It is not only external enemies the SLPP government has had to fight; it is under attack by some of its own members. More and more government MPs are plucking up the courage to strike discordant notes and even tear into the ruling coalition. This is thought to be something unusual for a government with a two-thirds majority, but it is not.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has stripped Susil Premjayantha of his state ministry for tearing into Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena. Premjayantha has gone on record as saying that both of them have failed as evident from the crises in the agricultural sector and the severe shortages of commodities. As a former Cabinet minister, he is resentful that he has been ‘benched’.
State Minister Susil Premjayantha has taken on Agriculture Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage and Trade Minister Bandula Gunawardena. He has gone on record as saying both of them have failed as evident from the crises in the agricultural sector and the severe shortages of commodities. As a former Cabinet minister, he is resentful that he has been ‘benched’.
State Minister Vidura Wickramanayake never minces his words when he criticizes the government. He is known for speaking his mind in a blunt way; he did so while he was a member of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government so much so that he fell from grace and it was thought that President Rajapaksa would even show him the door. He has said the present Cabinet has totally failed, and the time has come for the country to look for a progressive programme of action instead of leaders because the people’s experiments with leaders have manifestly failed. His bold statement is an indictment on the SLPP leadership.
State Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera is another SLPP MP who has been very critical of the government all these months; he has said everyone responsible for the gas crisis must be hanged. This, he has said while the government leaders are shielding the officials of the state-owned gas company. He has already got under the skin of SLPP General Secretary and MP Sagara Kariyawasam, who has even asked him to leave the government if he does not agree with its policies.
Former President and current SLPP for Polonnaruwa, Maithripala Sirisena, is also making scathing remarks about the government and its policies. He is openly rallying support of political parties, and his trusted lieutenants demanding that the SLFP go it alone at future elections. He has stressed the need for a new political alliance.
Three Cabinet Ministers, Wimal Weerawansa, Udaya Gammanpila and Vasudeva Nanayakkara, have gone so far as to challenge the government’s agreement with US-based New Fortress Company on the Yugadanavi power plant and the supply of LNG. Besides, nine more constituents of the SLPP are opposing the controversial deal. They are complaining of stepmotherly treatment from the SLPP leadership.
All these dissidents are a force to be reckoned with, and their revolt is bound to entail a huge political cost for the government unless tackled without further delay. They inflict more damage on the government than the Opposition does.
Majorities can be ineffectual
Huge majorities do not necessarily make the Presidents or their parties powerful enough to bulldoze their way through; resistance tends to emerge from the least expected quarters. Besides, group dynamics could turn negative anytime much to the detriment of governments, as is known to political observers. That was why the late J. R. Jayewardene lost no time in collecting undated resignation letters from all UNP MPs so that they could be sacked in case of a revolt against his government.
When the UNP secured a five-sixth majority in the parliament, at the 1977 general election, the SLFP was reduced to a mere eight seats. Everybody knew the SLFP would not recover for years to come, and it would be plain political suicide for any UNP MP to turn against JRJ, who, however, did not leave anything to chance because he knew politicians for what they really were.
Deplorable and undemocratic JRJ’s modus operandi may have been, it worked. Only a few UNP MPs rebelled against him, and they had to leave his government, prominent among them being the late MPs Neville Fernando and Gamini Jayasuriya.
When a group of his MPs rose against him and even sought to impeach him, President Ranasinghe Premadasa must have regretted that he had not emulated his predecessor. Otherwise, he could have got rid of the rebel group led by Lalith Athulathmudali and Gamini Dissanayake easily. He had a comfortable majority in the parliament. (The UNP obtained 125 out of 225 seats at the 1989 general election, which however was heavily rigged.)
JRJ returned the undated resignation letters to his MPs towards the tail end of his second term, after which he retired, and there was no way Premadasa could make use of them.
