Island Editorial July 1st 2015

Editorial

A daunting prospect
June 30, 2015, 12:00 pm

Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa is expected to make a special announcement today at Medamulana amidst frantic efforts to reconcile warring factions of the SLFP. President Maithripala has said the UPFA will not field Rajapaksa as its prime ministerial candidate at the August 17 general election.

Having defeated the SLFP last January the challenge before President Sirisena is to steer it to victory next month. The question is whether he can accomplish that uphill task without Rajapaksa.

If former President Rajapaksa decides to field a separate team at the upcoming polls he will be faced with the daunting task of taking on a revitalised UNP and fighting on several fronts simultaneously. At the last presidential election he had the SLFP solidly behind him in spite of several defections. Unless he secures the UPFA ticket he won’t have the support of the SLFP faction loyal to President Sirisena.

Having aborted a damning COPE report on the Treasury bond scam, neither the UNP nor the Sirisena faction of the SLFP will be able to flog the issue of corruption at the next election. President Sirisena will have a lot of explaining to do as regards why he dissolved Parliament before the submission of that vital document which would have been grist to the SLFP’s mill. The UNP and the President will also have to explain why they failed to expose at least a single mega corrupt deal during the last six months or so. Rajapaksa will cook his goose if he nominates the politicians people consider corrupt in the event of having to go it alone. Perception matters as much as conviction in politics where serious allegations are concerned.

The question being asked in political circles is why former President Rajapaksa has not yet announced his intention to contest the next general election. Unless the UPFA fields him it will be safer and far more advantageous for him to lead his side as a National List candidate without entering the fray and ask the people to vote for his team if they want him as their Prime Minister. This will give him freedom to campaign in all parts of the country without being tied to a particular electoral district; he will also be able to avoid the risk of losing all his entitlements as a former President in case of his team’s failure to form a government.

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has dared Rajapaksa to meet him in the contest as a prime ministerial candidate. With such rhetoric he is unwittingly turning the forthcoming polls into a ‘prime ministerial’ contest between him and Rajapaksa. The former President’s entry into the fray will be a worrisome proposition for him.

The late Ranasinghe Premadasa as the Prime Minister under President J. R. Jayewardene famously said a peon in a government department was more powerful than he. But, the Prime Minister becomes more powerful than the Executive President when they happen to represent two different parties. We saw this in 1994, when President D. B. Wijetunga was from the UNP and Prime Minister Chandrika Kumaratunga from the SLFP-led PA and also in the 2001-2004 period when President Kumaratunga was from the SLFP-led PA and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe from the UNP-led UNF.

The President and the Prime Minister, from two different parties, have cooperated during the past six months or so due to a pre-polls agreement. The situation is bound to change after the forthcoming general election. If the UNP forms a government on its own or with the help of its allies, the position of President Sirisena will be greatly undermined. If the SLFP captures power in Parliament with a working majority the new Prime Minister will become an alternative power centre within the party vis-à-vis the lame duck President. So, the President’s worries won’t go away after the next month’s election.

Having his position undermined will be the least of President Sirisena’s problems after August 17. He will come under severe pressure from the UNHRC to do as it says in respect of the war crimes allegations. Domestically, he will have to address issues pertaining to devolution such as the TNA’s demand for remerging the North and the East, the SLMC’s call for a separate administrative unit in the East and land and police powers for the provinces.

Whatever astrologers may say and however confident Maithri, Ranil and Mahinda may claim they are the upcoming election is a daunting prospect for all of them.