The Island Editorial

Waiting for Godot

18 March 2017

An otherwise outspoken Polls Chief Mahinda Deshapriya sometimes speaks in riddles, especially when he discusses the issue of much-delayed local government elections. A veteran public official, he must be having good reasons for not speaking his mind on sensitive issues though we want him to dance down the track and entertain the public. He presided over, perhaps, the most critical election in the post-Independence history of this country—the 2015 presidential polls, which led to an unprecedented regime change. He surely knows what he is doing. But, the question is whether he has been able to figure out what the present dispensation is really capable of.

Deshapriya is reported to have said, at a recent symposium in Anuradhapura on electoral and political reforms, that the term of the North Central Provincial Council will expire next September and the government won’t be able to come out with any valid reason for postponing the next PC election. One may not be competent enough to question his knowledge of election laws, but, one may not buy into his argument that the government is not equal to the task of postponing a PC election.

What guarantee is there that a government which fear mini polls will face PC elections without trying to postpone them as well? The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government wants to avoid an electoral contest for two reasons. The SLFP and the UNP are wary of being brought on a collision course. Their coalition government is like a pyramid with a crack right down the middle of it and unity is conspicuous by its absence among the supporters of the two parties at the grassroots level. President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will have to lead their parties at the next election, which will be a test of strength for both of them. Neither of them wants to have his real strength exposed before 2020. An election, which is sure to entail hostile campaigning, will also cost the government its fragile ‘unity’ at the centre. If the President fails to steer the SLFP to victory his rivals will emerge stronger in the party, forming an alternative power centre. The SLFP’s intra-party trouble will stand the UNP in good stead at an election, but if the SLFP fails to win, the President will lose his grip on the party and its Central Committee, which can bring down the ‘national’ government at a time of its choosing.

The Polls Chief is not alone in thinking that the government will be up against a brick wall where postponing elections is concerned come September. But, the yahapalana regime is known for lateral thinking and it has also demonstrated its readiness to cut the Gordian knot. Whoever would have thought it would cause a Chief Justice to vanish into thin air? President Sirisena simply waved his executive magic wand and the CJ was gone! Nobody knows what really happened to the Prime Minister of the Rajapaksa government in the immediate aftermath of the 2015 presidential election. He, too, was made to disappear, as it were, and Ranil Wickremesinghe appointed the PM. The incumbent government has also appointed the Opposition in Parliament! Some courts are kept open till midnight to remand the Joint Opposition politicians, who refuse to toe the government line. They function on Poya Days and during weekends to bail out government backers. The original delimitation committee report was accepted by the President and the Speaker, but later a review was ordered to postpone local government polls. Now, the review committee report is to be reviewed, we are told. This is going to be a never ending process. Children are arrested for stealing coconuts, but those who robbed the Central Bank remain above the law. For a government capable of such things to safeguard its interests finding ways and means of postponing PC polls will be child’s play. Let’s wait for Godot!