SLFP – The Wire

Sri Lanka: Sirisena Stares at Impending Exodus as Rajapaksa’s Son Quits Party

His bargaining power in the remaining months as President is going to weaken, dwindling his opportunity to run for presidency as a common candidate in an SLFP-SLPP electoral alliance.

Colombo: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena’s decision to dissolve the parliament on November 9 as a solution to a bourgeoning political crisis seems to be having the reverse effect. At least three political parties are now determined to challenge the dissolution in court in the coming week while Sirisena’s own party members have begun defecting to the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), a new political party headed by former minister and Rajapaksa loyalist, Professor G.L. Peiris.

Leading the way, parliamentarian and Rajapaksa’s son Namal Rajapaksa obtained SLPP membership on November 10. “We will strive to create a broader coalition with many stakeholders under the leadership of Maithripala Sirisena & Mahinda Rajapaksa to face the upcoming general election and come out victorious,” Namal Rajapaksa said in Twitter post.

Namal Rajapaksa.

Immediately, there were at least two other responses from young SLFP members, Kanchana Wijesekera and Shehan Semasinghe, indicating their decision to join the SLPP, a trend that is expected to grow during the period of nominations.

Meanwhile, the news website economynext.com and several others claimed that Mahinda Rajapaksa too has renounced his SLFP membership in favour of the SLPP. Sirisena’s prime ministerial appointee is now garnering support from all parties to cobble a broad coalition to face the forthcoming general election while his very appointment is expected to be challenged in court this week.

Also read: Srisena’s Assaults on Democracy Make a Mockery of Parliamentary System

Until now, Rajapaksa, a former SLFP leader and then patron, has not severed his official link with the currently Sirisena-led SLFP.

SLPP emerged the strongest political party in the local elections held in February, pushing Wickremsinghe’s UNP to the second and the Sirisena-led SLFP to the third place.

However, observers claim that the new move by Rajapaksa loyalists is not only calculated to secure electoral victory but is also aimed at further reducing the SLFP’s footprint in Sri Lankan electoral politics. Besides, it will also weaken Sirisena’s bargaining power in the remaining months as President, dwindling his opportunity to run for presidency as a common candidate in an SLFP-SLPP electoral alliance.

But all is not well within the Rajapaksa camp. While his appointment has been a source of joy to sections of the populace, international community has responded either negatively or passively to the October 26 appointment.

Only the Chinese and the Pakistani envoys paid courtesy calls on the former president after being appointed Prime Minister.

The United Nations, the European Union and the United States have expressed serious concern over the turn of events in Sri Lanka and have called for adherence to democratic norms and respect for constitutional rule.

Also read: The Political is Personal: An Essay in Despair from Sri Lanka

Sources confirmed that the Sri Lankan foreign ministry has not received a single congratulatory message from any country over the appointment of Rajapaksa to date, an indication that the world is not eager to endorse Sirisena’s style of replacing a serving prime minister.

Meanwhile, three political parties intend to challenge the dissolution of parliament as a violation of the constitution.

Leading the campaign is the UNP’s frontliner and former finance and media minister Mangala Samaraweera, who claimed the dissolution was an undemocratic act “to suit political ambitions of a few.”

The United National Party, the northern-based Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Marxist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) will challenge the dissolution, what Samaraweera termed as “tyranny” and “hitting the constitution in its teeth.”

The basis for challenging, Samaraweera said, lies in the 19th Amendment to the constitution, signed off by President Sirisena himself in the afterglow of presidential victory in 2015, which stipulates that a dissolution can take place upon completing four-and-a-half years. The November 9 dissolution comes one-and-a-half years ahead of schedule.

Samaraweera insists that since the House was dissolved while one party had a working majority, the dissolution is mala fide and undemocratic. “The election was announced to deny the party with a working majority to continue in government,” he said.

Speaking to The Wire, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kuamar Dissanayake said the announcement of a snap poll is unacceptable primarily because it violates the 19th Amendment to the constitution and second, if the desired result is not achieved, there is the threat of the president taking further undemocratic steps, causing extensive political instability.

“This is a reaction poll, not a democratic call for elections,” said Dissanayake.

The dissolution seems to have deepened the political crisis that was triggered by Sirisena’a replacing of Ranil Wickremesinghe with former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, rather than abate it.

Sri Lanka’s ousted Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe arrives at a news conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka October 27, 2018. Credit: Reuters/Dinuka Liyanawatte

The ousted Wickremesinghe continues to occupy Temple Trees, the prime minister’s official residence, while the caretaker prime minister of Sirisena’s choice, Rajapaksa, operates from the prime minister’s office in Colombo.

When called by the UNP and speaker Karu Jayasuriya to face the floor test allowing Wickremesinghe or Rajapaksa to effectively demonstrate their majority, Sirisena announced a snap general election when it became clear that his side could not garner the 113 members needed.

