Guessing game over Presidential stakes | Daily News

Guessing game over Presidential stakes

The major political parties have virtually commenced campaigning for the next presidential elections, as the first term of office of President Maithripala Sirisena comes to an end on January 8, 2020 which means presidential polls must be held at the end of this year.

With the new-found rapprochement between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) led by President Sirisena and the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) of which the de-facto leader is former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the two parties are struggling to reach a compromise on the issue of a candidate for the presidential election.

When President Sirisena decided to end the ‘National Unity Government’ the SLFP had forged with the United National Party (UNP) in October last year triggering a 51-day constitutional crisis, that was interpreted as a move to solicit the support of the SLPP for his potential candidacy at the presidential election.

This was in the context of the SLFP’s dismal performance at the February 2018 Local Government elections, where it came a distant third and polled a mere 13 per cent of the vote- that too bolstered by the Ceylon Workers’ Congress, without which its share of the vote would have been about ten per cent.

This, and the fact that the majority of parliamentarians elected from the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) at the last general election now support Rajapaksa and the SLPP instead of President Sirisena, prompted the President to act, obviously with an eye on the next national elections.

The thinking of the President, Rajapaksa and strategists of the SLFP and the SLPP was to form a UPFA government with Rajapaksa as its Prime Minister, govern for a short period and then hold general elections early this year where Rajapaksa would run as the prime ministerial nominee.

Had this eventuated, President Sirisena would have had better bargaining power to claim the candidacy for presidential election next year as a ‘common’ SLFP-SLPP candidate. However, this failed to materialise because Rajapaksa could not muster the 113 votes in Parliament required to secure his premiership.

Supreme Court verdict

The SLFP-SLPP strategists then resorted to ‘Plan B’, which was to dissolve Parliament immediately and call for general elections. It was, in fact, the same as the initial plan, but on a fast-tracked time frame of a few weeks instead of a few months.

President Sirisena did issue a gazette notification dissolving Parliament to set this plan in motion but that was halted when the Supreme Court intervened at the behest of petitions submitted by opposition parties. In the end, the Supreme Court determined that the President’s decision to dissolve Parliament was unconstitutional and that plan too had to be shelved.

These events have been a costly exercise for the SLFP and the SLPP. For the SLFP and President Sirisena, it didn’t have the expected dividend of obtaining a firm endorsement from the SLPP regarding the President’s potential candidacy for the presidential elections.

For the SLPP, the cost was arguably even greater. The manner in which the party acted in trying to ensconce itself in power brought back memories of the draconian ways of the Rajapaksa regime. Its disgraceful behaviour in Parliament and its actions to take control of the state media reflected the party in poor light. Many opined that if the SLPP were to return to power, it would be back to the ‘bad old days’. Rajapaksa himself was humiliated and ridiculed in the entire exercise and was in fact ‘suspended’ by the courts.

Emerging from the rubble of this political disaster, both the SLFP and the SLPP are sending out feelers to each other- and the public- regarding the next presidential election which must now be held before the next parliamentary polls, the latter due in February 2020 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, President Sirisena is moving to take total control of the SLFP. Towards this end, he has appointed Dayasiri Jayasekara as the General Secretary of the party, the fourth person to hold that office within the last four years, after Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, Duminda Dissanayake and Rohana Lakshman Piyadasa.

Jayasekara didn’t endear himself to the SLPP in his first public comments after his appointment. He said that President Sirisena would be the SLFP’s candidate for the presidential election and then, in response to a question on the SLPP, provided a Sinhala idiom as a reply: ‘yakaata baya nam sohoney geval hadanne ne’ (‘one does not build a house in a cemetery if he is afraid of the devil’).

Many interpreted this as a reference to Rajapaksa who himself was asked about the comment. He responded saying ‘you need to ask Jayasekara, he must be dealing with the devil’. Later Jayasekara was critical of the media for blowing his statement out of proportion and stated that he meant no ill will towards Rajapaksa.

Even so, two other SLFP stalwarts, its media spokesman Mahinda Samarasinghe and senior vice president Nimal Siripala de Silva have also publicly declared that President Sirisena is the SLFP candidate. While the President has not made a public comment on the issue, it has been pointed out that he has also not denied these claims made by senior party officials who are known to be his loyalists.

Candidate issue

The reality is that the SLFP and the SLPP have yet to reach a formal agreement over the issue of a candidate. However, perhaps as a response to the public pronouncements emanating from the SLFP, there have been statements from the SLPP as well.

Kumara Welgama, former minister and an avowed Mahinda Rajapaksa loyalist has stated that Mahinda Rajapaksa himself should run for President. Although the 19th Amendment apparently bars Rajapaksa from contesting, Welgama is of the view that this should be put to the test, arguing that the 19th Amendment cannot be applied retrospectively. Welgama has previously publicly opposed the potential candidacy of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

A significant declaration came from Basil Rajapaksa, the strategist credited with creating the SLPP. The next President will be from the SLPP, he told a meeting party officials at Mahara. “Electing a President from the SLPP is not a mere statement. When the SLPP was not more than one year old, it showed it's a strength by defeating grand old parties like the UNP and the SLFP at the last local government election,” Rajapaksa said. Whether this was mere political rhetoric or whether he was declaring the party’s real intentions is not clear.

Also emerging from a period of silence was basil’s brother, former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa told ‘Viyath Maga’, an organisation of professionals that he is “ready” for the polls. “We know a presidential election is to be held this year. I’m ready for it if you are ready too,” he said in comments that were the most explicit yet from the former military officer.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa had previously been projected as the SLPP’s frontrunner candidate but he is handicapped by his United States citizenship which he is yet to renounce and the plethora of cases pending against him in local courts. These are however hurdles that can be overcome.

These public comments from stalwarts from both the SLFP and the SLPP only confirm that there are broad differences of opinion between the two parties with regard to the presidential poll. Whether they will align for the election or whether they will go their separate ways remains to be seen. With only months to go for the poll and the clock ticking by the day, the sooner they resolve that question, the better their prospects would be in 2020.

 


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