Maithripala Sirisena’s appointment of his old foe, I would say that the politics of Reid Avenue, which estranged us all from this government, added fuel to the fury of the common citizen. It has undressed itself, and failed. “The people”, whom Mangala Samaraweera claims are on “their side”, have given up on them. And why? Because the UNP and those “Old Boys” have done them all in.  

UDAKDEV1@GMAIL.COM