However, even as the Gazette extraordinaire 2096/70 of November 9, 2018 was being dispatched for printing at the government’s printer, an undeterred Sirisena swore in three more Cabinet ministers.

Dilrukshi Handunnetti is a Colombo-based journalist and lawyer.

Taking Sri Lankan Foreign Policy to the Post-Confrontational Phase

The government’s external policy strength lies in the position of equidistance it is now maintaining with regional, continental and global powers.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena (right) with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Credit: Reuters

Foreign policymaking is infinitely more complex than what politicians in the opposition, or those who are aspiring to come to power, want the public to believe. Sri Lankan’s leaders have been learning this simple, yet fundamental lesson, since last January. That is why the foreign policy positions of the current government seem to have been in a continuous state of flux.

There is a good reason for it to be so. The government has been compelled to confront a number of factors and pressures in establishing its own ‘foreign policy identity’. I do not think there is yet evidence to suggest that the government wants to have, or has been able to establish, a firm ideological identity in its external relations, as has been the case with many governments in the past, particularly the previous one of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Avoiding an ideological identity in its foreign policy strategies seems to be a key defining feature of the Maithripala Sirisena-Ranil Wikremasinghe administration at present.

Some see this flexibility as a weakness of the government. There is, however, another way of looking at it. It represents the essential dimension of pragmatism in foreign policy, necessitated by a range of complex domestic, regional and global factors. Muddling through is not necessarily a sign of weakness, or a prelude to disaster, in a context where the government has been experimenting with different responses to some key foreign policy determinants.

What are the key determinants that have shaped Sri Lanka’s foreign policy since January last year? We can put them in two groups.

Regime change

The first is electoral and regime change compulsions. Any new government would want to steer a new path of foreign policy. Given the atmosphere of extreme hostility between the two camps, the new government was compelled to abandon immediately the foreign policy orientation of Rajapaksa. The new orientation was seen in the restoration of closeness with regional as well global powers that had earlier been marginalised. This core dimension of Sri Lankan foreign policy continues with only a slight change.

This change is felt primarily in relations with China. Beijing had maintained a close political proximity to the previous government and its leadership. China’s aloofness to the emerging opposition during even the last months of 2014 was somewhat inexplicable too. All this led the new government to adopt a policy of distancing itself from China, both politically and economically. One could even detect some degree of tension between Sri Lanka’s new establishment and the Chinese government; this became somewhat noticeable with regard to the Colombo Port City development project. The government has since passed that initial phase of uncertainty and now appears to have refined its core foreign policy stance to be ‘friendship with all; enmity with none’.

Domestic factors

The second key determinant was the continuation of the central role that the ethnic conflict and civil war had played in bringing together in a symbiotic framework Sri Lanka’s domestic politics and external relations. New York, Geneva, Washington DC, London, Brussels and New Delhi were the key cities that constituted the centres of its global geography. Geneva – home to the UN Human Rights Council – in March and October 2015 symbolised this process of re-configuring Sri Lanka’s global relations and strategies. For the first time since 2009, we could see the Sri Lankan government, the UN, the EU and Western governments – the West-led managers of the global political system – sitting and talking to each other as friends, committed to a shared goal of post-war peace-building and development in Sri Lanka.

This reconfiguration of the external appeared to have run into some difficulty by late last year. Its cause was primarily domestic. And it entails Sri Lanka’s severe balance of payment crisis, triggered off by the mounting debt crisis and the poor record of incoming private foreign investments. The new government has also come to realise that its newly found Western allies were not really ready to assist Sri Lanka in managing the emerging economic crisis in any substantive way.

Understandably, for the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government, there was no free lunch coming from Europe or America. Whatever little that came had political conditionalities attached. Faced with a potentially disastrous economic downturn, the government seems to have decided to re-recalibrate its external relations. This is the only way to explain the government’s re-examination, of late, of a policy of closer and more robust economic relationship with China, despite continuing domestic criticism, coming from allies as well as opponents. There is no free lunch from Beijing too, though.

A point that may interest the observer is that the government has so far been careful to emphasise the economic dimensions of its closeness to China, thereby playing down the possibility of any political/strategic and ideological closeness. This is one point by which this government seems to sharply differentiate itself from the previous one. There was a strong view in the country that China was backing the authoritarian project of the previous government’s leadership, closing its eyes totally to issues of democracy, human rights and corruption.

The Chinese leadership is unlikely to abandon its personal and political closeness with Sri Lanka’s former president. In foreign policy matters, China is also known historically for its utmost pragmatism in the service of national interests. What seems to be happening is that the China has regained the initiative in restoring its relations with the new Sri Lankan government at a moment when it can define the terms of engagement from a position of advantage. This perhaps is the only foreign policy setback the new government has experienced.

