Ten constituents of the ruling SLPP coalition have reportedly decided to submit a set of proposals to the government on how to rectify its mistakes, provide relief to the public and recover lost ground on the political front. The leaders and representatives of the dissident SLPP allies met at the Communist Party headquarters, Colombo, on Tuesday to discuss their strategy. Present at the meeting were Leader of the National Freedom Front Wimal Weerawansa, Leader of the Pivithuru Heal Urumaya Udaya Gammanpila, Leader of Yuthukama Gevindu Kumaratunga, the Communist Party heavyweights such as D. E. W. Gunasekera, Dr. G. Weerasinghe, Ape Jaya Bala Pakshaya MP Ven. Athuraliye Rathana, Tiran Alles and others. SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekera was absent as he was overseas. Vasudeva Nanayakkara could not attend the meeting due to some personal reasons.
The significance of Tuesday’s meeting of the SLPP rebels is that they have decided to continue their intra-party struggle despite the SLPP’s retaliatory action against Susil Premajayantha, who was stripped of his state ministry for being critical of the government in public. It was widely thought the sacking of Premajayantha would deter the SLPP dissidents from taking on the government the way they did previously. But they continue to be defiant. Some political commentators have highlighted State Minister Jayasekera’s absence at Tuesday’s meeting, claiming that he skipped it, but this claim is not far from true.
There is nothing government leaders detest more than dissension in their parliamentary groups. Sri Lanka’s political history is replete with instances where Executive Presidents went all out to suppress dissent, and even sacked rebel MPs.
The late President J. R. Jayewardene, having learnt from trouble dissenters and crossovers caused to his predecessors, collected undated resignation letters from the members of his parliamentary group, immediately after winning the 1977 general election and being sworn in as the Prime Minister. Thus, he could get rid of any dissenter at will. Those letters were returned only after the conclusion of his second term. He had no need for them thereafter as he was retiring from politics. However antithetical that method may have been to democracy, it worked for the Old Fox, and enabled him to keep a firm grip on his parliamentary group in general and on his second in command, Ranasinghe Premadasa, in particular. The latter went on to become the Prime Minister following the former’s elevation as the President in 1978. The JRJ government, however, was not without rebels, but they had to resign. They were Gamini Jayasuriya and Dr. Neville Fernando.
JRJ’s successor, the late President Premadasa was not that lucky. He had to contend with a mutiny on board with several of its ministers taking him on, and even trying to oust him. The UNP’s internal problems worsened to such an extent that some prominent UNPers made an attempt to impeach President Premadasa, albeit without success. Premadasa struck back hard, and the UNP suffered a debilitating split with its seniors like Lalith Athulathmudali, Gamini Dissanayake and G. M. Premachandra breaking away to form the Democratic United National Front.
Coalition politics promoting dissension
Incumbent President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is now as powerful as JRJ was thanks to the 20th Amendment, which restored the executive powers of the presidency. He also commands a two-thirds majority in the parliament, but cannot keep his parliamentary group under his thumb unlike JRJ. Why? The main reason is coalition politics as well as the Proportional Representation system, which prevents major political parties from securing huge parliamentary majorities.
JRJ obtained his five-sixth parliamentary at an election heldthe first-past-the-post system in 1977, and retained it by replacing the 1982 general election with a referendum so that the UNP did not have to contest an election under the (PR) system,and lost that majority, on his watch.
The 1989 general election was held under the PR system,and President Premadasa could secure only 125 seats in the parliament, despite the unprecedented election malpractices the UNP resorted to under the cover of the government’s counterinsurgency operations against the JVP. President Premadasa did not venture to collect undated resignation letters from his MPs, and had to adopt coercive measures to contain dissent and made a lot of enemies in the process.
A similar fate befell President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, whose government fell in 2001 owing to its internal problems with more than a dozen ruling party MPs crossing over to the UNP. By that time the two main parties, the UNP and the SLFP, had become heavily dependent on coalition politics owing to the PR system, which enables even minor parties that fail to win electorates to secure seats. President Mahinda Rajapaksa, too, had a similar experience. During his first term, some of his MPs such as Mangala Samaraweera defected to the UNP. His government however survived those defections because Rajapaksa succeeded in engineering a large number of crossovers from the UNP. But he failed to have control over dissenters during his second term and some of them left his government, causing his ignominious defeat at the 2015 presidential election, and the downfall of the SLFP-led UPFA government in quick succession.
The rebel group in the current regime has even moved the Supreme Court against the government’s agreement with the US-based New Fortress energy firm on the sale of shares of the Yugadanavi power plant, and the supply of LNG to local power stations. SLFP leader Maithripala Sirisena, who was troubled by a rebel group called the Joint Opposition led by the Rajapaksas in the UPFA government while he was the President, has become defiant. So have the other SLFPers in the SLPP government. Besides the SLFP, almost all SLPP constituents are represented in the ginger group in the government.
The SLPP MPs and ministers loyal to the Rajapaksa family are openly threatening retaliatory action against the rebel group, and some of them have even asked the dissidents to leave the government if they do not agree with its policies. But the SLPP leadership has stopped short of taking any disciplinary action against the rebels; the Sri Lanka Podujana Sandanaya, which is the alliance, whose members contested the last general election on the SLPP ticket, provides for freedom of expression, according to former President Sirisena. He stressed this point in an interview with the Irida Lankadeepa last Sunday as if to warn the SLPP leaders who may be contemplating disciplinary action against the rebel group. (Premajayantha, who lost his state ministry for expressing dissent, is a member of the SLPP, which is the main constituent of the Sri Lanka Podujana Sandanayake coalition, registered with the Election Commission, and therefore has to abide by the SLPP’s rules, unlike the party leaders such as Weerawansa, Sirisena, Gammanpila and Nanayakkara.
Fake or real
It is being argued in some quarters that the SLPP rebels’ fight is fake, and it has been scripted to take the wind out of the Opposition’s sails. But their struggle is real. They have an axe to grind with some government leaders like Basil Rajapaksa, who has turned hostile towards them, and is said to be trying to form an SLPP government without coalescing with any other party in the future.
Gammanpila and Weerawansa even tried to block Basil’s re-entry into the parliament via the National List; they vehementlyopposed the abolition of a section in the 19th Amendment, which barred dual citizens from becoming members of parliament. They subsequently relented under pressure from President Rajapaksa. Basil has not forgiven them, and they have since been at loggerheads. The Rajapaksa family is keen to see the back of the rebel group, but cannot sack them, for such action is fraught with the danger of a crippling breakaway and a legal battle.
The SLPP rebels’ struggle, however, has yielded some unintended results, which could prove disadvantageous to the Opposition both politically and electorally. The rebels may be able to retain the popularity and vote bases of their political parties by opposing the government’s unpopular programmes, thereby endearing themselves to the public and attracting the votes which may otherwise go to the Opposition. In the final analysis, a vote for them will be a vote for the SLPP, provided they continue to be in the ruling coalition at future elections in spite of their differences. This is a worrisome proposition for the Opposition, especially the SJB and the JVP. Hence their attacks on the SLPP rebels and their call for the latter to leave the government without running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.
