The Island Editorial

Mahinda sets cat among pigeons

10 January 2017

 

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has set the cat among the pigeons. On the eve of 2017 he said his New Year resolution was to topple the government. The yahapalana leaders are doing their damnedest to convince the public that their bête noire is only daydreaming.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has sought to make light of Rajapaksa’s threat and President Maithripala Sirisena has seen red. He insists that so long as the Speaker is on his side, there is no way anyone could dislodge the government, which he says, will go on till 2020. The late President Premadasa succeeded in defeating a move to impeach him by securing the backing of the then Speaker, President Sirisena has said.

Can a change of government be engineered in the present Parliament?

The government consists of a collective of strange bedfellows who are all out to prevent the Rajapaksas from making a comeback. They know it is plain political hara-kiri for them to break ranks at this juncture. So, they will do their best to stick together in spite of their differences. They are also under pressure from certain forces, both internal and external, which helped facilitate the 2015 regime change, to continue their cohabitation. Hence, the argument being peddled in some quarters that the government will go on till 2020!

But, one may recall that in 2001, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who was firmly in the saddle, could not prevent mass crossovers which brought down her government. There was no threat of impeachment at that time and, therefore, she was not dependent on the then Speaker, who was her brother Anura Bandaranaike, representing the UNP. The JVP’s efforts to remote-control her government by shoring it up came a cropper.

There was no 19th Amendment at that time and President Kumaratunga sacked Prime Minster Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government in 2004. Although we have a presidential system, the executive President becomes virtually powerless unless he or she is in control of Parliament through his or her party or a coalition of which it is a constituent. The 19th Amendment has rendered the incumbent President’s position vulnerable; he cannot dissolve Parliament arbitrarily even if his rivals capture power therein by engineering defections from the ruling coalition.

It may be recalled that towards the end of 2014, many UPFA politicians including very senior ministers went to Singapore, returned richer and pole-vaulted to the Opposition. They did so at a time the Rajapaksa government was considered rock solid and leaving it was thought to be political suicide for anyone. Therefore, the possibility of some of the current ministers and MPs visiting a place like, say, Hong Kong and decamping upon their return with enhanced bank balances in their offshore accounts cannot be ruled out. There have been instances where even the General Secretaries of the two main parties crossed over—S. B. Dissanayake (SLFP) in 2001, Maithripala Sirisena (SLFP) in 2014 and Tissa Attanayake (UNP) in 2014. Anything is possible in Sri Lankan politics. Whoever would have thought President Rajapaksa would suffer a grand pratfall two years before the end of his second term and his government with a two-thirds majority would crash overnight?

The UNP could not secure a working majority at the last general election even though the SLFP-led UPFA was in disarray with the Rajapaksas’ chips down. Today, its popularity is obviously on the wane owing to several factors such as unfulfilled election pledges, lack of development assistance, abuse of power, eye-watering cost of living, rampant corruption and the arrogance of power. Worse, it will have to contend with the adverse impact of having to carry out its Geneva commitments.

The outcome of the next local government polls will indicate what the future holds for the government. Yahapalana leaders shamelessly keep postponing them as they do not want to face a test of strength lest an unfavourable outcome should pave the way of defections. But, they cannot prevent public resentment from welling up by postponing polls.

Whether former President Rajapaksa is equal to the task of carrying out his threat to topple his rivals remains to be seen. But, the challenge before the ruling coalition in 2017 will be to prevent itself from disintegrating.