Meanwhile, domestic issues seem to continue to maintain the upper hand in defining the trajectories of Sri Lanka’s external relations. Let me explain this point by citing just one prominent example.

This government’s overall record of domestic policy and policy reforms has been one of marginal achievements. Its major victories on the domestic front continue to be negative ones – negative in the sense of achievements made by not doing certain things, rather than doing things with aggressive intent. Therefore, this government’s exemplary record of restoring and maintaining an open, democratic and non-repressive political ambience in the country, is more a product of preventing the state agencies doing certain things, than taking positive steps such as abrogating the Prevention of Terrorism Act, or taking concrete steps towards demilitarisation. There are, of course, good reasons to explain this poor positive democratisation record. Yet, they hardy justify the government’s continuing record of negative achievements. Thus, the government has already begun to lose the loyalty of its ‘natural’ domestic constituency – the democratic civil society movement.

Meanwhile, only in three areas does the government seem to have been successful. As already mentioned, managing external relations through a strategy of policy flexibility is one. The other two are (a) arresting the process of Sri Lanka’s drift towards hard authoritarianism, and (b) keeping its opponents – the so-called joint opposition – at bay, preventing its growth into an imminent political threat to regime stability. Actually, this government’s strength lies in the weakness of the loose coalition of its parliamentary opponents, who incidentally are MPs of the United People’s Freedom Alliance coalition, which Sirisena heads.

A path forward

The success on the external relations front is primarily characterised by the government’s ability to establish a policy regime of equilibrium vis-a-vis major regional, continental and global powers. However, that success runs the risk of being undermined by a failure in a crucial domestic issue with international consequences. This refers to the proper implementation of promises and pledges made in the Geneva resolution last year on post-war peace building, ethnic reconciliation and state reform.

The evidence so far suggests that the government might try to defend its poor performance record, or the weak report card, because it has to do it any way in Geneva by citing domestic difficulties. To defend it internationally, the government might also need to recalibrate its external relations and seek new domestic as well as global allies who are skeptical of, and even opposed to, the Geneva process. This is the topic that Sri Lanka’s foreign policy watchers of domestic political developments, myself included, would monitor with great interest during the next few months to come. While seeking new allies, Sirisena or Wickremasinghe should not ignore the broad coalition that made possible the regime change of January 2015. Nor should they turn their back on the reform agenda for good governance, democracy, and peace building. Now is the time for them to take some serious steps towards course correction. Revisiting the January 2015 reform agenda will certainly be helpful.

Meanwhile, the government’s foreign policy activities are being conducted through two centres – the president’s office and prime minister’s office. This is an extremely interesting new development. The thinking and action at both centres so far seems to be complementary, although there is no proper public acknowledgement of it by the leaders themselves. In fact, the re-negotiation of economic relations with China appears to have been undertaken by both the Sirisena and Wickremasinghe.

There seems to be policy convergence between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party led by Sirisena and the United National Party led by Wickremasinghe. Both centres show signs of being non-ideological, non-combative and principled in their perceptions of the world and global affairs. Quite significantly, and refreshingly, they don’t have advisors who give long lectures to Western diplomats in their capitals on international law, politics or colonialism. Sirisena’s modest and simple personal demeanour is an added asset. It is the policy of ‘friendship with all, enmity with none’ that in my view has made it possible for the president to be invited to the G-7 Summit.

The government’s foreign policy strength perhaps lies in the position of equidistance it is now maintaining with regional, continental and global powers. In a world where (a) there is no bipolarity, and there are old and emerging global powers in rivalry as well as acting in cooperation, and (b) regional centres of power emerging as important players in the global arena, Sri Lanka’s foreign policy should not be informed by dogmatic adherence to ignorance. This government has taken Sri Lanka’s foreign policy to a post-ideological, post-egoistic, and post-confrontational phase. Some critics may not see the value of it. Yet, the realisation of it is no mean achievement for any government.

Jayadeva Uyangoda is Retired Professor of Political Science, University of Colombo. This article has been adapted from the presentation the author made at a panel discussion on “Sri Lanka in Global Affairs: The Journey Since January 2015,” in Colombo on June 16, 2016.

Sri Lanka Holds Fast to its Desire for Change

For the second time in eight months, Sri Lankan voters have thwarted former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s quest for power. And that clearly is the biggest story of the just concluded parliamentary elections. The United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG), contesting under the banner of the United National Party (UNP) led by incumbent Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, check-mated Rajapaksa by grabbing 11 of the 22 electoral districts. The United Progressive Freedom Alliance (UPFA) led by the latter won 8 districts while the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won 3 other districts under the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) banner. The UNP polled 45.66% of the votes to secure 106 seats while the UPFA secured a 42.38% share for 95 seats and the TNA/ITAK secured 16 seats.

