The cat is out of the bag. President Ranil Wickremesinghe has said, both the presidential and parliamentary elections, will be held next year. Under the Constitution, the former is due next year, but the parliamentary polls are due only a year later. By combining both, the ‘wily Ranil’, as he is at times known, has served notice on the Rajapaksas’ SLPP under-writer of his government.
The message is this: ‘Either we swim together, or sink together’. Yet, sinking is easier for both under the circumstances. Swimming together is not going to be easy for either camp, not when they are unsure of which way would the elections go, and who would need greater support from the other – when, what, how and how much.
Ahead of the post-war presidential poll, incumbent Mahinda Rajapaksa had the option of advancing the parliamentary poll ahead of his own re-election that the war victory had already sealed for him. The argument was that the party – the parent SLFP-UPFA – at the time needed him more than the other way around.
Mahinda’s personal perception, gleaned from predecessor CBK’s second-term experience was this: A second five-year term is the maximum allowed under the Constitution, and a second-term President becomes a lame-duck the minute he or she gets elected.
Party leaders down the line take no orders from the incumbent, nor do they care for the hierarchy even on formal occasions. They are busy fishing for a new leader in the place of the outgoing one and do not want to hurt the sentiments and sensitivities of that faceless, nameless person, male or female. There is no harm in hurting the other. Maybe, it will fetch you brownie points under the next leader.
Boon or Burden?
Just now, Ranil too, seems to think this way. He knows the limitations of his re-won popularity, thanks to the early-day good work in stabilising the nation’s economy after last year’s disasters. He has not as much succeeded in reviving it. Instead, his government has been taxing the people heavily – or, that is the perception among the public sector employees, whose over-sized numbers are a legion.
Having failed to engineer as many defections from the breakaway SJB, at least thus far, Ranil and the UNP have little choice, but to capitulate before the Rajapaksas, for their SLPP cadre-support to win the presidency in a popular mandate, which he lacks just now. Ahead of it, he will still need the Rajapaksas’ endorsement and support to be the common candidate of both parties. Or, that is the SLPP perception.
Yet, both are in doubt about each other’s popularity and acceptance levels, leaving aside the mutual suspicion that is age-old as parties and personalities. Ranil especially does not know if the Rajapaksas’ support will be a boon or a burden in his re-election bid, given the still simmering public anger in the aftermath of last year’s Aragalaya protests.
Likewise, the Rajapaksas are just now unsure if Ranil’s election as President will rub on them, and if an SLPP-UNP combine could win the parliamentary polls, at least coming as the single largest group with other existing allies of the former. Ranil is possibly keen, not to end up as a run-down President, if the presidential poll comes first and he gets re-elected.
It’s a Catch-22 situation, but neither side knows how to proceed from here. One thing however, seems clear to both of them. They need each other at least for the first of the two elections. How much and how far, neither is sure about.
What if the presidential poll comes first, Ranil wins, and the SLPP requires his popularity to make the grade in the parliamentary elections next? What if the parliamentary polls come first where no one is talking about a repeat SLPP sweep, and it impinges negatively on whatever popularity Ranil is perceived to have?
Mockery of methods
In this background, President Wickremesinghe’s decision to shift SLPP Health Minister Keheliya Rambukwella to the Environment portfolio is as ‘much interesting’ as it is a mockery of set procedures. Not very long ago, Parliament voted out a no-confidence motion against Rambukwella, rather convincingly. The President had backed his minister.
Hence, for him to remove the very same minister from the very same ministry, representing the even otherwise difficult SLPP ally raises questions as to why he did not do it earlier – if his mind too, was with the Opposition’s resolution. Why waste Parliament’s time and scarce public funds when the Opposition’s original demand was only for the President to sack the minister?
According to the Opposition, Minister Rambukwella was inefficient and corrupt, and as a result, the credible public health system in the country had gone for a toss. The President seems to endorse it even if belatedly. How then did he conclude that he would be efficient and incorrupt in the Environment Ministry, which is more complex and complicated, given international conventions and the like?
Naturally, the SLPP is not happy with the change. The Rajapaksas are said to be even unhappier with Wickremesinghe handing over a crisis-ridden Health portfolio to Dr. Ramesh Pathirana, who is already saddled with a complex ministry, in Industries. It is possible that it is an interim arrangement – but that is not the point.
The SLPP is upset as much about the Health portfolio going to a representative of parent SLFP, whose boss and former President Maithripala Sirisena is out to settle whatever scores possible with the Rajapaksas, in whichever way possible, in the twin polls, now due next year. They thus read additional portfolios for an SLFP nominee as Wickremesinghe wooing the party and its boss. They do not seem to conclude that Ranil may after all be wooing the minister, not his party, just as he has succeeded in doing with a few ministerial nominees of the SLPP, earlier.
Challenges, Consequences
The question now is this: Between Ranil and the Rajapaksas, who will blink first, and how – if at all? There is the alternative scenario, where the Rajapaksas can hope to upstage President Wickremesinghe by withdrawing support to his government before he dissolves Parliament under the law to facilitate fresh elections and render them toothless, powerless, as the Ranil camp may presume.
Of course, both face challenges and consequences. By withdrawing support to the ‘Wickremesinghe’ leadership, the Rajapaksas may be committing an electoral hara-kiri of sorts. Or, that is the general belief. But news reports have also been talking about the Rajapaksas, especially Namal from the clan’s third political generation, drawing reasonable crowds wherever he addresses public rallies. It is not necessarily person-centric but time-centric. A year back, ‘pater familias’, Mahinda was either booed or had to turn back when he attempted come-back rallies.
Likewise, by dissolving Parliament and pushing the SLPP out of his electoral scheme, Wickremesinghe may be attempting a political suicide, a second or third or whatever time, in his decades-old political career. Unless of course, there is a hidden writing on the invisible wall: Dump the Rajapaksas and the SLPP, and the UNP and the breakaway SJB can hope to work together, with or without re-merger.
Speculative, it is, yes, but is it not what politics and elections are all about in a democracy – which Sri Lanka still is?
About the Author:
N Sathiya Moorthy is a Policy Analyst and Political Commentator, based in Chennai, India. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com
By N Sathiya Moorthy
