‘Elpitiya’ as beginning and end

Elections to every single local government authority in the Galle District were held on February 10, 2018. Except Elpitiya. That was due to a petition by the United National Party (UNP) pleading relief over perceived error in their nomination list being rejected. Time passed. We had the parliamentary crisis at the end of that year. We had the Easter Sunday attacks a few months ago. Even people who were aware of that election or rather non-election forgot about Elpitiya. 

Not any longer. With the court directing the Elections Commission to hold elections for the Elpitiya Pradeshiya Sabhava immediately, we are seeing a rehearsal, a by-election of sorts and a referendum all rolled into one.  

Here’s what happened. The yahapalanaya regime went into strange contortions to postpone local government elections. Well, provincial councils too, but that’s another story. By the time elections were called, the yahapalana coalition had cracked. Corruption, nepotism and incompetence had become too apparent to hide. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) was the clear victor. President Sirisena’s true strength was revealed (the Sri Lanka Freedom Party [SLFP] got less than 15% of the vote and the UNP’s vote bank had dwindled to around 30%. 

The outlook for the yahapalana group is bleak. The SLFP or rather Maithripala Sirisena would be forced to take a stand, i.e. whether to enter into a coalition with the SLPP, tag itself to the UNP (or a faction of that party led by Sajith Premadasa, if the internal crisis is not resolved) or go it alone. Unenviable. The JVP was not officially a member of the yahapalana coalition, but stood with Sirisena and later the UNP against Mahinda Rajapaksa and later the SLFP-SLPP ‘arrangement’ during the parliamentary crisis a year ago. The JVP has decided to do their own thing this time around. The risk is their strength being revealed, but it’s a risk they’ve embraced, for better or worse.  

The UNP has spared no pains to paint President Sirisena as the villain of the piece called ‘Yahapalanaya.’ The UNP is still ‘government’. It is not opposition. It had mandate and responsibility. The UNP failed to deliver on all counts. The UNP is directly implicated in nepotism and corruption. The UNP marked itself as ‘incompetent.’ Ranil Wickremesinghe is the leader of this incompetent and corrupt UNP and Sajith Premadasa his lieutenant — no one can claim ‘I was a peon’ in the yahapalana regime.   

All these parties fared abysmally in February 2018. The SLPP secured 50.57% of the total vote in the Galle District, the UNP got 26.65%, the UPFA got 11.65% and the JVP 6.27%. 

The numbers may have changed. For the worse. Impatience with the regime may have enhanced rather than declined disenchantment for reasons of incompetence, incoherence and of course the scandalous failures on the security/intelligence front that led to the Easter Sunday attacks. There’s a strong likelihood that most of the 75,827 votes the UPFA received would slide towards the SLPP if the SLFP decides not to contest or have a pact with the UPFA. Even if the SLFP contests on its own, it is highly unlikely that it will retain the 11.65% share of February 2018. That could be halved or worse with ‘defection’ to the SLPP. 

And so we have ‘Elpitiya’. Is Elpitiya a microcosm of Sri Lanka? No. The Tamil and Muslim communities are negligible in Elpitiya. They won’t be in the Northern and Eastern Provinces and in certain other parts of the country.  A UNP presidential candidate might be routed in Elpitiya (or in the Southern Province as a whole) but might win in the Northern and Eastern Provinces, although with a smaller margin than in 2015. 

Elpitiya is rural. Whereas the SLPP handsomely won all the pradesheeya sabhas in the Galle District, the UNP secured the Galle Municipal Council. In fact the UNP did better in the urban and municipal council elections than in the pradesheeya sabha elections in all parts of the country. 

This dissimilarity between the perceived urban and perceived rural gets smudged in important elections. For example, the tendency across the board was against the UNP in 1994 and clearly against Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015. In 2019, we might once again see a ‘unity’ of sorts between the urban and rural in terms of a common need to show the yahapalanists the political door.  

Regardless of these realities, the result will most certainly reflect voter sentiment. It will be read by the victor as a reflection of national sentiments, especially if the SLPP wins as expected. The losers would be forced to come up with elaborate statistical analyses to demonstrate that things could be different in a presidential race. Nevertheless, a rout in Elpitiya would severely demoralize, say, the UNP loyalist in Elpitiya-like electorates throughout the country and even in less Elpitiya-like places. The ‘urban’ areas, for example. It would cost the UNP candidate, whoever it may be.  Elpitiya, in short, would not only be read as ‘reflection’ of general sentiment, but would be a momentum giver and wrecker, to winner and loser(s) respectively. 

The SLPP is ready, obviously. The JVP always has its ‘people’ on the ground. The loyalists will vote as they always do, never mind that they have struggled to win over people outside the party. The SLFP’s identity crisis (migrate to the SLPP, play bystander, contest?) will be resolved, one way or the other, but the outcome is unlikely to propel the party into believing that fielding its own candidate makes any sense. The UNP will have to contest.

The UNP will have to decide on who will lead the party’s efforts in Elpitiya. Will Sajith be asked to ‘put out or shut up’? Will the party have resolved the candidate-issue by then? It is not an election that the UNP wants to contest, but it is an election the party cannot avoid. If the UNP loses by a small margin there will be positives to carry to the presidential election. Ranil (or Sajith or both) could spur the loyalists to work harder. If they lose by a margin similar to that of February 2018 and the party can obtain the consolation argument, ‘we have not lost ground.’ However, if the margin of defeat is greater than those related to the other pradesheeya sabha elections in the Galle District, the UNP will have to stomach ‘done and dusted’.  

Obviously, the SLPP cannot sit on February 2018 laurels either. If there’s gain, that locks up the presidential prize and if there’s the slightest decline, then it means the fat lady is yet to sing.  

Either way, Elpitiya could very well be the place where the presidential election begins and ends. For all these parties. 

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com   

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That man Patali Champika Ranawaka!