A clear verdict

The 8 districts won by Rajapaksa-dominated UPFA are primarily spread across the overwhelmingly Sinhala-dominated rural south-west and north-central Kurunegala and Anuradhapura districts. But in virtually every electoral division (sub-district) across the country, the UPFA lost ground compared to the 2010 parliamentary elections as well as Rajapaksa’s returns during the January 2015 presidential elections. For example, in Hambantota, the home turf of the Rakapaksas—on which they showered extraordinary largesse while in power—the UPFA’s vote-share was 53.8%, a significant decline from the 63% secured in January 2015 and in 2010. The UPFA won only 4 seats there, one less than in 2010, but the UNP still secured only 2 seats despite gaining almost 50,000 additional votes this time—the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) taking the other one.

Map showing the results to Sri Lanka's 2015 parliamentary elections by region. The blue regions were won by Rajapaksa/UFPA, the green regions by Wickremesinghe/UNP and the yellow by Tamil National Alliance. Credit: sriankanelections.com

Map showing the results to Sri Lanka’s 2015 parliamentary elections by region. The blue regions were won by Rajapaksa/UPFA, the green regions by Wickremesinghe/UNP and the yellow by Tamil National Alliance.
Credit: sriankanelections.com

Sri Lanka’s multi-member open-list proportional representation (PR) system means that the correspondence between votes and seats is not straightforward. The JVP’s 4.87% vote-share won it 6 seats but with a marginally lesser 4.67% vote-share, the TNA/ITAK won 16 seats. While the debate rages as to whether the PR system is indeed best suited to protecting the interests of smaller parties and minorities, it appears that within the Tamil and Muslim communities, electoral choices seem to have been guided by the imperative of keeping Rajapaksa out of power. By and large, the UPFA appears to have lost even more ground in electoral districts with significant minority populations—a replay of what was starkly apparent in the 2015 presidential elections.

But contradictions abound

Fundamentally, the 2015 general elections is also about the crisis within the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP – the main constituent of the UPFA), precipitated by the decision late last year of its then General Secretary, Maithrapala Sirisena, to become a common candidate of the opposition at the January presidential elections.

His subsequent defeat of Rajapaksa and the use of his presidential powers to invite Ranil Wickremesinghe to preside over a minority UNP-led government also led to other senior SLFP-ers crossing over or supporting the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe alliance from within the SLFP. Besides, since the SLFP constitution vests leadership of the party with any member who becomes President of the republic, Sirisena used his position to isolate and undermine Rajapaksa through well timed pre-election public condemnations and a reshuffling of the party leadership.

At the same time, the UNP of the 2015 general elections is also not the same party it was in 2010 or even late last year. In seeking to build an anti-Rajapaksa coalition, it has brought into its fold, through the UNFGG, both long-term former SLFP-ers and also radical Sinhala Buddhist elements such as the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). While the UNP/UNFGG victory may have served the purpose of politically neutralising Rajapaksa, at least for the moment, the question is for how long and at what—and whose—cost will the UNP sustain an alliance that includes conservative, majoritarian and even chauvinist Sinhala Buddhist elements, on the one hand, and Tamil and Muslim minority parties and partners on the other. The internal tensions and contradictions may well sharpen when confronted with the difficult question of finding political solutions that are needed to secure the peace as well as finding ways and means of redressing the gamut of war and post-war related justice claims.

The electoral success of the TNA/ITAK has reiterated its position as the political representative of the Tamil community in the north and perhaps also the east. That it won 16 seats can be seen as having strengthened the TNA’s hand not just in negotiations vis-à-vis Colombo but also with respect to other political forces, diasporic and domestic, that have criticized the TNA recently for not pursuing a more hardline nationalist politics. However the question is whether the TNA can resolve its own internal tensions and conflicts and ensure its greater electoral leverage translates into better outcomes, including in terms of enhancing the effectiveness of the Northern Provincial Council it presently controls.

Mandate for reconciliation

It is also important to consider Rajapaksa’s defeat as a blow to a politics centred on mobilising terror, fear, triumphalism and the valorisation of militarism. It is important to note that seeking votes on the basis of having ended a 30-year war or by stoking fears about the return of LTTE terrorism proved insufficient grounds for voters to elevate him to the office of President or Prime Minister. Rajapaksa’s twin defeats in a space of eight months open an opportunity to turn away from a politics trapped by majoritarianism and militarism. Since January 2015, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government has shown a willingness to engage with questions of war-related justice claims, the need for national reconciliation and, more generally, to safeguard minority rights. Arguably, the UNP/UNFGG victory is also a mandate to continue and recommit to these efforts.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government was, at best, only partially successful in implementing its agenda of fundamental democratic, constitutional and governance underlying its successful challenge to Rajapakse in January 2015. Nevertheless, its emergence was critical in so far as it interrupted the reproduction of a highly repressive, polarised, militarised and authoritarian political approach. The results of August 18 have to be seen as a reiteration of the results of January 9, and indeed President Sirisena himself had openly called on Sri Lankans to vote to protect what was won in January. And that call has been, it seems, answered in the affirmative.

