All-party govt. a dead duck

Aragalaya has fizzled out, and the government seems to think it is out of danger and free to do as it pleases. It is reverting old ways. Hope is said to spring eternal, and when Ranil Wickremesinghe became the President, it was thought that the government would make an immediate course correction, or at least make an effort to do so, and facilitate the emergence of a new political culture in keeping with the wishes of the youth who took to the streets, demanding a ‘system change’. But there is hardly anything he can do without the blessings of the SLPP, which is all out to consolidate its power and recover lost ground on the political front.

Leader of the Opposition and the SJB Sajith Premadasa has said in no uncertain terms that his party will not close ranks with the government under any circumstances. Speaking at an SJB meeting in Puttalam on Monday (13), he went ballistic, tearing as he did into the government, which he called corrupt to the core; never would the SJB be part of a joint administration to be formed, he declared, condemning his MPs who had accepted ministerial posts as a bunch of greedy rogues. It is now clear that the government has ruined the prospect of securing the support of the main Opposition party.

There cannot be a unity government without the main Opposition party as a partner. The government has chosen to retain its parliamentary majority by increasing the number of ministers despite protests from its opponents and the public. Among those who have been sworn in as State Ministers are crossovers from the SLFP and the SJB. Why those two parties are resentful is understandable.    

One of the main promises of President Wickremesinghe was to usher in consensual governance by forming an all-party government to resolve the economic crisis and achieve national progress. He in fact started working towards that goal; he had several rounds of talks with all political parties save the JVP, which declined to meet him. The SLFP and the SJB evinced a keen interest in forming a unity administration, and the JVP also showed a willingness to help overcome the crisis without sharing power.

 What made the political parties amenable to working together is said to be pressure from Aragalaya; protesters were denouncing all politicians, and offering themselves as an alternative. Unprecedented popular support for a protest movement prompted the professional politicians to offer to change their ways in a bid to remain relevant and protect their support bases which showed signs of erosion.

A President without a parliamentary majority is a lame duck in all but name. Wickremesinghe may be keen to fulfil some of his promises and live up to people’s expectations, but he cannot do anything that does not pass muster with the SLPP or be construed as a threat to its interests. He used to clash with two Presidents when he controlled the Parliament as the Prime Minister. He undermined President Chandrika Kumaratunga from 2001 to 2004, and President Maithripala Sirisena from 2015 to 2019. President Kumaratunga sacked him, and President Sirisena tried to do so without success in 2018. Today, it is the other way around with the SLPP, on whose parliamentary majority President Wickremesinghe is dependent for survival, dictating terms to him. Unlike President Kumaratunga and Sirisena, he has only a single MP representing his party, the UNP. He also cannot dissolve the parliament until next March, and the SLPP is planning to strip him of that power through the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution Bill. It seeks to prevent him from dissolving Parliament until it has completed four and a half years of its term. There is a cold war of sorts in the government.

Now that President Wickremesinghe has put the Aragalaya activists on the defensive, the SLPP seems to think trouble is over, and the time is opportune for it to bounce back. Its leaders who maintained a very low-profile during protests have come out and are making public statements that smack of cockiness. One member of the Rajapaksa family—Shasheendra—has been appointed a State Minister. Namal Rajapaksa is expected to be made a Cabinet minister soon. SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam has said the SLPP has a parliamentary majority, which enabled it to have the President elected by the parliament, and is therefore ruling the country. He in fact has told the truth. What he has apparently left unsaid is that President Wickremesinghe has to be mindful of that fact and act accordingly without antagonizing the SLPP.

SLFP leader and former President Maithripala Sirisena has berated the SLFP MPs who have accepted ministerial portfolios without the consent of the party. He now has only two of the 14 SLFP lawmakers on his side—Dayasiri Jayasekera and Shan Wijayalal de Silva. He has changed the party constitution to deal with dissidents with a firm hand; he can have disciplinary inquiries concluded expeditiously and even sack the defectors if he so desires, depending on the recommendations of the disciplinary committee. He is expected to get even with the SLFP MPs who have rebelled against him, and lawsuits are likely to result from the party’s internal disputes, which may lead to expulsions. Whatever the outcome of the clashes between the SLFP MPs and the Sirisena faction of the party may be, one thing is clear: the SLFP will not join a unity government. In fact, the SLPP has no need for the SLFP as a partner because most of its MPs have switched their allegiance to the Rajapaksa family, and President Wickremesinghe.  

The TNA has a special affinity with Wickremesinghe, as is public knowledge, but it cannot support him today because he is in the Rajapaksa camp, which it has an antipathy for. The government policy towards the UNHRC has not undergone any change as such if what Foreign Minister Ali Sabry has said in Geneva is any indication. The TNA backed the UNP-led Yahapalana government because the latter adopted a conciliatory approach in Geneva and even cosponsored a UNHRC resolution, which was considered unfavorable to Sri Lanka. Today, the TNA cannot back President Wickremesinghe because it cannot compromise its position on the ongoing international human rights campaign against Sri Lanka. Having a war crimes probe launched is one of its main election promises.     

 Thus, President Wickremesinghe, who promised an all-party government, has failed to enlist the support of the SJB, the SLFP, the JVP and the TNA. In other words, the Opposition, save a few MPs, has turned down his request for helping form a unity government. Most of all, the SLPP itself is not well-disposed towards the idea of power sharing because it thinks the situation has improved due to the disintegration of Aragalaya, and it can consolidate its power. The dissident SLPP MPs belonging to the Dullas group have refused to consider any power-sharing arrangement with the government, and the other SLPP rebel MPs led by Wimal Weerawansa are of the view that any all-party government will have to be an interim administration and a tentative date for a snap general election should be fixed and announced to the public. This being the political reality, it may be concluded that the proposed all-party government project has become a dead duck.