- While differences of opinion within political parties are common, discussions about any such disagreements are best held behind closed doors and not from a public platform.
- Whether all these diverse forces will coalesce closer to an election – as they miraculously did in 2015 due to the efforts of the late Mangala Samaraweera- we do not know.
- Is it surprising then, that Basil Rajapaksa wants to have elections now? His aim would be to conduct local government or provincial polls- or both- quickly. It is quite possible that the SLPP may not emerge clear victors in these contests given the mood in the country right now, but that does not bother Basil.
- It will be a ‘test run’ for the real contest in 2024 and, with almost three years to play around with, Basil has sufficient time to plan, plot and press the ‘reset’ button on the current government.
The starting pistol went off for the next presidential and general elections last week at Anuradhapura.
If there was any doubt about that, the conduct of government leaders at the rally organised by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) should lay them to rest.
For starters, all the SLPP bigwigs were there: President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa; in short, the decision-making trio in the party. President Rajapaksa was emotional and passionate. Premier Rajapakse was clearly in campaigning mode.
It is no secret that the SLPP’s Anuradhapura rally was the brainchild of Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa. Rajapaksa is no genius of a Finance Minister but he must be given credit as a master political strategist.
When in 2015 Mahinda Rajapaksa lost to Maithripala Sirisena at the presidential election and returned to Medamulana, the two-time President had all but given up the ghost about his future in politics. With dozens of corruption cases looming, no one bet on a resurgence of the Rajapaksas.
It was Basil Rajapaksa, not Mahinda or Gotabaya (and most certainly not Chamal or Namal) who foresaw the cracks in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), exploited the weaknesses of Maithripala Sirisena as a decisive leader and used them to lure SLFPers, telling them they could have a party of their own.
The results speak for themselves: the SLPP was formed in late 2016, when the excesses of the previous Rajapaksa regime were still fresh in the minds of the public. In just over a year, in February 2018, it swept the board at the local government elections. The inexcusable ineptitude of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government contributed, but Basil Rajapaksa was at hand to take advantage of them.
The Easter attacks followed a couple of months later. That sealed the fate of the ‘Yahapaalanaya’ government. Election victories for the SLPP followed in 2019 and 2020 winning the presidential and general elections respectively. Moreover, these victories were not marginal wins: Gotabaya Rajapaksa polled 1.3 million more votes than Sajith Premadasa. In Parliament, the SLPP returned a near two-thirds majority.
All this is relevant in the current context because Basil Rajapaksa is at work again. He wants elections. There are two elections that are due: local government polls and provincial council elections. There is added pressure to hold the latter because neighbouring India wants to see evidence of devolution power.
The word on the street and at the grassroots level is that the government is insufferably unpopular. Apart from hardcore, card-carrying SLPPers, very few ordinary citizens will now acknowledge that they were among the 6.9 million who voted for Gotabaya Rajapaksa two years ago.
Also, the country is in crisis in a very tangible way: prices of essential items have sky rocketed, gas is unsafe and in short supply, fuel prices rise by the week, power cuts seem inevitable and many professions are on strike and out on the streets demanding higher wages. The perfect storm is gathering momentum.
Why then would Basil Rajapaksa want elections that would put the government’s popularity to the test in such challenging circumstances?
The reason for that is clear. It is about catching the opposition off guard at a time when they are looking at elections-presidential and general- in 2024. It is also about maximising the advantages of the current state of the opposition: disunited and disparate, pulling in different directions, uncertain as to which way is best.
For instance, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) has decided to go it alone. It feels that the voters’ disillusionment with the two-party system will accrue to them in the face of a concerted effort by its leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake to project himself as an incorruptible, diligent and capable potential President.
The sense of frustration about the two-party system is quite palpable but whether that would default to most voters opting for the JVP is a different question altogether. The JVP polled just three per cent at both the last presidential and general elections and it would take a considerable leap of faith to win an election from that benchmark.
The JVP though has at least a clear target and a declared candidate. Not so the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB). It is at sixes and sevens about who the best prospective candidate would be. Theoretically, it should be Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the SJB and the Leader of the Opposition.
That is not a foregone conclusion, though. We see Patali Champika Ranawaka making some noise about an economic plan. That exercise has all the hallmarks of one-upmanship. Besides, Premadasa and Ranawaka have been trading innuendos, publicly questioning each other’s policies and suitability for leadership.
As if that were not enough, Premadasa is also being constantly publicly sniped at by Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka who has queried whether the former’s strategy of invoking his father’s record is the best way forward.
Being of military stock, Fonseka is never one to mince his words. The big question is whether this is a sincere attempt to get Premadasa to change direction or whether Fonseka himself is grooming himself to run against his former Defence Secretary in 2024.
While differences of opinion within political parties are common, discussions about any such disagreements are best held behind closed doors and not from a public platform. So, there is much consternation within the SJB about Fonseka’s constant verbal tirades that can only stifle Premadasa.
Whether all these diverse forces will coalesce closer to an election – as they miraculously did in 2015 due to the efforts of the late Mangala Samaraweera- we do not know. What we see now is an opposition consisting of several ambitious personalities jostling with each other to run against Gotabaya Rajapaksa- and undermining each other in the process.
Is it surprising then, that Basil Rajapaksa wants to have elections now? His aim would be to conduct local government or provincial polls- or both- quickly. It is quite possible that the SLPP may not emerge clear victors in these contests given the mood in the country right now, but that does not bother Basil.
It will be a ‘test run’ for the real contest in 2024 and, with almost three years to play around with, Basil has sufficient time to plan, plot and press the ‘reset’ button on the current government. We hear echoes of this already from Gotabaya Rajapaksa who is lamenting that the pandemic took away two years of his Presidency and then pleading for more time.
The SLPP is already off the blocks. The opposition is yet to get ready. That is what the Anuradhapura rally was all about.