The UNP/UNFGG, the TNA and the JVP are likely to work together, especially the first two, to ensure a simple majority in the 225-member parliament. Speculation is rife that a section of elected UPFA MPs are likely to cross over to the ruling side. Yet, the prospect of stability and transition must not allow attention to be drawn away from the dangers that lurk. Even in its brief term of office, the government has come under a cloud of a financial scandal surrounding the auctioning of central bank bonds and allegations of irregularities and manipulation for personal gain on the part of politicians and officials associated with the UNP. Its response have been far from convincing to most.

Challenges ahead

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe at an election rally. Credit: Official Facebook page

The question of economic justice also looms large because the Rajapaksa years witnessed rapidly rising economic informalisation, precariousness and household and national indebtedness. The economy, especially in the war affected north and east, remains in need of active state engagement. Given the UNP’s long-standing commitment to free-markets and alignment with global capital, the conflict along political economic frontlines—already sharpened during the Rajapaksa years—may well intensify. Given the UNP’s own history of imposing authoritarian capitalism and then drastically attacking fundamental rights and freedoms (especially of labour) between 1977 and 1994, it is perhaps just as well that it did not secure a sweeping victory in these elections.

Despite its brief tenure between January and August this year, the one front the UNP government did have success on is international relations. But the new UNP/UNFGG government will face its first major challenge in balancing complex domestic and external political pressures almost immediately with the publication due in September of a UN report on investigation into crimes committed during the final stages of the war that ended in 2009. How the tensions between the various different constituent elements of the UNFGG and their (conflicting) agendas will be managed may well set the tone for future engagement with questions of truth, justice, and reconciliation.

Given its stated and demonstrated commitment to rebalancing Lanka’s relationship with China, India is no doubt going to be more sympathetic and supportive to a UNP/UNFGG government. The possibility of enhanced cooperation and synergy with India as well as the significant electoral footprint of the TNA/ITAK can open crucial opportunities to address the problem of Indian trawlers in Sri Lanka’s northern waters that has long burdened war-affected communities, as well as addressing the rights of Lankan refugees in India and in some cases their possible return. The question is whether these openings will be embraced?

In many ways, the potential significance of the outcome of these elections was in sharp contrast to the lack of debate regarding the range of substantial issues at stake. These elections have been touted as the key to Sri Lanka’s transition from a post-war to a post-conflict country. Yet, to those who would see them, the elections also threw up other deeper questions about the Sri Lankan polity. Many of those who contested and won have engaged in cross-over politics, successfully protecting their positions of power by going with the winds of political change. Then there is the question of the patriarchal grip on public life reflected in the abysmal levels of representation of women—less than 6 per cent of nominations granted by the main parties went to women and even fewer of them won.

In the days to come, there will no doubt be more detailed analysis of the elections, its character and its outcome. While it would not be wrong to see the UNP/UNFGG, and indeed the TNA, as having benefitted from the there-is-no-alternative factor, it would also be a mistake to merely reduce their victory to that. People voted the way they did to make sure what they started on January 9 did not end abruptly on August 18. This is of great political significance for the project of democratic transformation in Sri Lanka.

Vijay K Nagaraj is a researcher based in Sri Lanka

A Close Fight, and a Clear Message to Rajapaksa

As per the final tally, the Ranil Wickremesinghe-led United National Party (UNP) secured 93 seats, ten more than the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which Rajapaksa is part of.

Results for the 196 seats up for direct election in Sri Lanka. In addition, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and EPDP won 1 seat each.

Eight months after their historic presidential poll in which they unseated former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the people of Sri Lanka on Tuesday delivered a clear message to the leader, forcing him to concede defeat early. His political coalition failed to muster the numbers to form the government in the August 17 parliamentary elections and Rajapaksa, according to an AFP report, declared that “dream of becoming Prime Minister has faded away”.

As per the final tally released by Sri Lanka’s Election Commission Tuesday evening, the Ranil Wickremesinghe-led United National Party (UNP) secured 93 seats, ten more than the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) which Rajapaksa is part of.

The UNP secured 45. 66 per cent of the votes, while the UPFA obtained 42.38 per cent. The UNP, which beat the UPFA in 11 out of 22 electoral districts, is likely form the government with the support of smaller parties including the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which won 14 seats in the country’s Tamil-speaking north and east.

Other potential allies include the leftist-nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), which won four seats, and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) and the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), with one each. Sri Lanka’s parliament has 225 members, 196 of whom were elected on Tuesday. The remaining 29 seats will be filled through nominations to a national list of parliamentarians depending on each party’s vote share.