Patali Champika Ranawaka is the General Secretary of the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG). That’s a coalition led by the United National Party (UNP). The UNP is Ranil Wickremesinghe; I recommend a perusal of the party constitution to anyone who doubts this. Ranawaka was also the President’s nominee to the Constitutional Council under the 19th Amendment. The President is Maithripala Sirisena, who, after defeating Mahinda Rajapaksa became the leader of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party. In other words he was at the time the proverbial ‘right hand man’ of the leaders of both major political parties in Sri Lanka. A unique kind of creature, one has to acknowledge.

The man is a factor, that cannot be denied. A senior journalist, Gayan Gallage described him in a Facebook post as follows: ‘The hero of the serious political game of the past two months is none other than Champika.’ He went on the substantiate his claim in terms of the stark contrast between Wickremesinghe’s behavior after October 26, 2018 and his lame submission to Chandrika Kumaratunga in 2003 when she exercised presidential powers to take over three key ministries, precipitating the rout of the UNP in April 2004. 

Of course the circumstances are not identical. Back in 2003, there was no 19th Amendment, for example. However, Gallage claims that Champika played a key role if not the main role in keeping the UNP together in the moment of extreme crisis and utter chaos. Insiders would know the truth; I do not. 

There are things however that are public knowledge. The formation of the Sihala Urumaya (SU) in 2000 helped bring a Sinhala nationalist voice into the entire discourse of conflict-resolution. The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) was formed in February 2004 and effectively wrecked the parliamentary equation. Champika was in the thick of things on both occasions.  He played a key role in Mahinda Rajapaksa’s victories in 2005 and 2010. His parting of ways with Rajapaksa, arguable in a situation where Rev Athureliye Rathana Thero forced his hand and that of the JHU, was a game-changing move in the 2015 presidential equation.  

What’s his history? He was a student leader at Moratuwa University. His political associations in terms of organizations, in many of which he was a key member and decision-maker, say as much about ideological orientation as about political ambition, untrammeled drive and an uncanny ability to read the political moment: the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, Jathika Chinthanaya, Ratawesi Peramuna (RP), Janatha Mithuro (JM), National Movement Against Terrorism (NMAT), SU, JHU, United People’s Freedom Alliance and the UNFGG. The RP, JM, NMAT and SU no longer exist. The JVP and JHU are more or less adjuncts of the UNP. The UPFA has been abandoned by non-SLFP parties including, officially, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). The UNP lost considerable ground at the last local government election and what’s seen by some as a ‘resurgence’ is essentially a closing of ranks by the diehards. If Gallage is correct, then even in this exercise Champika played a significant role and one unusual for the leader of a small party which might not win a single parliamentary seat if it contested on its own.  

Is he then an opportunist who is absolutely focused on reaching somehow the top of the political ladder? Yes. Success in politics as far as an individual is concerned necessitates an eye for opportunity. As for changing political platforms, well, he’s no worse than most of his contemporaries.  

Champika clearly established himself as a doer when he was in charge of the Ministry of Environment, Power and Energy, and Science and Technology. He hasn’t exactly covered himself in glory in far more ambitious Megapolis Ministry but his supporters will point out that he is not ideally situated in the political coalition he’s a part of to get things done and that anyway the economic reality is not in his favor. They might even say, ‘it cannot be done overnight.’ The perception however seems to be ‘he can’t do it.’  Let’s assume that the jury is out on that particular matter. 

Perhaps the views of someone who is diametrically opposed to Champika’s stated ‘nationalist’ leanings would help locate him politically. Kumar David claims to be a Marxist and an opponent of Sinhala nationalism. He writes, within brackets interestingly, that he is an opponent of Tamil nationalism as well, although he also went on record to say that ‘the left’ should hope that the LTTE stops the government’s military operations in Kilinochchi.  Anyway, let’s read his take on Champika, as expressed in an account cum reflection of the launch of Champika’s book ‘Power and Power’ in August 2014. The title of the article was ‘Champika’s Double-Edged Book Launch; Is Ranawaka Initiating A Leadership Challenge?’

Here’s David: ‘I am not favourably inclined to Ranawaka’s ideology or his possible presidential ambitions. This piece, however, is about a different aspect. It is about the challenge that has been mounted and about the intrinsic strength of the challenge because it proceeds from intelligently chosen premises linking key techno-economic anxieties with political abuse. It taps into roots of social concern as against the UPFA’s and UNP’s fish-market sloganeering. The old fashioned left (the Dead Left included), the new style JVP and even newer Pertugami will not be able to meet this challenge unless they wake up to 21-st Century techno-economic, global-structural, and emerging national class realities. Unfortunately they do not have the intellectual cadres to digest and address a complex challenge such as this.’

David referred in the same article to the keynote speaker’s ‘unabashed panegyric to the next, or a future president’.  The speaker described Champika as ‘a visionary leader and a servant of the people; a technical expert (Ranawaka in an electrical engineering graduate) and a fighter against a mafia that is exploiting and corrupting state enterprises.’ David did not exactly tear apart this generous construction. 

Not long after the launch, Champika said ta-ta to Rajapaksa. He almost led Sirisena’s campaign in terms of formulating manifesto and strategy. Today, he seems to be Ranil’s sole non-UNP lieutenant and perhaps even his key advisor overall.  

Does ideology matter to him? He has the language, intellect and oratorical skills to justify anything he does. Time was when he argued against the abolition of the executive presidency given the its importance is ensuring that the 13th will not lead to a breakup of the nation.  He voted for the 19th. He would have known that it was a terribly flawed and nonsensical piece of legislation. He can plead ‘collective responsibility’ but that vote may add to the scars he’s inscribed on his political persona on account of loyalty-switching.  On the other hand, it could also be that he knew the 19th did precious little pruning of executive powers. Was he looking to the future?

Well, now it appears he wants the executive presidency abolished. Has he abandoned all notions of territorial integrity and threats to the same which he eloquently pointed out when talking of the 13th Amendment? Has his ‘vision’ diminished to that of any random politician, i.e. a power-seek? Political experience suggests the answer is, ‘yes’. The onus is on him to prove otherwise.

