Ceylon Today Editorial

President’s focus on upcountry

23 January 2017

President Maithripala Sirisena graced the occasion marking the 150th anniversary of the tea industry in the island and the 92nd anniversary of the Tea Research Institute, Talawakele on Saturday (21).

The tea industry started by the British in 1867, when James Taylor along with Scotsman Thomas Lipton planted tea in just 19 acres at Loolecondera Estate a former coffee plantation, remained a key export revenue maker, along with rubber in the country.

However, despite Lankan tea being still respected world over, the tea industry has been neglected to a great extent, with large swathes of tea estates shrinking rapidly with the replacement of vegetable cultivation in several areas in the upcountry.

The frequent agitations staged by plantation workers over salaries as well as the shortcomings in housing, education and health among the plantation community have highlighted their plight and a recent survey has indicated that Nuwara Eliya remains a premier district affected by malnutrition.

The plantation community is no more dependent entirely on the tea bushes of the hill country for their livelihood. In the past several decades, the social structure of the plantation community has changed extensively with the present generation of the upcountry labour force focusing on various fields.

However, the majority of upcountry folk who were brought by the British as a major work force to enhance the tea and rubber industry still remain below the poverty line.

President Maithripala Sirisena addressing the celebration to mark the 150th anniversary of the tea industry in the country said that he would prioritize eradication of malnutrition among the plantation community in Nuwara Eliya.

Unlike in the past, the plantation community is well represented in Parliament and other local bodies. But hardly any action is being taken to improve the living conditions of the upcountry folk by politicians who represent them.

President Sirisena speaking at the Tea Research Institute, Talawakele last Saturday, while thanking the plantation community for extending its overwhelming support to him at the last Presidential election said appropriate measures would be taken to uplift their living conditions.

Since the inception of the tea industry in the country, the upcountry labour force remained the backbone of our country's economy for the past 150 years. Several changes have taken place in the country in the past several decades, but the people in the upcountry have not been given due importance with regard to the enhancement of their living conditions.

President Sirisena who was compelled to land at Kotagala due to adverse weather conditions on his way to Talawakele by helicopter last Saturday, had even pointed out at the Tea Research Institute event that he was able to have a closer look into the humanitarian issues of the upcountry people when he conversed with a group of villagers in Kotagala.

The President also pointed out that several schools in the upcountry remained without proper sanitation or drinking water facilities.

With President Sirisena having a closer look into the shortcomings of the upcountry community, the pertinent questions remain where have the political heavy weights and so-called trade unions from the upcountry gone? And what have they been doing in the best interest of their people?

The civil war in the country has led to enormous humanitarian issues in the North and the East. The support extended by the people from the North and the East at the last Presidential Election was significant along with the overwhelming support extended to President Sirisena at the Presidential Poll by the people in the upcountry.

Considering the plight of the people affected by the civil war in the North and the East, President Sirisena's frequent visits to the two Provinces have initiated several constructive development activities to erase the enormous humanitarian issues in the war-torn areas.

By attending the 150th anniversary celebration of the tea industry and even focusing attention on the plight of the upcountry people, who remain the vital strength of the tea industry, President Maithripala Sirisena must now throw his weight to uplift the living conditions of the hill country on a war footing.

Daily News Editorial

Crowds as a guide

23 January 2017

Newly elected American President Donald Trump appears to have something in common with the Joint Opposition here in Sri Lanka. The JO seems to have this obsession with crowd attendance at their rallies and measures its popularity in the numbers. Trump too, it seems, is swayed by crowds and took umbrage when the media allegedly understated the crowd numbers at his inauguration. Donald Trump drew less crowds than Hillary Clinton at his election rallies but won the polls in the end. Now Trump is accusing the media of giving out a truncated figure of the actual crowd presence at his swearing in at Washingtin DC. Trump complained that the media placed the crowd at a mere 250,000 whereas, in his estimate, some millions were present for the grand event.

Comparatively speaking, the Joint Opposition, which is a great fan of Trump, too likes to have the crowd attendance to its rallies in the hundreds of thousands and flaunt the numbers as a measure of its popularity. JO stalwart MP Rohitha Abeygoonawardena says that they were planning to bring a crowd of 500,000 to its Nugegoda rally, come Friday. Going by the MP’s claim, one Sri Lankan in every forty would be present at Nugegoda to cheer lustily at the JO speakers. Perhaps, as an added incentive to draw in the crowds, claims are being made of a number government ministers mounting the JO platform at Nugegoda and that Priyankara Jayaratne had already fired the first salvo, with Ven Ratana Thera distancing himself from the government. This, the JO contends, will trigger a snowballing effect, with more government ministers joining.

Commonsense would make anyone, with a nodding acquaintance with politics, realise how untenable this claim could be. To begin with, the government today commands a two thirds majority in parliament and those, whom the JO says are planning to mount the Joint Opposition platform wouldn’t want to commit political harakiri. National elections are four years away and a loss of a few government members to the Opposition is not going to make any significant dent in the regime’s stability. For any major shift to occur, the SLFP members in the government have to defect en masse and no one in their right minds would bet on some 45 members of the SLFP to cross over in one go, to bring down the government. Besides, no member would throw away their ministerial portfolios to join a movement which has no leader. That is, a leader who could one day be President or Prime Minister. They would not want to join a band of aimless drifters.

On the other hand, the Nugegoda rally is being touted as the inaugural rally of the ‘pohottuwa’ party, which is a party formed to oppose the government, and no government minister or MP would want to risk being expelled from the party (SLFP) and subsequently lose their parliament seat, with no election in the horizon. They only have to reflect on the fate that befell Prof. G.L. Peiris, who was expelled from the SLFP upon assuming office as the General Secretary of the fledgling party.

