By Vishvanath
The Sri Lanka Podu Jana Peramuna (SLPP) had a meteoric rise in politics. Founded in 2016, as an offshoot of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), which turned hostile towards the Rajapaksa family, it swept the local government polls in 2018 and went on to win the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Its fall was equally rapid. Its decline began in 2022, and today it is a shadow of its former self. It has been split into three factions just like the SLFP. This is the price it has had to pay for squandering its electoral gains and being overconfident.
The SLPP, after months of dilly-dallying, named its National Organizer Namal Rajapaksa as its presidential candidate, on Wednesday morning. Obviously, he was not its first choice. It had been in two minds, unable to decide whether to field its own candidate or hitch its wagon to President Ranil Wickremesinghe.
Business tycoon Dhammika Perera, MP, presented himself as the SLPP presidential candidate and even publicly declared that he had prepared an economic development strategy, which, he said, would be unveiled once he was nominated to contest the presidential election. He kept on saying that he was ready for the presidential contest and hopeful that the SLPP would field him. He claimed that he needed only 60 days to educate the public on his policy programme and win the presidency. He sounded very confident. His eleventh-hour pullout came as a surprise to the SLPP and all others who expected him to take the plunge although not many thought he would succeed in his endeavour.
Perhaps, the Rajapaksa family had no intention of fielding Perera, and they only used him as a bargaining chip in negotiations with President Wickremesinghe. They wanted a general election held first so that they could obtain as many seats in the parliamentary as possible before facing a presidential contest for which it was without a formidable candidate. The next parliament is expected to be hung, and in such a situation political horse trading, which is the SLPP’s forte, helps form political alliances. They brought pressure to bear on Wickremesinghe, who did not give in. He won over scores of SLPP MPs, instead. He has thus proved that he is made of sterner stuff. The SLPP and Wickremesinghe are now rivals, and Namal finds himself in the deep end.
It will be interesting to see whether the SLPP will continue to provide Wickremesinghe with a parliamentary majority in the coming weeks or render him powerless vis-à-vis the parliament in a bid to ruin his chances of winning the presidency against others including Namal. The Opposition is reportedly planning to move a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena to pit the SLPP against the President and its dissident MPs supporting him.
What caused Perera’s about-turn?
In a letter addressed to SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam, Perera said on Tuesday that he had decided against running for President due to personal reasons. But one tends to believe that he was utterly disappointed at the inordinate delay on the part of the SLPP in nominating him; he must have felt slighted.
If the SLPP had announced Perera as its presidential candidate earlier, perhaps he may have contested, and he would also have been able to prevent the defection of some of the dissident SLPP MPs, who have thrown in their lot with Wickremesinghe. It is also possible that the recent split in the SLPP parliamentary group prompted Perera to decide against contesting the presidential election. Another reason for his change of mind may have been the shockwaves that political upheavals in Bangladesh sent across the region. Clashes in that country were similar in many respects to Aragalaya, which led to the ouster of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in 2022.
Shockwaves of B’desh mayhem
The situation in Sri Lanka is far from normal. There is a semblance of political stability because the economy has improved to a considerable extent, and scarcities and queues are things of the past, but the possibility of another popular uprising cannot be ruled out, given public resentment, which is palpable. Having witnessed Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s predicament, which reminded Sri Lankans of what they themselves had experienced two years back, it is possible that being a shrewd businessman capable of assessing situations rationally, Perera did not want to undertake anything that might place his business empire in peril in case of political upheavals.
In the aftermath of an SLPP goon attack on the Galle Face protesters, in May 2022, arson attacks were carried out on the properties of about 80 SLPP MPs and other government politicians in retaliation. Former Bangladesh cricket captain Mashrafe Bin Mortaza’s house was destroyed by protesters the other day. That shows what mobs are capable of when they go berserk. Perera may have thought the risk was not worth taking.
Remote chances of victory
It can also be argued that Perera baulked at contesting the presidential election because he knew his chances of victory, as the candidate of an unpopular party, were very remote. But the question is why it took so long for that realization to dawn on an intelligent person like him. Even his barber or driver would have told him that it would be next to impossible for the SLPP to win the next presidential or any other election, for that matter, in the foreseeable future.
Whatever the reason for Perera’s refusal to represent the SLPP in the upcoming presidential race, the Rajapaksa family has had to do something it feared and was therefore desperate to avoid; it will have to face a test of its electoral strength before the next parliamentary election.
Even if Perera had contested from the SLPP, the chances of his victory would have been extremely slim, as was said earlier, but it will be far more difficult for the Rajapaksa family to stomach the defeat of one of its members, pitted against three strong candidates, President Wickremesinghe, Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa and JVP/NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake. How Namal fares in the presidential race will have a bearing on the SLPP’s performance in the general election, which is expected to follow in quick succession. This is a disconcerting proposition for the Rajapaksa family.
Rajapaksas’ hold on their party
Is it that the Rajapaksas were left with no alternative but to field Namal, after Perera’s pullout, or did they take a calculated risk in a bid to retain their hold on the SLPP? If an outsider like Perera had been fielded as the SLPP’s presidential candidate, the members of the party’s parliamentary group and ranks and file would have rallied behind him, and he would have been able to break up the SLPP and form another political party the way Premadasa did after contesting the last presidential election as the candidate of a UNP-led coalition; Premadasa formed the SJB at the expense of the UNP, which could secure only a single National List post at the 20202 general election, as a result.
For the Rajapaksas, troubled by the prospect of having their electoral weakness exposed, the only consolation may be that they have been able to retain their hold on the SLPP.