For now, it is clear that he’s a political asset that far outweighs the perceivable strength of his party. Wickremesinghe would be loathe to drop him. There’s bargaining power there, obviously, and it is good to recognize that Champika knows this.  

Is he ruthless? Well, he knows that assessment of enemy and enmity is par for the course. We can’t give anyone blank cheques and it would be silly to give him one too.  One thing is certain. Patali Champika Ranawaka should not be underestimated.

malindasenevi@gmail.com. www.malindawords.blogspot.com

  

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Why "why", "for whom" and "how" are important in constitutional reform

A Constituent Assembly made solely of Parliamentarians is democratically speaking misshapen, for the simple reason that the parliament is democratically deformed. 

What was pledged way back in 2004 has now materialised.  Only, it is not the UPFA that's done it.  Back then it was referred to as the Constituent Assembly.  Now it is called 'Constitutional Assembly'. The envisaged task is the same: drafting a new constitution.  The following article, published in the Sunday Island on April 18, 2004, twelve years ago, contain different names and refers to composition factors relevant to that time.  The thrust, however, is an objection to the move.  The reasons are still relevant. 

No one expected it to be plain sailing for the United People’s Freedom Alliance. With just 105 seats (106 counting in the solitary EPDP seat), without any guarantees of support from either the SLMC or the CWC, the Freedom Alliance at this point needs to tread carefully, especially since the Jathika Hela Urumaya has only offered conditional support. However, as Wimal Weerawansa correctly argued, the JHU cannot align itself with a grand opposition coalition consisting of the UNP, LTTE (TNA), SLMC and CWC, and for this reason, among others, has to ensure that the new government completes its term. 

Two weeks have passed since the election results were announced, and the Alliance seems to be struggling. We had the tug-of-war regarding the subjects of the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Irrigation. The JVP wanted the Mahaweli included in this ministry, although the matter had not been agreed upon when the two parties signed the coalition agreement. That is a technicality and it is unbecoming of the president to cling to it. Agriculture, Lands and Irrigation without the Mahaweli is, as someone pointed out, a car without an engine. Decentralizing subjects has taken the form of distributing goodies and the country has suffered as a result. Certain things are better centralized or organized under one ministry. This is one. 

It looks like apart from Arjuna Ranatunge, all non-JVP members in the Freedom Alliance are going to be either ministers or junior ministers. In this context, if anyone says the JVP is demanding the proverbial pound of flesh by asking for the Mahaweli, he/she is being utterly unfair. For the record, the JVP secured almost 40% of the seats secured by the Freedom Alliance. It is not a stringer in the way the SLMC, CWC, NUA, EPDP and the UPF has been in the past. The JVP is by no means "making up the numbers". It is time people put aside their prejudices regarding the JVP’s past. Let them work. Let us judge afterwards. 

The speaker’s post has been Trouble Spot No.2 for the Freedom Alliance. If the JHU abstains on the speaker’s vote, then the Freedom Alliance has to hope either the CWC, SLMC or the TNA will also abstain in the event the UNP puts forward a candidate. There is talk of proposing a bikkhu as a compromise candidate. The possibility of a TNA candidate has not been ruled out. All we know is that there is a lot of behind-the-scene talks. We will know for sure on April 22. 

This brings us to Chandrika’s main concern. Constitutional reform. The president needs a friendly speaker as per Articles 79-81 of the constitution. 

If there is one thing about which there is consensus across the political spectrum, it is that the constitution requires reforming. For what reason, in whose interests and how, are the questions that do not yield easy answers. Chandrika’s interests are patently clear. She is a woman in a hurry because her term is fast approaching its close. This is why she appointed a "high-powered" advisory committee on the subject of constitution reform. This is also why she and other Freedom Alliance leaders are going overboard arguing they have the people’s mandate to change the constitution by turning Parliament into a Constituent Assembly. 

The Freedom Alliance argues that it won 106 out of 160 electorates (66.25%) and 14 out of 22 districts (63%). They do not say that they won only 105 out of the 225 seats (47%) and only 45.6% of the vote. 

These numbers do not have any bearing on the issue. The President did not need anyone’s mandate to turn parliament into a Constituent Assembly. And there’s nothing to say that the parliament constitutes the best collective embodying the spirit of democracy to deliberate on constitutional reform. Where the very nature of the proportional representation system does not allow easy passage for reform bills, constitutional reform has to take a different path. A Constituent Assembly, although the name sounds grand, is merely a constitution-drafting body. It is not going to be easy to obtain a consensus, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. A long, arduous process of deliberation among people with different and competing objectives, is better than ad-hoc and self-serving exercises such as the failed 18th and 19th amendments. 

And yet, such a Constituent Assembly is democratically speaking misshapen, for the simple reason that the parliament is democratically deformed. Even if we ignore the massive frauds that brought 22 LTTEers into parliament, on election day and before, the fact remains that parliament is made up of politicians. Constitutional reform, for it to be people-friendly, has to have as its principal objective the protection of people from politicians. It would be silly to expect a body made up solely of politicians to act against their interests. Ideally, a Constitution-Drafting Council should include representatives from all political parties represented in parliament, representatives from trade unions, the Maha Sangha, professional organizations, civil society organizations and the business community. 

If reform is the need of the day, why stop at half-measures? What parliament could do is to define a set of criteria whereby such a broad council of representatives could be appointed.

The Freedom Alliance has promised that future negotiations on the North-East conflict would include all interested parties, not just the LTTE, and that talks would be transparent. The same principle can be applied to constitutional reform. The current electoral system throws out the likes of Anandasangari. It has structural deficiencies that can be and has been exploited by the LTTE, giving them clout quite out of proportion to that which they enjoy on the ground. Professionals are out. 

