Who would have thought that Mahinda Rajapaksa, twice elected President of Sri Lanka and the leader who ended a deadly thirty-year terrorist war that even the cunning J.R. Jayewardene or the ruthless RanasinghePremadasa couldn’t, would be fighting for his political life right now?
At the time of writing, the main opposition party, the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) has submitted a No Confidence motion (NCM) against the government and will be put to a vote shortly. How it will end is anybody’s guess, given the government’s popularity which is plummeting by the minute.
If the NCM succeeds, the entire Cabinet will be called upon to resign in keeping with convention and Mahinda Rajapaksa will be ousted from the Premiership. While it is not at all clear as to who will succeed him, it will be a cruel blow to a man who began his political journey fifty-two years ago.
It is ironical that Mahinda Rajapaksa has to carry the burden of his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s blunders. The current wave of protests came in the wake of a series of disastrous decisions taken by President Rajapaksa. Mahinda, though the elder brother, was hardly consulted on these issues.
They began with the protest outside Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s private residence at Mirihana. When the Police resorted to strong arm tactics to subdue those agitators, the campaign grew into a phenomenon that has never been seen in Sri Lanka or perhaps globally, the ‘Gota Go Home’ protest at Galle Face.
The ‘Gota Go Home’ campaign caught the government off guard. It is being staged outside the Presidential Secretariat, the very symbol of executive power. Gotabaya Rajapaksa doesn’t dare to go to his office now. Instead, he operates from the Presidential Residence in the heart of Colombo Fort.
There are several unique features about the Galle Face protests. They are apolitical. They have fostered a culture of inter-racial unity. They have been non-violent. They have attracted all classes of Sri Lankans from nondescript citizens to celebrities, all chanting the same slogan: ‘Gota Go Home’.
In a sense, Sri Lanka’s opposition too has been caught off guard by the Galle Face phenomenon. A frequent theme is that ‘all 225 MPs’ need to go. In such a climate, the opposition doesn’t want to enter Galle Face and be tarnished with the same brush as the government has been. They have kept away.
There is also a consistent theme that emerges from Galle Face. That is the demand for a new political order. That needs to evolve. No one is certain as yet how that will happen. However, the demand is for a merit based, less politically influenced system of government with fewer perks for politicians.
The government’s response to this has been puerile. Most of the country is asking Gotabaya Rajapaksa to resign but he takes refuge in the Constitution. Impeaching him, when the Parliament is lopsided in his favour is near impossible. So, the opposition has to pick the next available target.
That is how Mahinda Rajapaksa, still arguably the most influential politician in the country, finds himself in this plight. Once seen as the champion of the Sinhala Buddhist vanguard, his resignation has now been called for none other than the Mahanayaka theros of the four chapters themselves!
In this mix are some unscrupulous scoundrels, such as Wimal Weerawansa and UdayaGammanpila. They are trying to play the role of pseudo saviours, sacrificing the man without whom they would have been kicked out of politics many years ago. Such is how fickle Sri Lankan politics can be.
Weerawansa and Gammanpila are taking the lead in the so-called ‘interim’ government campaign. As the SJB and the Janatha VimukthiPeramuna (JVP) are not agreeable, this ‘interim’ regime will only be a part of the previous government, minus a few dissenters, dressed up as a new government!
The window dressing strategy of those proposing this is to remove Mahinda Rajapaksa as Prime Minister and install someone else in that job. Dullas Alahapperuma and NimalSiripala de Silva are candidates. They are hoping that the masses would be fooled by such a blatantly obvious ploy.
What is sad about this is not only Mahinda Rajapaksa’s greed for power at the age of seventy-six and having held the highest office in the land twice but also brother Gotabaya’s willingness to sacrifice his brother’s legacy for his own. Blood is thicker than water but it is not thicker than political craving.
Ever the street fighter, Mahinda Rajapaksa isn’t going down without a fight. He has lobbied MPs, local politicians and selected monks. Whenever the President’s Office talks of an interim government, he issues a statement saying he is not resigning and that he is confident Gotabaya won’t ask him to.
There are two reasons for this hunger for power after having tasted it so much for so long. One is the desire to pass on the baton to Namal Rajapaksa. The stage was set perfectly for Namal to take over after Mahinda’s retirement when Gotabaya arrived and engaged in his bull-in-a-China-shop routine.
Ironically, had Mahinda retired gracefully and left the political arena, he would have retained enough good will and still earned a sense of gratitude among the masses for ending the Eelam war. Then, Namal would have been a shoo-in as the next leader of their party. Instead, Mahinda chose to stay on.
The other possible reason that Mahinda- and indeed all the Rajapaksas- want to cling on to power is fear: fear of prosecution for the multitude of misdeeds that they are now being accused of which the JVP enumerated so methodically earlier this week. That too might be a compelling motive.
Whatever it is, now the die is cast. The ‘struggle’ has begun. The attempts to get rid of the Rajapaksas symbolise not just getting rid of one family. It is a move to rid the country of a system that is rotten to the core. If the struggle doesn’t succeed now, it never will. That is why all the Rajapaksas have to go.