Meanwhile, President Maithripala Sirisena—whose defection ahead of the January 8 election paved way for Rajapaksa’s defeat then—appears to be consolidating his hold over the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the UPFA, after dismissing some Rajapasa loyalists. Still holding considerable executive powers, President Sirisena will have to continue to work with Wickremesinghe and the UNP.

Wickremesinghe, expected to take charge as Prime Minister, termed the election outcome “an endorsement of the January 8 revolution”, according to agency reports. “It is not necessary to divide the people as winners and losers. I urge all to unite and help build our nation,” he said, according to local reports.

Tuesday’s results, in fact, appeared to reiterate the January 8 mandate of the people of Sri Lanka, despite a determined Rajapaksa fighting an aggressive campaign. His election rallies were marked by shrill communal tones and dire warnings about the likely resurgence of the LTTE that his army defeated in 2009, bringing an end to the nearly three decade-long civil war on the island.

However, the poll verdict – about 70 per cent of the country’s 1.5 crore-strong electorate voted – seems to indicate that the charges of authoritarianism and corruption against him and his family clearly outweighed the war-victor image that once drew him enormous support in the island’s Sinhalese south.

In addition to his apparent hostility towards Tamil minorities in the post-war years, Rajapaksa also systematically alienated Muslims of the island – constituting about 10 per cent of the population – who were targeted by Sinhala chauvinistic groups that he reportedly supported. In addition to this, sections of the rural Sinhalese grew increasingly disillusioned with the leader amid mounting corruption charges against his family, while they were being pushed to abject poverty.

Upcountry Tamils, inhabiting the island’s Central Province, virtually rejected the Ceylon Workers’ Congress (CWC) – perceived as a close ally of Rajapaksa – despite their historic links to the party. The UNP made considerable gains in this area, especially the Badulla and Nuwara Eliya electoral districts, where most of Sri Lanka’s famed tea estates are located.

The TNA’s impressive show in the north came as little surprise, considering its traditional support base there but other political formations cemented with the support of pro-LTTE diaspora made little headway in the north, pointing to the growing distance of the majority of northern Tamils from the ultra-nationalist rhetoric that the LTTE employed.

Comprehensive details of the preferential votes obtained by candidates – Sri Lanka follows a proportional representation-cum-preferential voting system – are expected to be released Wednesday.

Sri Lankans Foil Rajapaksa’s Comeback Bid

The final tally of Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections is expected to emerge Tuesday evening, but neither of the main parties has secured a simple majority in the 225-member parliament.

UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. Credit: TV7

Sri Lanka’s former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who attempted a political comeback in the country’s parliamentary elections on Monday, conceded defeat early Tuesday, observing that his “dream of becoming Prime Minister has faded away”.

“I am conceding. We have lost a good fight,” he told news agency AFP, after his United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA) secured eight districts, while the ruling United National Party (UNP) won 11 out of the 22 electoral districts in the island.

The final tally of Sri Lanka’s parliamentary elections—a combination of proportional representation and preferential voting systems—is expected to emerge Tuesday evening, but neither of the main parties has secured a simple majority in the 225-member parliament.

The UNP would have to seek the support of potential allies such as the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), which has virtually swept the island’s Tamil-majority Northern Province, in order to form the government. Ranil Wickremesinghe, tipped to be Prime Minister, will now have to work with President Maithripala Sirisena—head of the SLFP—just as he did when Sirisena abandoned Rajapaksa and allied with the opposition to oust the former president in a hard fought electoral contest.

Tuesday’s results appear to reinforce the earlier mandate of the people of Sri Lanka, who on January 8 demonstrated their resolve for change. They rejected war-victor Rajapaksa, popular among a large section of Sinhalese voters for crushing the rebel Tamil Tigers and bringing Sri Lanka’s civil war to an end. It was not just the Tamil and Muslim minorities that voted him out, but also sections of rural Sinhalese who had grown tired of the authoritarianism, nepotism and corruption that he and his family were accused of.

The thinking of the rural Sinhalese constituency will be clear when details of the preferential votes, expected to be declared Wednesday, are out. Even as voting patterns in different parts of the island continue to emerge, the verdict of the northern Tamils sent out a strong message. While the TNA won six seats, voters rejected ultra-Tamil nationalist groups, some of which harbour separatist ideas in addition to being supporters of the now defunct LTTE.

According to local news agencies, Sri Lanka’s Leftist nationalist party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) had secured only two seats until noon, less than was widely expected. The Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC), with a traditionally strong support base among upcountry Tamils of Indian origin, has also lost ground to the UNP, reports indicated.

Democracy in Sri Lanka Will Soon Confront Its Second Moment of Truth

The fate of the ‘silent revolution’ of January 8, 2015, which saw the autocratic regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa being replaced, is in the balance.