The Maha Sangha had to contest an election to get their voice heard. The National List, the instrument included to correct the structural silencing of people with professional ability, has been reduced to a refugee camp and indeed a haven for pound-of-flesh-seeking minorities. As a result, it is not possible to argue that the parliament is the ideal assembly to draft a new constitution. The deliberating body has to draw upon a broader spectrum of expertise.

The signals from the Freedom Alliance at this point are not very promising. Abolishing the executive presidency is just one subject that requires treatment. Why hasn’t the president said anything of substance on the independent institutions, about correcting the flaws of the 17th amendment and adding the subjects of media, auditing and socio-economic safeguards to the institutions already enacted but partially implemented? Why is she silent on the all-important question of unethical conversion? Can she hope to win the support of the JHU if these issues are only of marginal interest to her? 

It would indeed be a betrayal of people’s trust if constitutional reform is reduced to an exercise to stop Chandrika from falling into the political abyss towards which the constitution is inexorably dragging her. We don’t want the executive presidency abolished and replaced with an executive prime minister with the same tyrannical powers. We can’t trust our current crop of politicians, especially those in the two main parties, to deliver the goods. 

The president’s advisors on constitutional reform are known PA-loyalists. Gamini Keerawella is a well-known opponent of the unitary state. I would even call him a vociferous advocate of separatism. It is unlikely that a single one of them would go on record to say he is a Sinhala Buddhist. Surely, she could have asked the JVP to nominate someone to this committee, in the very least? Where’s the spirit of "broad consensus"? She might as well have named this committee "Secure My Political Future Council", if she doesn’t want to be blunt and call it "Multi-Ethnic, Multi-Religious Mish-Mash". There are no bets on where this process is heading. 

Only one thing is clear. Chandrika has already shown she is operating as though the mood of the electorate does not count. The JVP, a strong opponent of any moves to undermine the unitary character of the state, won 41 seats. The JHU won 9. Many SLFPers belonging to the Patriotic National Movement were returned with numbers of preferential votes. This parliament is made up of a significant number of people who can be counted on to raise their voices in protest, should the interests of the Sinhalese are compromised in any reform exercise. The time for riding roughshod over party members has passed. The circumstances are different. The president had better do a re-think. Because the people seem to have made up their minds.

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who contributes a weekly column to the Daily Mirror titled 'Subterranean Transcripts'.  Email: malindasenevi@gmail.com.  Twitter: malindasene. 

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Prime Ministerial Headaches

This should have been easy.  It has been easy all these years.  Hold election, release results, count numbers, pick the leader of the party which returned the most candidates to Parliament and appoint him/her as Prime Minister.  Then Parliament convenes, the Speaker is elected, the Leader of the Opposition is selected and Cabinet is appointed.  Seems pretty straightforward.

It seems easy because not only does the United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG) have 106 seats, the coalition’s main ally, Maithripala Sirisena has effectively looted the runner-up, the United People’s Freedom Party (UPFA), dragging its main constituent the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) out AND placing in the UPFA’s driving seat, i.e. the post of General Secretary, a loyalist.  Adding insult to injury, violating all norms of decency and giving the proverbial finger to the spirit of democracy, Sirisena smuggled into Parliament 7 loyalists who had been rejected at the polls.  Those 7 owe him.  Add 7 to 106 and you get 113.  That’s an absolute majority.

There’s a price to pay though, apparently.   The President wants his party to be part of the Government; hence all this talk of a ‘National Government’.  Negotiations between the UNP and the SLFP to divide the ministerial cake, and machinations to secure preferred portfolios  to divide the goodies are natural outcomes.  

It cannot be easy for Ranil Wickremesinghe, Leader of the UNP.  If we didn’t have the 19th Amendment there’d be a long line of MPs outside the PM’s door virtually begging for party membership and a portfolio.  But Article 46 (1) of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution limits the Cabinet to 30 members and so   Wickremesinghe cannot (unlike Mahinda Rajapaksa) wave portfolio carrots at the Opposition.  

A minority government is clearly an option but he would have to count on the JVP or the TNA to remain neutral in the event of a No-Confidence Motion.  It’s a risk.  

As big a risk is what’s currently under discussion. The term ‘national’ is being used too easily.  Politicians can use any word or term to describe even the polar opposite of its meaning.  We saw what J.R. Jayewardene’s ‘Dharmista Samaajaya’ was all about.  It’s English version was ‘A just and free society’.  We saw that ‘justice’ and we experienced that ‘freedom’.  The current avatar of that is yahapaalanaya.  The first signs are not hopeful.  But just so people know what’s what, a dictionary definition might help.

NATIONAL: na·tion·al.  ˈnaSH(ə)n(ə)l. Adjective.  Of or relating to a nation; common to or characteristic of a whole nation. Example: “This policy may have been in the national interest.”

Now consider the word/term ‘coalition’ and things become more clear:

COALITION: co·a·li·tion.  kōəˈliSH(ə)n. Noun. An alliance for combined action, especially a temporary alliance of political parties forming a government. Example: “A coalition of conservatives and disaffected democrats”.  

It looks like the compilers of this dictionary were looking at Sri Lanka’s current political situation! 

These distinctions are immaterial as far as constitutional article and its interpretation are concerned.  Let’s look at what the 19th Amendment says about ‘national’.

There is ambiguity in Article 46 (4) and 46 (5) of the 19th Amendment.  In a situation where no single party obtains an absolute majority there’s provision for a ‘National Government’ [46(4)], with ‘National’ defined in 46(5) as ‘A Government formed by the party that obtains the highest number of seats together with other recognized political parties or independent groups (emphasis mine).’  The interjection of the word ‘all’ or else ‘any’ before ‘other’ would have resolved the issue. As it stands the courts may have to interpret whether a UNP-SLFP affair is legitimate or whether it should be a grand orgy of the political.  Speaking of courts, we have to say that the President has demonstrated that he’s no different from his predecessors.  Read, ‘he can sway’.  

Even if that issue is resolved there’s the inherent problem of ‘living together’ with people who have sorry track records as ministers and those who have been rejected by the electorate, not to mention the trust-deficit of those who don’t give a hoot to things like ‘mandates’.  Presidential machinations have not helped, this must also be noted. 

