The government is consolidating its power, having put the mainstream Opposition and Aragalaya protesters on the defensive. President Ranil Wickremesinghe did not mince his words, in the parliament, on Wednesday, when he said that never would he allow another popular uprising to take place. He declared that he would not hesitate even to deploy the military and declare a state of Emergency to nip such political upheavals in the bud. It was obvious that he meant what he said. Strangely, there were no protests as such from the Opposition benches.
The need for a robust Opposition in a situation where a government is all out to suppress democratic dissent cannot be overstated. Unfortunately, the parties in opposition are anything but united. The JVP and the SJB are at loggerheads, taking swipes at each other much to the glee of the SLPP-UNP administration. The SLPP rebel groups are also pulling in different directions. These parties and groups joined forces in a rare moment of unity, on Tuesday, to oppose the second reading of Budget 2023 but could muster only 84 votes as opposed to the government’s 121. One MP abstained, and the TNA skipped the vote. The Rajapaksa-Wickremesinghe administration has once again demonstrated that it has a comfortable majority in the House however unpopular it may be outside the parliament.
The SLFP, which could have acted as a unifying force to bring all Opposition forces together under one umbrella against the government, as it did under the leadership of Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK) in the early 1990s, is in self-sabotage mode with some factions of it clashing openly. Its big guns are getting down and dirty with one another following the suspension of eight MPs and former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (CBK). The suspended members have taken on SLFP leader and former President Maithripala Sirisena, and are accusing him of turning the party into a family concern of sorts with the help of a cabal of cronies. What their next move is not clear, but chances of a rapprochement between them and the current SLFP leadership are remote.
Besides CBK, the others suspended from the SLFP are Nimal Siripala de Silva (former Senior Vice President), Mahinda Amaraweera (former Senior Vice President), Ranjith Siyambalapitya (former Vice President), Shantha Bandara (former Propaganda Secretary), Lasantha Alagiyawanna (former Treasurer), Suren Ragawan (former Vice President), Chamara Sampath (former Vice President) and Jagath Pushpakumara (former Deputy Secretary). All of them except CBK are MPs, and they have defied the party leadership and joined the SLPP-UNP government. They are currently holding ministerial posts.
CBK was quick on the draw, and shot from the hip on Wednesday. Giving a presser, she tore Sirisena to shreds. She claimed she had not been informed of the suspension of her SLFP membership, and she had only heard about it. It was a pity that the current SLFP leadership did not know at least how to set about suspending party members, she said, noting that a show cause letter should be sent to a person before he or she was suspended from the party.
CBK, asked by a reporter how she felt after being suspended from her father’s party, said she considered the SLFP a people’s party rather than her late father’s, and she did not feel any difference because Sirisena had prevented her from being invited to party events for the past five years or so. “I’m a patron of the party, and this is how he is treating me,” she said frowningly.
A battle-scarred political leader, CBK does not concede defeat easily. There are situations where she opts for tactical retreats and goes to London, but she invariably makes comebacks. Having been ousted from the SLFP leadership by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2005, she chose to maintain a low profile, and spent most of her time in London, but she rallied forces against Mahinda, who did not know what hit him in 2015!
Sirisena cannot be unaware of what CBK is capable of, having worked with her for several decades. Together, they conspired to dislodge the Rajapaksa administration in late 2014, and succeeded in their endeavor the following year. Today, they are all out to destroy each other politically!
It seems that Sirisena was left with no alternative but to suspend CBK from the SLFP because he feared that she was trying to grab the party leadership. Rumors that she was mustering the support of the dissident SLFP MPs to take over the party must have stoked his fears and driven him to purge the party of her and the rebel MPs.
UPFA’s reaction
The appointment of Thilanga Sumathipala as the UPFA General Secretary as Amaraweera’s successor has not passed muster with five coalition partners of the SLFP-led coalition. They have refused to recognize him as their General Secretary. They lost no time in writing to Sirisena, registering their protest with him.
The signatories to the UPFA’s joint letter to Sirisena are the General Secretaries of the five parties, namely, A. L. M. Athaulla (National Congress), Tissa Jayawardena Yapa (Mahajana Eksath Peramuna), Douglas Devananda (EPDP), D. Kalansuriya (Deshavimukthi Janatha Viyaparaya), and Asanga Navaratne (SLMP). They have said that they were not duly informed of the removal of UPFA General Secretary Amaraweera and the appointment of Sumathipala as his successor. But SLFP General Secretary Dayasiri Jayasekea, who was flanking Sirisena at the SLFP press conference on Wednesday, said the UPFA constitution was very clear on the fact that the SLFP, as the main constituent of the alliance, could appoint the President, the General Secretary and the Treasurer of the coalition. A meeting of the UPFA constituents would be summoned shortly to notify the new appointment, he said.
Why did the UPFA constituents write an open letter to Sirisena instead of taking up the issue with him behind closed doors? Relations between the UPFA and the SLFP seem to have soured.
The UPFA is not a shadow of its former self. It has become a collective of smaller parties except the SLFP, but resistance from its partners to Sirisena’s decisions point to a conflict in the alliance.
CBK’s plans
Battle lines having been drawn, the SLFP leaders are now ready for a showdown. CBK, at her press briefing on Wednesday, made no bones about her intention to lead the SLFP and do whatever it took to achieve her goal. She said Sirisena and his loyalists had lost control of the party’s rank and file, and that going by how the party members received her wherever she went indicated that they were with her; they even asked her to play a more active role in the party, she claimed, adding that Sirisena’s SLFP was only a nameboard.
Interestingly, CBK accused Sirisena of trying to ‘sell the SLFP to the Rajapaksas’, whom she never misses an opportunity to bash. He had only three out of the 14 SLFP MPs on his side, she said, vowing that she would not allow him to reduce the SLFP to a mere appendage of the SLPP. It is doubtful whether the discerning public will buy into her claim; it is the dissident SLFP MPs who have joined the SLPP-led government, which is controlled by the Rajapaksa family. They have done so in defiance of the SLFP leadership and are seen with CBK at public events, and they are her loyalists!
Democracy under threat
There is a pressing need for a countervailing force against the SLPP-UNP government, which is ready to do everything in its power to retain its hold on power. President Wickremesinghe has made it clear that no protests will be allowed to take place without permission from the police, who do as the government in power says.
The Opposition does not seem keen to get its act together and put the brakes on the SLPP-UNP juggernaut, which is trundling on amidst protests. The debilitation of the SLFP is bound to take its toll on the collective strength of the Opposition under attack.
When governments emerge strong with their rivals fighting among themselves, democracy suffers.