Other Presidents and intra-govt. revolts
All Executive Presidents, save the late D. B. Wijetunga, who was in power only briefly following the assassination of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, have faced revolts followed by mass crossovers. President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga’s government collapsed in 2001 as some of the SLFP seniors including its General Secretary S. B. Dissanayake rose against her and joined the UNP. Chandrika is one of the bitterest critics of JRJ, but she must have thought her government would have been safe if she had followed the latter’s method of containing dissension.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa sought to be the President for life, having mustered a two-thirds majority in the parliament and introduced the 20th Amendment to the Constitution. He was the most popular political leader at the time, and nobody expected him to lose and his government to collapse. But he lost power at the 2015 presidential election due to mass crossovers, which he had no way of preventing. He, too, must have remembered JRJ and wished he had adopted the latter’s method in question.
President Maithripala Sirisena was helpless against a revolt in the SLFP with a majority of its MPs refusing to toe his line and opting to function as a de facto Opposition in the parliament following the 2015 general election. The rebel group called itself the Joint Opposition (JO), which later evolved into the SLPP. Technically, the JO was part of the Yahapalana government because all its members had been elected from the SLFP-led UPFA, which officially joined the UNP-led UNF to form a national government. Sirisena did his utmost to contain the JO, and when he realized that he was not equal to that task, he joined forces with it! He must have thought he would have been able to manage the SLFP crisis if he had done a JRJ, whom he condemns in public as a dictator.
Now, it is President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s turn to face an intra-government revolt. At present, the members of the SLFP and other parties in the SLPP parliamentary group are challenging the government leaders. Ministers Nanayakkara, Gammanpila and Weerawansa are openly flouting the constitutional convention of collective responsibility, according to the President, but he still cannot do anything about it although he has the same executive powers as JRJ and has a two-thirds majority in the parliament. There is reason to believe that he is remembering JRJ and wishing that he could do as the latter did in suppressing dissent, which is affecting the vitality of his government and undermining his position.
Causes of President GR’s woes
The SLPP’s crisis, which is causing worries to President Rajapaksa, is multifactorial. The government rebels are not acting out of principle; they are driven by self-interest. They are revolting because of some SLPP leaders’ hostility towards them. They have said someone in the SLPP is acting just like the late Felix Dias Bandaranaike, who was blamed for ruining the unity of the SLFP-led United Front government, and ousting some of its constituents in the mid-1970s. They have stopped short of naming names, but it is obvious that they are referring to SLP National Organizer and Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, who has indicated a desire to form an all-SLPP government in the future without depending on other parties. Basil is not well disposed towards Weerawansa and Gammanpila because of their opposition to the abolition of a constitutional provision introduced by the 19th Amendment barring dual citizens like him from entering the parliament.
The disgruntlement of some SLPP seniors who have lost their previously held positions is also a main reason for dissension within the government ranks. Some of them have had to settle for state ministries although they were Cabinet ministers in previous governments. They include Dayasiri Jayasekera and Susil Premajanath. Dayasiri has publicly blamed Basil for creating his state ministry, which he says has become a joke. Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe was hoping for a Cabinet post. In the hope of being sworn in, he left for Kandy, where ministers and state ministers were sworn in after the inauguration of President GR in 2019. But when he learnt that he would get only a state ministry, he turned back. He has since been criticizing the government.
The Rajapaksa family is not known to share power, plum positions, funds and opportunities with others. Its members exercise tight control over most of the government funds, and others have to settle for crumbs from their table. Politicians are highly ambitious, and that is why they are in politics. Glass ceilings and opportunity to feather their nests invariably lead to their frustration. This is one of the main reasons why some SLPP MPs are rebelling against the government. They want what they consider their fair share of the pie. Even if the Rajapaksa family chooses to look after their interests and make them happy, its problems will not be over because there will be other SLPP MPs expecting similar treatment.
The SLPP leadership seems to have adopted a fatalistic attitude. It is apparently expecting the government’s internal dispute to go away, and public opinion to turn favorable sooner or later. This is only wishful thinking.