Ranil Wickremesinghe obviously believes that this coalition/national government is best under the circumstances.  If his conclusions are drawn from promises made in the run up to the Presidential Election, there’s something to applaud there.  It might imply that he is serious about securing the numbers necessary for reforms as envisaged in the now dusty 20th Amendment, a Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians and the Right to Information Act in the main.  If these can be done in the honeymoon period of this strange marriage, then even if it ends on the rocks, the people would have benefitted.  

There are many, however, who can pull the rug from under his feet.  He knows what Chandrika Kumaratunga did to him in late 2003.  He knows there’s no love lost between the UNP and the SLFP.  He knows all about political machinations to retain power.  He knows that his own party’s human resources are pretty thin. He knows that there are sections of the Opposition that will not suffer in silence the errors of his Ministers, especially in dealing with the Eelam lobby or those that feed Eelamist projects knowingly or unknowingly.   

He has ‘top men’ who have dubious track records, some as ministers (in the last 8 months) and some in the party who did nothing during those long years in the Opposition but emerged just as the tide turned. He has good men of integrity that he brought in through the National List in 2010 who have not only served him well but have won the approval of the people at the polls.  So there are those who will strengthen him and others who will drag him down.  And then he has to deal with the Mother of All Enemies:  Self.  

He needs no more proof that Maithripala Sirisena is a shrewd politician who will use the still considerable powers of his office to achieve his objectives (he thinks nothing of dumping mandates in trash cans).  At the right time.  

It is not easy for Wickremesinghe.  But for better or worse, the majority of the people have placed trust in him.  He has to be clear.  Forthright.  Courageous. And look over his shoulder from time to time.  

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The Pied Piper from Polonnaruwa

Everyone knows the story of the Pied Piper. The one who came to the town of Hamlin, that is.  He came to get rid of the rats and he did so by luring them out of every rathole in that unhappy town.  They followed his tunes to a river and as he stepped onto a boat they went on to drown themselves.  The villagers refused to pay him what was promised.  He duly played his pipe again. This time it was the children that followed.  They were never heard of again.

It’s an analogy that’s been used often.  It is applicable to Sri Lanka’s current political moment too.  Maithripala Sirisena contested the Presidential Election as the Reform Candidate.  He would clean things up, we were told.  He would reestablish law and order. He would amend the constitution to re-empower the citizen by way of scripting in transparency and accountability into process and institution.  He would take steps to make representation more meaningful.  He was given the power to do so and the arithmetic and political temper of the moment together made for a lot of optimism.  

Perhaps one can blame the rank and file of the SLFP as well as its Parliamentary Group and Central Committee for being naive, servile or even downright stupid for inviting the newly elected President-Without-A-Party to return to his political thimbirigeya and assume leadership.  Regardless of all this, the onus was on the benefactor, Maithripala Sirisena, not to abuse position and power thus entrusted on him, especially since he pledged decency, maithree (compassion) and all things wholesome.  

What was wholesome, though, about a leader of a political party excusing himself from what was to be a tough campaign in a key election?  What was wholesome in the same man, after pledging to be neutral, clearly supporting ‘the other party’?  What was wholesome in writing a stinker to the man who, for better or worse, was leading the campaign of his party? What was wholesome in locking up his own party’s Central Committee? What was wholesome in removing the Secretaries of his party and the coalition of which his party was the key constituent just three days before the election and getting an injunction to prevent the deposed from ‘hindering operations’ to boot?  

It can be argued that had Mahinda Rajapaksa kept out of things and ‘not in effect threatened to split the SLFP and therefore forced Sirisena to give him nominations’, Sirisena could have led the SLFP-led UPFA to victory over the UNP.  What’s to say, on the other hand, that Sirisena wouldn’t have let the party that vilified him after what turned out to be a temporary defection rot?  

All that’s conjecture.  What’s ‘fact’ is that all the SLFPers contesting under the betel leaf who were clearly supporting Sirisena (over Rajapaksa) were booted out by the voters, barring Duminda Dissanayake who came a distant fourth in Anuradhapura.  Fact 2:  Sirisena moves to take the SLFP out of the UPFA.  Fact 3: Sirisena appoints some of the above ‘losers’ to a committee to hammer out an agreement with the UNP.  Fact 4: Sirisena gets ‘his’ Secretary of the UPFA to hoof out suspected Mahinda loyalists from the UPFA’s Executive Committee.  Fact 5; He's made sure the above ‘losers’ still make it to Parliament through the UPFA’s ‘National List’.  That’s wholesome?  

Perhaps Maithripala Sirisena loves the country more than his party.  If that’s the case, AND if ‘the end does not justify the means’ is nothing more than a rhetorical tool, then all of the above could be tossed into a bin called ‘Necessary Inconveniences’.  ‘Necessary’ because a UNP-SLFP combine is a ‘must’ to see Constitutional Amendments through.  But does he really love anything more than himself and his continuing political relevance?

Sirisena played a watch-and-wait game for the most part until he moved to dissolve Parliament.  He did not assert himself to get the UNP and the SLFP to see through the 19th and 20th Amendments.  The 19th was passed and although the passed version was certainly far superior to the version submitted by the UNP (replacing an all powerful executive presidency with an equally powerful premiership, clearly envisaging victory in a general election a few months later) it contained several flaws.  He allowed the UNP to drag its feet over the 20th and when the Bond Scam hit the political ceiling fan and showered the Government with stinky stuff, he gave them the ‘out’ of dissolution.  Yes, he also removed and appointed CJs using executive powers.  

Very little of all that can be called ‘for the larger good of the nation’.  What is clearly apparent is that Sirisena is giving the finger to democracy.  He’s putting his tongue out at everyone who voted for the UPFA.  He is basically saying ‘gotcha suckers!’  That’s ‘neat’ if you supported the UNP or if you are rabidly anti-Mahinda, but let’s not forget that the man who is doing it all is still the most powerful individual in the country AND the one man the majority counted on to ‘do things the right way’.  You can laugh at people’s choices and call them stupid, but that’s still some 4 million plus voters Maithtipala is lifting your sarong to.  