In happier times: Maithripala Sirisena (R) and Mahinda Rajapaksa, pictured here at a 2013 event in Colombo

With fresh parliamentary elections scheduled for August 17, Sri Lanka’s politics has once again entered a phase of some uncertainty. The fate of the ‘silent revolution’ of January 8, 2015, which saw the autocratic regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa being replaced, is in the balance. If Rajapaksa returns to power as Prime Minister with a parliamentary majority, Sri Lanka’s democratic reform process will certainly be rolled back. However, Sri Lanka’s public mood and electoral arithmetic do not seem to favour a Rajapaksa return. Not as yet.

The circumstances under which next month’s parliamentary election will take place are somewhat unusual. Although President Maithripala Sirisena won the presidential election in January this year with the backing of a lose opposition alliance called New Democratic Front (NDF), the government he appointed did not have a parliamentary majority. In fact, the majority of MPs – over 135 of the 225-member legislature – belonged to the United People’s Freedom Alliance (UPFA), centred on the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). Both entities bitterly opposed Sirisena at the presidential election. The United National Party (UNP), the main opposition party of the NDF coalition which backed Sirisena’s successful presidential bid, had only 47 MPs, supplemented with the support about a dozen of MPs from small coalition partners. This led to the formation of a minority government led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the UNP.

Uneasy cohabitation

Although crossovers from the UPFA to the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government were expected to boost its parliamentary strength, only a few MPs made the switch. Even those who crossed over to the government from the SLFP did so to accept ministerial positions. Several of them had tainted records of being close allies of Rajapaksa. Some also had the dubious honour of indirectly contributing to Rajapaksa’s defeat. Ironically, the government of ‘good governance’ had to resort to a little bit of political corruption to ensure its own survival.

Against this backdrop, a tense and uneasy cohabitation between the NDF government and the opposition UPFA in parliament ensured the survival of the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government for six months. When the minority government was formed in January, the plan was to dissolve parliament in mid-April, after the completion of its 100 Day-Programme. This ambitious programme envisaged an extensive package of constitutional, electoral and governance reforms, coupled with investigations into corruption and abuse of power, alleged to have occurred during the Rajapaksa rule.

While the NDF government was busy with clearing these roadblocks, the Rajapaksa camp executed two plans to come back to power.

With no parliamentary majority at its disposal, and facing the increasing risk of being voted out in parliament, the reform agenda of Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government faced a deadlock. To ensure that at least some alteration was made to the presidential system of government, Sirisena and Wickremasinghe had to make unanticipated compromises with the opposition UPFA, giving up the initial idea of abolishing the presidential system. Eventually, the 19^th Amendment was passed in parliament, but it did not abolish the presidential system, but only reduced the excessive powers of the president. Given the precarious balance of power in parliament, this limited reform measure was something, rather than nothing, to show the people that the government has fulfilled one of its key election promises, at least partially. However, the 20^th Amendment, which sought to change the electoral system by replacing the existing proportional representation (PR) system with a version of the German mixed system, failed to materialise, due to opposition and sabotage by the UPFA. Small and ethnic minority parties within the coalition also opposed it, since they perceived the proposed electoral reforms primarily favored the two major parties.

While the NDF government was busy with clearing these roadblocks, the Rajapaksa camp executed two plans to come back to power. Plan A was to defeat the government in parliament through a no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister. Plan B was to defeat the government at the parliamentary election, in case Sirisena and Wickremasinghe dissolved parliament to avert the UPFA’s option of a no-confidence motion. While the parliamentary leaders of the Rajapaksa camp were collecting signatures for the non-confidence motion against Prime Minister Wickremasinghe, President Sirisena dissolved parliament, calling for elections on August 17.

President in his labyrinth

Sirisena has not had an easy time in his first six months as president due to the unusual challenges he has had to face. He became the presidential candidate of the UNP-led opposition coalition in November last year, almost out of the blue. By that time, he was the general secretary of the SLFP of which Rajapaksa was the leader. Although there were rumours for many months that he was unhappy with Rajapaksa over his not being offered the job of Prime Minister, deserting the party and leader to become the opposition challenger was an act of revolt as well. While it exploded the myth of Rajapaksa’s iron grip over the SLFP and the UPFA coalition, it re-energized and galvanized an otherwise weak opposition. Thus, Sirisena emerged as the ‘individual’ who became an unconscious tool of history to shift the political balance of forces away from Rajapaksa. The partial regime change that occurred peacefully this January was something unthinkable before Sirisena abandoned Rajapaksa.

