Ceylon Today Editorial

DEFINING WATERSHED IN PRESIDENT’S LIFE

 01 September 2016

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)'s 65th Convention has as never before drawn the attention of not only local politicians, think tanks and business leaders but of the global diplomatic corps as well if only because President Maithripala Sirisena is expected to spell out the SLFP's plan to seek the electorate's majority vote for a totally SLFP Government .

That could mean, 4 September in Kurunegala could also see the President making a statement on what the form and substance of the SLFP will be even in the two-party government that is obtaining right now.

The President has in a manner of speaking made a mark for himself with the electorate by consistently shooting down proposals in and out of the budget which have the slightest hint of burdening the masses with extra expenses on essentials. He has shown a rare ability to stamp out any vestige of overly eccentric and MR-centric rebellion against mainline SLFP decisions and its performances in government.

He has shown no aversion to calling a spade a spade even if it has meant squashing what his own Premier, the UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesignhe's attempts, through the United National Party (UNP) Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, to slip in hikes in CoL that could inordinately affect the lives of the common man. He has thus forced the UNP arm of the government to bring in price controls on 18 most-used food items and thus made himself more popular with the voters. He has steered Sri Lanka away from being a hated pariah on the global stage to being a much sought after trading and investments partner, especially by big investors from the West whose exports are streamlined for Western big time markets. His handling of the touch subject of human rights abuses to the extent of possibly saving MR and others from being dragged before the ICJ is no small argument in his favour. That's an argument that can cause a huge flow of votes in his favour at the hustings when general and presidential elections come around.

He has seen to it that his even-handed policies have meshed into any negotiations the Prime Minister and his hand-picked ministers in development ministries with countries both east and west and north and south.

He has, as everyone now knows, steered Sri Lanka into a clearly Pro-US/West foreign policy realm to the extent of a clearly defined policy that has as its end focus the promotion of more big time export markets in the West as well as steering a safe and sound policy with China and other potential belligerents in the West whose investments and export markets, though not half as important, are still essential as hedges are in the stock market.

He has fast established the fact that SLFP renegades can't expect him to be anything less than a handful, as belligerent as himself, when the need arises and as a man who is capable of unleashing the full power of the law, legitimately at that, to counter any threat to his security in power.

So, as September approaches, the man who will take centre stage on the SLFP podium in Kurunegala will be doing so from a comparative position of strength, a strength he did not quite muster when he was elected President and opted to tie with to form an Unity Government with the hated UNP regime and the more hated UNP Leader, whose name has been anathema to the Rajapaksa-led breakaway faction of the SLFP that is now said be gearing to form a new party to mount a direct attack on Sirisena.

If Rajapaksa's following has been steadfast, though for the wrong reason from a moral and political standpoint, Sirisena's backing had gained immense strength from a growing support base from among those considered moral by comparison and more imbued with integrity.

September 4 will somehow, we feel, prove to be a defining juncture at the political crossroads of the President's career. And that will redefine the course that the country will take as unfolding political events over the next four years will unveil.