The Pied Piper from Polonnaruwa is drowning some rats, the people of Elephant Pass (Alimankada) might say (not THAT ‘Alimankada’ of course) and have a good laugh over it.  He has the pipes though.  He can drown other species too.  There won’t be many people laughing then, however. 

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The last refuge of the politically displaced

Humble tents, the charitable gifts of those with gifting power....far more dignified than a Parliamentary seat courtesy a slot in someone's 'National List,' don't you think?

This was written a few weeks before the 2010 General Election and not long after the major parties announced their respective 'National Lists'.  It was published in the Sunday Island of February 28, 20110.

October or November of the year 2001 I wrote a piece in the daily ‘Island’ titled ‘A refugee camp called "The National List’. It was a light and cynical look at the national lists submitted to the Elections Commissioner by the People’s Alliance, the United National Party and other parties.  I called them refugee camps because both major political coalitions had unashamedly given the finger to the spirit in which the notion of ‘national lists’ came about, namely to allow for decent, skilled, honourable people (who neither had the wealth necessary nor the inclination to dive into the wasuru-keliya (shit-game, literally) that is electoral politics - a chance to be sent to parliament.  . 

 The ‘National List’ was to be for professionals and not for political has-beens who were no longer sure of being elected.  It was not meant to be used as ‘payment’ for support extended by smaller parties.  In 2001, the only party that seemed to have taken the expressed purpose of the National List idea seriously was the Sihala Urumaya.  After the elections, the UNP and PA basically used the national list to reward coalition partners and cronies thick with the party leadership.  The Sihala Urumaya didn’t get any seats and that’s not because they didn’t fill their National List with retirees, kudu kaarayas and thugs who had pumped money into the election campaign.

 In 2004, we had the same story.  The UNP got 11 slots, and 8 of them were given to minorities.  Ranil Wickremesinghe ditched people like Dr. Ranjith Atapattu and Ravindra Randeniya.  The UPFA had 14 slots and seemed to have tried to take the matter more seriously.  That’s how the late Lakshman Kadirgamar, Tissa Vitarana, D.E.W. Gunasekera and Viswa Warnapala came to parliament.  

 What do we have in the year 2010? Let us consider the UPFA and UNP lists.  I am deliberately leaving out the Democratic National Alliance of Sarath Fonseka and Tilvin Silva because I would be extremely surprised if they would poll enough votes to make any impact on the overall result.  .   

 First, let me insert a parenthetical note.  The district lists of both parties show that people who have wealth, have thugs, have criminal records, have a history of underhand dealings, have little by way of integrity, are incompetent, are greedy and self-seeking are preferred over decent people.  To the voter, I say, vote them out!  

Ok. Back to the NLs.  Let us start with the UPFA.  Most of them are politicians and not the upright, professional citizens one dreams NLs would accommodate.  Many of them are unlikely to secure a seat in the next Parliament had they contested. There are four of five people in the list who are ‘deserving’ at least in the sense that they are ‘stand-out’ personalities compared with the riffraff that party leaders have listed into Parliament in the past.  

J.R.P. Sooriyapperuma needs no introduction.  He is a presence and that’s usually the case with giants.  Prof. Rajiva Wijesinha will not get elected were he to contest but he has certain skills that would be of great use to the President and the Government should the UPFA win, as expected.  Janaka Bandara, former Public Trustee, is one of the best minds of my generation and it is hard to think of anyone with a greater sense of responsibility, integrity and honesty.  Dullas Alahapperuma is an asset, D.M. Jayaratne is not. Dullas should have contested.

Ratnasiri Wickramanayaka, like Sanath Jayasuriya is hard to drop, not for being ‘in form’ but for sentimental reasons (at least on the part of the President and the party, not mine).  Visva Warnapala and G.L. Peiris have not reached ‘use by date’, and ‘DEW’ can be more effectively used, especially in getting the Language Act implemented.  Anuruddha Ratwatte is an embarrassment.  So is Vinayagamurthi Muralidharan (‘Karuna Amman’).  

Then there is W.J.M. Lokubandara, who has finally discovered his true political home, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.  He deserves reward certainly, but perhaps not in this way.  I am not sure what M.H. Mohammad should be rewarded for.  Geethanjana Gunawardena has not demonstrated that he is packed with his father’s genes.  Ven. Omalpe Sobitha and Ven. Ellawala Medhananada are certainly heads and shoulders above most of the names in the list for many reasons, but I believe they have outlived their parliamentary role.  Both theros are endowed with remarkable qualities of intellect, drive and sense of social responsibility and it can be argued that they (along with the rest of the Jathika Hela Urumaya complement in Parliament) played a key role in the last six years, but that’s all done now.  They have a role in society, but not in Parliament.  

Sarath Kongahage would be best as an advisor to the President; not one of the hundreds but one of the ‘inner circle’ that has Mahinda Rajapaksa’s ear.  I will not comment on the unknowns thrust into the NL because their parties insisted.   

The UPFA list, then, has pluses and minuses, and does have a bit of ‘national’ colour in terms of the nationalistic and honourable credentials of some of the persons in it.  Taken as a whole, though, it is not ‘national’.  It is essentially a refugee camp for politically displaced persons.  

The UNP’s NL is a howler. It has 16 slots for minorities and that’s going way over the ‘ethnic breakdown’.  No, there’s nothing wrong in that if one was guided by priciples related to meritocracy.  These are not professionals, though.  These are petty politicians belonging to minority parties.  If Ranil Wickremesinghe really wanted to restore some kind of ‘balance’ due to perceptions of ethnic-imbalance, that is quite ok and even worthy of applause. He could do that and at the same time be loyal to the NL-spirit, so to speak, for there are enough men and women with skill, integrity and professionalism among Tamils and Moors.  Instead, he has reinforced the general perception that he doesn’t give a damn about the majority community and is once again pandering to the demands of racist and chauvinistic identity-based political parties.  