Thus, Sirisena’s presidential term and Wickremasinghe’s prime ministerial term began in January with a great deal of public hope for turning Sri Lanka’s politics away from the illiberal, authoritarian, and personalized style of governance which Sirisena’s predecessor practiced. Both began their new government knowing very little about how the reality of politics could soon slow down and eventually undermine their reform agenda. The 100-day programme turned out to be too big a project to complete within just three months, with no parliamentary majority. The much awaited corruption investigations into politicians and officials of the previous regime produced no tangible outcomes, except newspaper headlines and passionate denials, for six months. The new government’s claims to providing corruption-free, clean governance came to be severely tarnished by the story of a massive financial scandal surrounding the auction of central bank bonds, with allegations of irregularities, insider manipulation, conflict of interest and personal profiteering by UNP politicians and officials. The NDF government’s lack of clear economic strategy became quite obvious when the new finance minister presented the first interim budget within two weeks in power. It appeared that being out of power for two decades had actually taken its toll quite harshly on Sri Lanka’s grand old party, the UNP.

Benefits, and burdens, of regime change

Joined at the hip: President Maithripala Sirisena, seen here with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe. Former president Chandrika Kumaratunga is in the middle.

The positive achievements of the regime change are quite significant, but paradoxically they remain mostly invisible and intangible. Key among them include making the state less and less repressive, removing the use of fear, terror, intimidation and corruption as instruments of governance, turning the regime behaviour moderate and less leader-centric, dismantling the political culture of the personality cult, demilitarisation of politics and public space, the re-opening of the space for critique and dissent, and the removal of the fear among ethnic and religious minorities of organised violence. These indeed are no mean achievements gained within a space of days and weeks of the regime change. All these are negative achievements in the sense that they are outcome of the government refraining from doing certain things. But they constituted a fundamental alteration of the pattern of regime behaviour evolved during the past so many years.

Meanwhile, the past two to three months also indicated that a rift between President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremasinghe had developed. There are a few reasons for this. First, Sirisena’s acceptance of the SLFP’s and UPFA’s leadership soon after he became the President became a burden on him, although he may have thought that the leadership of the party and the UPFA coalition would enable him to secure firm control over the SLFP and thus isolate Rajapaksa politically. That did not happen. Instead, Rajapaksa loyalists within the SLFP and the UPFA launched a campaign to bring Rajapaksa back to active politics. They exerted tremendous pressure on Sirisena to accommodate and accept Rajapaksa as the SLFP’s prime ministerial candidate at the parliamentary election. This posed a major dilemma to Sirisena. Although he was the leader of the SLFP and UPFA, he had no control over them and therefore could not ignore the pressure from the Rajapaksa camp. At the same time, Sirisena was elected President by essentially non-SLFP, non-UPFA voters. Torn between two loyalties, Sirisena began to show vacillation and indecision, ultimately allowing Rajapaksa to be given the SLFP-UPFA nomination as a parliamentary candidate.

Second, as it was rumoured in Colombo, Sirisena was quite apprehensive of Wickremasinghe’s strategy of splitting the SLFP into two camps, one led by Sirisena and the other by Rajapaksa in the run up to the parliamentary election. As Sirisena himself admitted in a recent public statement, protecting the SLFP and leading it to electoral victory under his leadership became his responsibility as the leader of the party. That ran totally counter to the electoral mandate he received in January. As many critics pointed out, Sirisena’s mandate was not to protect the SLFP, but to protect democracy and good governance in Sri Lanka. Yet, as the SLFP’s new leader, Sirisena could not ignore his role of establishing his leadership over the party by unifying it. Not unexpectedly, Sirisena lost his battle with Rajapaksa in securing control of the SLFP. Now Sirisena has only a few loyalists in the party; the rest are backing Rajapaksa in his bid to become the Prime Minister. Caught between two contradictory loyalties, President Sirisena has opted to be neutral during the parliamentary election.

Difficult to call

The electoral battle lines are now drawn between two main axes, the UNP-led United National Front for Good Governance (UNFGG), and the SLFP-led UPFA. The UNFGG is a new coalition formation, put together for the parliamentary election to confront Rajapaksa at the parliamentary polls. It consists of the UNP, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), some SLFPers who were earlier with President Sirisena, as well as breakaway groups from the Left parties. The UNFGG has the advantage of securing most of the Tamil and Muslim votes as well, except in the North and some parts of the East where the Tamil National Alliance is contesting. The UPFA, in contrast, will primarily depend on the Sinhalese-Buddhist votes. Ethnic and religious minorities view the SLFP and UPFA under Rajapaksa’s leadership as aggressively majoritarian.

The outcome of the parliamentary election is not easy to predict. There is no discernible wave in favour any of the two main contending coalitions. Given the configuration of forces at present, the UNFGG might emerge as the entity with the highest number of seats, yet without a clear majority in the 225-mmember legislature. The UPFA is likely to emerge strong, but not in a position to form a post-election majority coalition. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Tamil National Alliance (TNA) are likely to share about 30 seats between themselves, and they are not likely to back Rajapaksa’s UPFA in forming a post-election coalition government. They are committed to preventing Rajapaksa from forming the next government.

Jayadeva Uyangoda is a political scientist in Sri Lanka

Featured Image of Presidential Secretariat in Colombo: Kesara Rathnayake, CC 2.0