By Vishvanath
The Election Commission (EC) has at long last decided to hold the next presidential election on Sept. 21, 2024. It has thus ended months of speculation that the government might do something to delay the crucial poll. However, anything is possible in this country, which has a history of poll postponements.
It is said that the presidential election is different from other polls in that the Constitution specifies when it has to be held. But this country has earned notoriety for legal manipulations and constitutional logjams engineered by governments to further the political interests at the expense of the wellbeing of democracy. So, it is too early to say whether the government has given up its efforts to derail the presidential election.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe has stopped dilly-dallying, and it is now clear that he is contesting the upcoming presidential election. This is bad news for his political opponents who insisted that he would opt out of the race at the eleventh hour.
A deposit was placed with the Election Commission yesterday on behalf of Wickremesinghe, who is contesting as an independent candidate. By coming forward as the candidate of an independent alliance, he is trying to secure the support of those who would not have been able to bring themselves to support, much less, vote for the UNP.
There are already five formidable presidential candidates in the fray. Opposition and SJB leader Sajith Premadasa, and JVP-NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake announced their intention to run for President months ago. On the eve of the announcement of the date of the presidential poll, two more prominent politicians threw their hats into the ring.
Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa declared his intention to run for President, at a media conference held near the Independence Square on Thursday. He offered to play a messianic role to save the people from their suffering. He said he would be the candidate of a broad political alliance, and had secured the backing of about 90% of the SLFP, which is divided between former President Maithripala Sirisena, who is supporting Wijeyadasa, and his rival faction which backs President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
SJB MP and former Army Commander Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka also announced, via X, on Thursday, that he would contest the presidential election. He ran for President in 2010 without success; he was backed by the UNP, the JVP, the TNA and the SLMC at the time.
President Wickremesinghe is the head of government, and interestingly, one of his ministers—Wijeyadasa—is challenging him in the presidential contest. Wijeyadasa told the media on Thursday that his presidential candidacy did not debar him from holding a ministerial post. This is the first time a President and one of his ministers are vying for the presidency. In 2015, President Mahinda Rajapaksa, seeking a third term, had Maithripala Sirisena challenging him in the presidential race, but the latter had left the government and ceased to be a minister. Fonseka insists that he is still the Chairman of the SJB. If so, the SJB is the only party which has had its leader and chairman competing with each other in a presidential election.
When Wickremesinghe took over as the President in 2022, he likened the arduous task of managing the crisis-ridden economy to Grusha carrying a baby across a collapsing rope bridge, in Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. That analogy helped vividly describe the intensity of the risks and threats he was facing. His critics derisively asked him whether the baby he was taking to safety was Namal (Rajapaksa)! After reaching debt restructuring agreements with Sri Lanka’s external creditors, he declared that he had accomplished his mission like Grusha, but there was a long way to go, he added.
The Caucasian Chalk Circle may be over, but the indecisiveness of the SLPP reminds us of a Shakespearean play, Hamlet. The SLPP leaders are behaving like the Prince of Denmark. They have not been able to decide whether to field their own candidate or support Wickremesinghe. Sagara Kariyawasam, General Secretary of the SLPP, which is given to procrastination, has gone on record as saying that the SLPP, which is given to procrastination, will announce its final decision on Monday.
There have been several rounds of talks between the SLPP leaders, especially its founder Basil Rajapaksa and President Wickremesinghe to explore the possibility of forging an alliance to contest the presidential election. Initially, the SLPP pressured Wickremesinghe to dissolve the parliament and cause a snap general election to be held before the presidential contest. The latter did not comply much to the consternation of the former. They haven have since been at loggerheads.
Wickremesinghe has won over more than a dozen SLPP MPs including ministers, and the Rajapaksa loyalists in the SLPP have been bashing Wickremesinghe. Some SLPP seniors have gone to the extent of insisting that if the SLPP ever decides to back someone who is not one of its members in the presidential election, it will do so on the strict condition that the candidate concerned agree to uphold and implement Mahinda Chinthanaya, which is diametrically opposed to the UNP’s ideology.
However, politics is said to be the art of the possible, and political parties are known to soften their stands and compromise their ideologies for expediency; the SLPP did so in 2022, when it handed over the reins of government to UNP leader Wickremesinghe. Maybe the SLPP has put forth the aforesaid condition for the consumption of its rank and file. Namal has also been taking swipes at President Wickremesinghe, who, he says, specializes in dividing political parties and other organizations. He has said Wickremesinghe caused rifts in the SLFP, the SLPP and even the LTTE.
Why Namal is so resentful is understandable. A large number of SLPP stalwarts including the Chief Government Whip and Minister Prasanna Ranatunga, Foreign Minister Ali Sabry, Health Minister Dr. Ramesh Pathirana and Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera have thrown in their lot with Wickremesinghe. The split in the SLPP has taken its toll on the Rajapaksa family’s bargaining power in negotiations with Wickremesinghe. But the SLPP has been practicing brinkmanship in a bid to enter into an agreement with Wickremesinghe on its own terms. Namal has said if the SLPP agrees to support an outsider in the presidential race, it will have to be given the post of Prime Minister. This reminds us of the agreement between Maithirpala Sirisena and Ranil Wickrmesinghe ahead of the 2015 presidential election. The UNP helped Sirisena achieve his presidential dream on the condition that Wickremesinghe would be appointed the PM.
Wickremesinghe is desperate to enlist the support of the SLPP more than ever. The cancellation of the much-publicized gazette notification, which announced a daily wage of Rs. 1,700 for estate workers would not have come at a worse time for Wickremesinghe. It is bound to have an adverse impact on his election campaign in that the aggrieved plantation workers are peeved beyond measure, and the CWC will find it extremely difficult to persuade them to vote for Wickremesinghe, who promised the way hike on this year’s May Day but failed to carry out his pledge.
The TNA, too, has not pledged its support for any presidential candidate. It used to back the UNP candidates or those fielded by UNP-led political alliances. But this time around, it has not revealed its stand. Some Tamil political parties have decided to field a Tamil as their common presidential candidate, but the TNA has not endorsed that move. So, there is still the possibility of the TNA throwing its weight behind Wickremesinghe, but if it doesn’t, Wickremesinghe will have his work cut out to garner enough votes in the presidential race.
Whether the SLPP will be able to announce its decision as regards the presidential contest is no doubt, but the entry of Wickremesinghe into the fray is bound to upend the dynamics of the contest.