Seriously, what kind of party would be too shy to field its General Secretary in an election? Is Tissa Attanayaka scared he would not win?  K.N. Choksy almost crossed over. He is like M.H. Mohamed.  They had a role to play. No longer, though.  Joseph Michael Perera and Rukman Senanayake are both politicians and should contest if they have any shame.  

There are two names that stand out. Eran Wickramaratne and Harsha de Silva have both made names for themselves as professionals. Harsha, a childhood friend, and I don’t see eye to eye on many things, but I will say this much for him: he is honourable, has the courage of his convictions and a man who will be an adornment in a parliament that also has people like Mervin Silva, Range Bandara and possibly Duminda Silva and Harsha’s batchmate at Royal, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, not to mention dozens of others who can’t put two thoughts together on pain of death.  I don’t know Eran personally and I am wary of the religious politics of close family members, but I think he too would adorn the UNP and the next Parliament because he is skilled, decent and by all accounts not easily purchased. 

There are people I would have through Ranil Wickremesinghe would have penciled in.  I was looking for two names. First, Imtiaz Bakeer Markar.  The fact that he is not contesting shows that either Ranil doesn’t see his worth or lacks the leadership qualities necessary to convince the man to contest.  Imtiaz would have won easily.  I thought that he would be in the national list. I mean, if a mumbler-grumbler like Tissa Attanayake is in it, then why not Imtiaz, unless of course the latter feels cheap in such company.  

Krishantha Cooray is another name.  He is ‘national’ in ways that few in the UNP are.  As the CEO of Rivira Media Corporation, Krishantha, whose political loyalties were with people like Lalith Athulathmudali and Karu Jayasuriya, was steadfast in supporting the effort to eliminate the LTTE.  He bore no personal grudges and encouraged his staff to call a spade a spade. He had a good thing going until he resigned.  He chose to side with the UNP at the last Presidential Election and there’s nothing illegitimate in that choice.  I have disagreed with him on numerous issues, but am willing to stake the truth value of everything that I write on the man’s integrity, love for this country and considerable (and hardly used) skills as a lawyer, communicator and manager.  If national lists are about ‘nationalists’, then what’s most visible in the UNP’s NL is the absence of Krishantha Cooray’s name.  

Perhaps he didn’t want to be included, perhaps he was not remembered.  On the other hand he may have been remembered, only to be un-remembered because others had to be ‘remembered’.  That would explain, I think, not just why the UNP’s NL is more of an IDP facility than that of the UPFA’s, but why the UNP has become a veritable home to politically displaced persons.    

It is more than eight years since I likened National Lists to refugee camps.  Today I am less cynical than sad.  We’ve come a long way in the past eight years.  The leaders of the main political parties ought to have learnt something or at least tried to be different this time around.  Both Mahinda Rajapaksa and Ranil Wickremesinghe get F’s from me for the National List exam paper.  

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To seize or not seize the moment…

Parties? What parties?

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) enjoys a Parliamentary majority.  The party has all but elected the new President as its leader, the very same individual who ran against the candidate fielded by the SLFP.  The United National Party (UNP) has the second largest number of MPs (second by a large margin, note).  The Prime Minister of the Country is Ranil Wickremesinghe (Leader of the UNP) whereas the Opposition Leader is Nimal Siripala Silva of the SLFP.  Both were hand-picked by President Maithripala Sirisena, the former consequent to an electoral pact and the latter in view of a changed political order and people adjusting to new realities. 

So we have a President who was backed by the UNP and who is also the leader of those who backed the man who ran against him.  The UNP has the numbers in the Cabinet but the SLFP has the numbers in Parliament.  The office of the President is endowed with close to absolute power.   ‘Balance’ in this context is totally dependent on the good will of a single individual, Maithripala Sirisena; for 100 days, if the man and his merry men and women of pre-election support and post-election embrace deliver on the promise of constitutional and electoral reform. 

Right now it’s all a scramble.  The SLFP recovered quickly from the rude shock it received from the voters and after a quick cost-benefit analysis backed the winner.  The UNP received a shock of its own because all of a sudden the party finds itself besieged in Parliament by greater numbers that are Sirisena’s to play with.  Everyone is busy getting ready for a General Election or so it seems, for all actions seem to flow from an acute consciousness of this rather than engagement with (or for) the 100 Days Program Sirisena pledged to implement. 

Given the fact that this country has been saddled with the J.R. Jayewardene Constitution for 37 years, the people are likely to forgive the government if all this takes longer than 100 days to implement.  However, the political will to see it through as well as action that matches the good governance rhetoric of the President during his campaign, will and must be assessed.  Meaningless foot-dragging will be noted as will the mindless embrace of whatever is marginal to the program.  It is not unnatural to be distracted but the people will note over-indulgence.

There are two broad areas where intervention was promised and is expected: a) the investigation of wrongdoing allegations and punishment of wrongdoer, and b) correction of system anomalies.  We have seen expected zeal with respect to naming names with respect to ‘a’ above.  What’s come out so far is ‘allegation’ with little fact-support and even less will to prosecute.  It’s in the area of ‘b’ above that the Government is showing a lot of sloth.

Two things need to be addressed when changing systems: personnel and structures.  The first is relatively easy and here the appointments to key positions have been disappointing.  While acknowledging that there is a massive human resources problem in the country where it is hard to find decent and honest people in the relatively small pool of the skilled, the Government could have done better.   Track records are not easy to hide these days and yet whoever shortlisted the choices have demonstrated unpardonable myopia. 