Be that as it may, crowd attendance at political rallies have never been a barometer for popularity of a political party. If that were the case Rohana Wijeweera would have been the first Executive President of Sri Lanka and not JRJ. Such was the crowd drawing capacity of the bearded Marxist. During the last Presidential election, Mahinda Rajapaksa was so carried away by the crowds at Polonnaruwa, the pocket borough of his rival, that he declared it a historical moment in the context of the crowds at a political rally in Polonnaruwa. Rajapaksa lost the seat by over 30,000 votes. On the other hand, the Common Candidate won handsomely in electorates where he was not even permitted to erect a stage, let alone drawing crowds.

Both, the UNP and SLFP, traditionally have a bloc vote of almost equal proportions and it is only the sizable floating vote that decides the outcome of an election. This is what was witnessed at the last Presidential election where the undecided voter turned the tables. Political rallies are usually attended by the hardcore supporters and are shunned by the silent, disaffected voter. Hence no accurate assessment could be made how crowd attendance reflect an actual vote count at an election.

Hence what is being planned on Friday is an exercise to impress television viewers with crowds, with some stations even going to the extent of doctoring the TV footage to amplify crowd attendance.

The JO, it is reported, has planned many such rallies across the country, with perhaps the same crowds bussed in to all the venues. It has also devised various strategies to boost the popularity or perhaps make Mahinda Rajapaksa a heroic figure. A pro-Opposition newspaper had reported as its main story the other day of Mahinda Rajapaksa being asked to quit politics by two powerful countries. This way, the JO hopes to portray the picture of a Rajapaksa, who not only has to contend with the government, but also powerful nations.

The Island Editorial

Holding a tiger’s tail

23 January 2017

 

It looks as if the SLFP had already launched its presidential election campaign while postponing the local government polls it is scared of facing. Some SLFP members of the yahapalana government are floating the idea of nominating President Maithripala Sirisena to seek a second term.

A group of UPFA Provincial Chief Ministers had a meeting with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday at the latter’s official residence in Colombo on what they described as the SLFP’s future electoral strategy among other things. It ended inconclusively but on a positive note according to some of the participants. That powwow has proved that the present SLFP leadership is wary of facing an election without the backing of the dissident group.

President Sirisena is in an unenviable position. He cannot give up power now. He may have thought he would be able to neutralise the Rajapaksa factor in politics soon after winning the presidency and consolidate his power in the SLFP once and for all. But, that was a serious political miscalculation on his part. Former President Rajapaksa has bounced back. Sirisena has got hold of a tiger’s tail, so to speak. Retirement after completing the first term is a worrisome proposition for him.

But, would President Sirisena be able to win a presidential election should he decide to throw his hat into the ring again with the UNP fielding its own candidate? It is doubtful whether the political forces which propelled him to victory last time will rally behind him again in such an eventuality.

The next presidential election is likely to be a three-cornered contest. The Joint Opposition (JO) will have to nominate its candidate who is likely to be a member of the former ruling family. The government thinks the JO’s choice will be Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and, therefore, it has already trained its propaganda cannon on him. He is very likely to be summoned before the CID and the FCID and even remanded. The UNP claims it wants the executive presidency abolished and, therefore, the question of who its presidential candidate will be does not arise. But, it will have to field its candidate as the presidency cannot be done away without the backing of the SLFP, which now says it wants to retain that institution.

The uphill task before President Sirisena at a future presidential election will be to secure the support of the two main minority parties, the TNA and the SLMC, which are likely to back the UNP candidate in the race. He cannot rest assured that even the SLFP will throw its full weight behind him owing to the intraparty disputes. The anti-incumbency factor and the unfulfilled election promises, especially the much-advertised one to abolish the executive presidency and usher in good governance and the economic woes of the public, the Geneva commitments are bound to weigh him down in the race.

Before setting his eyes on the next presidential election, President Sirisena will have to steer the SLFP to victory at the next local government elections if he is to consolidate his power in the party. It is not possible to keep postponing the mini polls until 2020. Unless he proves himself as a capable leader in the LG race by helping the SLFP win a majority of local councils, forces hostile to him within the party, will emerge stronger and challenge his position as the party leader. He has his work cut out because of the newly formed Sri Lanka People’s Front (SLPF), which is expected to contest the mini polls.

The benefit of a possible division in the SLFP vote will naturally accrue to the UNP candidate, backed by the TNA and the SLMC. Thus, all odds are apparently stacked against President Sirisena.

It is being speculated in political circles that efforts being made in some quarters to reconcile the two SLFP factions may reach fruition. A coming together of the SLFP and the SLPF looks a near impossibility at present. But, the fact remains that adversity as well as expediency makes strange bedfellows. Whoever would have thought the JHU would join an alliance consisting of the UNP, the TNA and the SLMC? The JVP is playing footsie with the UNP, which unleashed mindless violence against it in the late 1980s and brutally murdered its leaders! The SLMC has no qualms about bunking up with the JHU. Many UPFA ministers accused of bribery and corruption are ministers in the yahapalana government claiming to champion good governance! So, the possibility of a rapprochement between the warring SLFP factions cannot be ruled out.

Meanwhile, former President Chandrika Kumaratunga has stressed, at a recent media briefing that President Sirisena vowed never to seek a second term at his inauguration ceremony in 2015. But, she has stopped short of revealing who the next SLFP presidential candidate will be or whether the SLFP will contest that election at all. Her statement is widely seen as an indication of another power centre emerging within the SLFP. It is a case of antho jata, bahi jata—’conflict within, conflicts without’—for President Sirisena.