The ruling Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) are now gearing themselves for a decisive general election campaign, casting aside their previous differences, even as the main opposition party, the United National Party (UNP) still finds itself in crisis, unable resolve its leadership issue.
It will be recalled that in the run up to the November 2016 presidential election, relations between the SLPP and the SLFP were not all that rosy. This was due to a variety of factors. It is no secret that former President Maithripala Sirisena harboured some aspirations to contest the election as a ‘joint’ candidate at the election.
Many believed that former President Sirisena’s actions in October 2018, when he dismissed then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and had sworn in Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister was a move designed to appease the SLPP, thereby attempting to ensure his continuation in office as President.
However, that move backfired spectacularly. A constitutional crisis was triggered, leading to unprecedented scenes in Parliament. The Supreme Court declared that the then President’s actions in dissolving Parliament was unconstitutional and the status quo was restored.
While former President Sirisena’s popularity plummeted, even Mahinda Rajapaksa’s image suffered. Ranil Wickremesinghe was hailed for his unruffled leadership during the crisis. However, not being as astute as he was reputed to be, Wickremesinghe failed to cash in by not opting for general elections soon after and the Easter bomb attacks six months later virtually sealed the fate of his government.
Presidential poll
In the meantime, former President Sirisena was still hinting at contesting the November 2016 election. The SLFP was not making a definitive commitment to supporting the SLPP at the presidential poll despite the resounding mandate the latter received at the February 2018 local government elections.
SLFP officials such as party general secretary Dayasiri Jayasekara were making an issue of the symbol of a ‘common candidate’, in the event the SLFP decided to support the SLPP candidate. They were agitating for a symbol such as the chair and the betel leaf which had been used by previous SLFP-led alliances, the Peoples’ Alliance (PA) and the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA) respectively.
It is unthinkable that Jayasekara made these pronouncements of his own accord, without the blessings of former President Sirisena. However, the SLPP was not willing to part with their symbol, the lotus bud especially when it had quickly acquired currency among voters, most of whom identified the SLPP as the ‘pohottuwa’ party.
There were also suspicions within the SLPP hierarchy that former President Sirisena was biding his time to assess who the candidate from the UNP would be. His animosity towards Ranil Wickremesinghe was well known but it was believed that he had an ongoing dialogue with Sajith Premadasa’s team.
This was in the context of the cordial relations that existed between former President Sirisena and Premadasa. During the constitutional crisis, former President Sirisena offered the premiership several times to Premadasa but he refused to accept it. Both leaders were in the habit of publicly praising each other- and studiously avoided being critical of the others’ conduct.
Therefore, it was only natural that some in the SLPP entertained suspicions of a ‘deal’ between former President Sirisena and Premadasa that would ensure Sirisena’s political future in the event Premadasa won the presidential election. These suspicions were only heightened when Sirisena temporarily resigned from the SLFP leadership, announcing that he would remain ‘neutral’ during the period of campaigning for the presidential election.
However, the outcome of the presidential election has changed the political equation drastically. There has been a change in the balance of power from the SLFP to the SLPP. The catalyst for this is not so much the fact that Gotabaya Rajapaksa won the election but the magnitude of his victory.
Rajapaksa polled 6.9 million votes, as opposed to Premadasa’s 5.5 million votes and had a clear majority of 1.3 million votes. He swept the board in sixteen of the country’s twenty-two districts. It is significant that the districts won by Premadasa were in the North and East and in Nuwara Eliya, all of which had a significant minority community vote. Therefore, these are not districts that the UNP would automatically win at a general election, when parties representing those minority communities contest on their own.
President Rajapaksa’s victory
The scale of President Rajapaksa’s victory has sent a strong message to the SLFP: they would need to join hands with the SLPP or face the prospect of annihilation at the next general election. If Parliamentarians who remained faithful to former President Sirisena and the SLFP after the formation of the SLPP had any doubts about where the path to their political survival was, those concerns were laid to rest.
In choosing his Cabinet of ministers, President Rajapaksa also sent another message to the SLFP. In a Cabinet of fifteen ministers (other than the President and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa), there was room for only two SLFP ministers, party senior Nimal Siripala de Silva and UPFA general secretary Mahinda Amaraweera.
SLFP seniors such as S. B. Dissanayake, John Seneviratne and SLFP general secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera were appointed state ministers while relatively junior SLPP loyalists such as Ramesh Pathirana and Prasanna Ranatunga were given Cabinet posts.
It appears that the SLFP has read these political signals correctly. They have now unequivocally thrown in their lot with the SLPP. There is no more talk about a common symbol or contesting from the SLFP symbol of the hand. Instead, there is every indication that the SLFP is willing to play second fiddle to the SLPP in the general election campaign.
The leadership of the SLFP remains with former President Maithripala Sirisena. He will attempt to use the 2020 general elections to resurrect his political future. Although he campaigned for the 2015 presidential election pledging to retire to his village in Polonnaruwa after one term in office, he has now had a change of heart.
In a recent newspaper interview, Sirisena spoke of himself as a ‘political animal’ and stated that he felt had more to contribute to the country and that he was not ready for retirement yet. He will stand as a candidate in the Polonnaruwa district, his hometown.
Sirisena has also approved a decision to remove former President Chandrika Kumaratunga as SLFP electoral organiser for Attanagalla. Kumaratunga is the daughter of the founder of the SLFP, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and former Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike. Attanagalla has remained the pocket-borough of the Bandaranaikes for decades.
Kumaratunga’s animosity towards the Rajapaksas is well-known. She is also prone to make periodic public utterances against them from time to time. At the 2019 presidential election, she publicly called on voters to support Sajith Premadasa. By removing her from the post of electoral organiser for Attanagalla, Sirisena is attempting to remove another irritant in the SLPP-SLFP partnership.
Former President Sirisena has even gone a step further. He has called on the public to support President Rajapaksa and the SLPP to obtain a two-thirds majority in Parliament. President Gotabaya has publicly declared that he is seeking a two-thirds majority to enact constitutional amendments, particularly to repeal the 19th Amendment which ironically was to be the lasting legacy of former President Sirisena.
Former President and now Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa meanwhile is gearing himself to contest the general election from the Kurunegala district, his makeshift political home away from the Hambantota district. There was some speculation that he would contest from the more populous Gampaha district, but that has been firmly denied.
SLPP and SLFP
The redefining of the relationship between SLPP and the SLFP, with the former usurping the role played by the latter as the major pro-nationalist, slightly left-of-centre political force in the country is of great significance.
There is no doubt that the SLFP has a great history. It is the party which has governed the country for most of its seventy-two years as an independent nation. Now however, with the end of the Bandaranaike dynasty, its appeal to the electorate is fading.
There was a time when it was speculated that the SLPP would eventually ‘return to the fold’ and strengthen the SLFP. That is no longer the case. The SLPP, with its Rajapaksa imprimatur has propelled to power within a few years of being formed- just like the SLFP did, a few years after it was formed- and what is more likely now is that the SLFP would coalesce to strengthen the SLPP.
These political changes are evolving in a background where the UNP is wallowing in the throes of an internecine leadership conflict which, if latest developments are an indication, may not be resolved until after the general elections. That does not bode well for the UNP but equally enhances the prospects of the SLPP with the possibility that it could obtain a two-thirds majority at the poll.
This has never been achieved before under the proportional representation system of elections although the Mahinda Rajapaksa government won 140-seats at the 2010 general election. If a similar scenario ensures, there is always the possibility that the victorious party will attempt to secure a two-thirds majority by encouraging cross-overs, just as Mahinda Rajapaksa did after the 2010 election.
Add new comment