The more difficult and also the more important task is that of addressing structural flaws and correcting them.  This requires reform of the constitution and the overall institutional arrangement.  It is early days, yes, but the Government is not showing signs of getting cracking in this regard.  The issue of electoral reform has been debated to the point of exasperation.  Broad consensus was obtained in the Parliamentary Select Committee on this subject, headed by Dinesh Gunawardena.  With respect to the Executive Presidency and its flaws, Maithripala Sirisena’s manifesto is a good ‘working document’.  The work need not drag though.  So far we’ve got solemn promises and the appointment of committees to set up good-conduct norms, necessary of course but woefully insufficient. 

Reducing fuel prices, raising salaries and tossing out other election-goodies is all well and good, but this was a President who came to reform structures and not the nature of state-largesse.  It is high time that both major parties understood that in the year 2015 ‘parties’ are less important than particular configuration of political forces.  People come and go.  Moments pass.  Things don’t look the same.  

Fixation with party (as opposed to program – forget ‘ideology’, that particular creature died some years ago as far as the UNP and SLFP are concerned) is ‘old hat’.  The ‘new hat’ demands seizing the moment, this window of opportunity, not because it will help the politician (it will reduce the creature) but it is what the people demand and political fortunes require that they be sensitive to this demand. 

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The apparent opposition and the real opposition

President Mahinda Rajapaksa knows better than most how to make the best out of a bad situation.  He showed once again what an astute politician he is on May Day when he turned things around after key members of the ruling coalition declined to support what has been dubbed the ‘Casino Bill’.  He said that there is room in the Government for dissent.  More importantly he said that things had come to a point where the only discernible opposition was already within the United People’s Freedom Alliance. 

Now, given his readiness to embrace anyone and everyone, the UPFA certainly looks like a massive bedroom housing strange bedfellows. One would expect this to be a recipe for friction, defection and eventual collapse.  After being in power for more than a decade it is an indictment on the sad state of the opposition that regime-hating commentators have been reduced to clinging to the casino-opposition as evidence of fissure leading to inevitable regime-collapse. 

So far, the UPFA has survived ‘regime-fatigue’, international pressure and regular own-goals at all levels.  If Ranil Wickremesinghe’s biggest weakness, the fact that he has no close friends, is also his biggest strength; Mahinda’s biggest strength, the fact that he has many friends, is also his biggest weakness.  In the play of strengths and weaknesses, so far, Mahinda Rajapaksa has prevailed.  The negatives have not translated to a massive swing to the opposition.  It seems, instead, that contrary to the usual trend of regime-displeasure translating into default-support for the opposition, the lack of a credible opposition reduces the people to back the regime according to a ‘known-devil-is-better’ logic.  As a three-wheel driver recently summed up, ‘api bena bena aanduwatama chande denava’ (we continue to vote for the government even as we curse it). 

This state of affairs, this strange benefitting from the non existence of a default option, is clearly not sustainable.  Perhaps the ‘internal opposition’ is a relatively safe safeguard against collapse.  But is that the only ‘opposition’ to Mahinda Rajapaksa?

A few weeks after Mahinda Rajapaksa was elected President in 2005, in an article titled ‘In search of the kurahan saatakaya’ I made some observations on the challenges he would be confronted with.  The following are some extracts:

‘The kurahan saatakaya is and was essentially defined by what it is not, namely the tie-coat world as one would put it in “Sinhala”. It was the perfect “other” to everything represented by the (adopted) children of the colonial project, the privileges they enjoyed and the elitism they fostered and fought for tooth and nail perhaps never as ferociously as in this election. Its broadest possible articulation covers much political, cultural, economic and philosophical terrain, at least in aspiration if not in concrete ground-reality terms.

‘Rajapakse obviously understands that in real political terms his hard earned victory on November 17 only resulted in the kurahan saatakaya just scratching the politico-cultural edifice it challenged. In this sense it was a very small victory. The tie-coat, to use that convenient though not inappropriate short-hand, hangs around the necks of every institution, the vast majority of state officials, and the thinking of important sections of the most influential players in the economy, the hegemonic cultural drives and indeed the dominant ideological and philosophical frames of reference. The difference is that the kurahan saatakaya has executive power and as such has the potential to reform the politico-cultural-ideological edifice. The battle, then, has moved from the electoral register to the larger and more complex terrain of institutions, territories where Mahinda Rajapakse is at a distinct disadvantage.

‘The establishment suffered a rude shock, true, but only the utterly naïve can expect it to lie down and die on account of that particular poke in the behind. The establishment does not see a kurahan saatakaya. It sees an amuda lensuwa or loin cloth and it is a gaze of derision, a looking-down-the-nose, something that should be out of sight, mind and the face of the earth. The establishment operated in according to a by-any-means-necessary logic in trying to defeat Rajapakse and will operate in the same vein in trying to bring him down. The establishment knows the ins and outs of the system and is deeply entrenched too. All mechanisms available for subversion will be employed, rest assured.’

As of now, it appears that the battle between the kurahan saatakaya and the tie-coat is not going in favor of the former. When it comes to policy, the latter has prevailed. It is only the kurahan saatakaya of his natural ways that allows the President to retain mass support.  Within him, then, is the true opposition. The one moment when the kurahan saatakay prevailed was during the operations to defeat terrorism. On that occasion it was not the ‘tie-coats’ that stood by him but those of the kurahan-saataka ideological bent.  Such people have been marginalized or even evicted from relevant circles in the matter of policy formulation.

Nine years ago, I made the following observation:

If there comes a day where every single institution insists that all employees wear a kurahan saatakaya we would still not have won if they continue to have tie-coat heads. On the other hand, if these institutions continue to insist that employees wear Western attire, replete with tie and coat, but the people inside these clothes have a kurahan saatakaya frame of mind, then the November 17 decision would most certainly have produced something we can be proud of as a nation. I humbly 
submit that this is not impossible.

That day has not arrived, clearly.  It has not arrived because the arrival upon which Mahinda Rajapaksa’s political future depends on is being detained.  Detained by Mahinda Rajapaksa himself.  That’s the true opposition.  He cannot deal with it the way he deals with the ‘visible opposition’ but deal with it he must.  His future and that of the UPFA depends on it.  

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