Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa and his associates cannot be unaware that mass gatherings pose a danger to society while Covid-19 is spreading fast after a let-up, and that the public frowns on street protests for two reasons—health risks and traffic congestion. If so, why did they choose to hold a rally in Colombo on Tuesday, thereby exposing their supporters and the public to coronavirus, and causing inconvenience to the commuting public?
The SJB leaders find themselves in such a situation that they are left with no alternative but to flex their muscles; they have to boost the sagging morale of their SJB MPs and supporters with the SLPP being all out to engineer some more crossovers from the Opposition. Aware that its popularity is on the wane, the government is ready to do whatever it takes to weaken the SJB, and the most effective way of achieving that end is to spring crossovers.
SLPP’s woes, SJB’s trouble
The SLPP, faced with dissension within its ranks, does not want to leave anything to chance in its efforts to retain its two-thirds majority in the parliament. The Rajapaksa governments are adept at effecting crossovers; the Mahinda Rajapaksa administrations (November 2005-January 2015) had more UNP MPs than the UNP-led Opposition itself did!
Politicians thirst for power and hanker after a good life; most of them, therefore, act out of expediency rather than principle, and are ready to switch their allegiances to their rivals if they think defections will help feather their nests. Hence crossovers from unstable governments and weak Oppositions.
The Opposition MPs with court cases against them and/orfear legal action against them over what they did while in power tend to join governments or collude with those in power for obvious reasons.
The UNP is also relentlessly trying to overshadow the SJB, and its leader, former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, is said to be eyeing the post of Opposition Leader. The UNP held a protest against the government at the Lipton Circus in Colombo last Friday while the budget 2022 was being presented in the parliament. So, the SJB did not want to be outshined.
SLPP’s boastful claims
Some SLPP MPs are said to have boasted in the parliament canteen, on Friday, that they expected at least four Opposition MPs to vote with the government for the Budget 2022. Such boastful claims have to be taken with a pinch of salt, but they have had an unsettling effect on the SJB, two of whose MPs—Chaminda Wijesiri and Hesha Vithanage—have resigned as electoral organizers of the SJB, after criticizing the party leadership openly.
There are other SJBP MPs who are rebelling against the party leadership. SJB National List MP Diana Gamage has already switched her allegiance to the government, and so have two MPs from the All Ceylon Makkal Congress (ACMC), which is a constituent of the SJB coalition. When they voted for the 20th Amendment, the rivals of the SLPP claimed the government had struck a deal with the ACMC, which has vehemently denied the claim.
ACMC leader Rishad Bathiudeen and his brother Riyaj have been released on bail, after being detained for months, over their alleged links to the Easter Sunday bombers. They have filed fundamental rights violation petitions against their arrest and detention. This is an interesting development, the significance of which may not have been lost on political observers.
On Tuesday, the government did exactly what the SJB expected it to do. It tried to sabotage the rally in Colombo by preventing the SJB supporters being bussed to the city from other parts of the country. The police set up roadblocks hurriedly, stopped the buses carrying the Opposition activists and turned them back amidst protests. Such hostile actions will only strengthen the resolve of SJB activists to take on the government more aggressively, and turn public opinion against the police and the SLPP politicians responsible for repressive actions.
Spat in the House
Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekara claimed in the parliament on Tuesday that the police had only assisted the health authorities in controlling Covid-19 by preventing mass gatherings, which are super spreader events. But everybody knows the government is not telling the truth, and the police acted at the behest of the SLPP to disrupt the SJB rally, which, however, was a success, although the accuracy of the numbers being bandied about by its organizers is in doubt.
The government also resorted to strong-arm tactics to break up teachers’ protests but to no avail. It even had the teacher union leaders taken into custody and packed off to faraway quarantine centres for allegedly violating the health regulations, but had to give in to pressure from various quarters and release them. When its coercive methods failed to yield the desired results, with the protesting teachers and principals intensifying their trade union action, the government undertook to grant their demands.
Protests on the rise
The government may have thought it would be able to bulldoze its way through, when it succeeded in raising a two-thirds majority in the parliament. The political Opposition may not be strong enough to stand up to the SLPP, but trade unions have proved that they are equal to the task. They scored a decisive victory against the government, when they foiled a bid to hand over the East Container Terminal (ECT) of the Colombo Port to India and Japan to be run as a joint venture.
The success of the port battle emboldened trade unions to take on the government, which they had feared previously. Doctors and nurses have also won their demands by flexing their trade union muscles although some of the pledges the government made to them have not been carried out.
The Ceylon Teachers’ Union, which launched a successful strike coupled with street demonstrations, did some limbering up before embarking on its protest campaign. It pledged solidarity with the port workers’ unions that opposed the ECT deal, and held a demonstration opposite the Education Ministry against the deal with India and Japan, in January.
There seems to be no end in sight to trade union problems for the government. The Sri Lanka Government Officers’ Trade Union Association has, in a letter to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa with copies to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa, demanded pay hikes for all state employees. Secretary of the union, B. A. P. Basnayake, has said the government workers will be compelled to launch a strike unless their demands are granted.
Now that the government has allocated an extra Rs. 30 billion from the budget 2022 for teachers’ salary increases, other government servants are likely to resort to trade union action in a bid to obtain salary increases. Some state-sector trade unions are already demanding a 10,000-rupee pay hike for all public sector workers.
Farmers continue to protest, demanding fertilizers, and their protests are likely to snowball towards the end of the current cultivation season in case the government does not compensate them for anticipated yield losses due to the fertilizer shortage and the country’s sudden switchover to organic fertilizer.
Attack best form of defense
When the government is beset with an increasing number of problems, it is sure to redouble its efforts to debilitate the Opposition, and consolidate its power at the expense of the SJB, which is also experiencing serious internal disputes. Naturally, troubled by its rebel faction, the SLPP and the UNP, the SJB has sought to assert itself as the main Opposition party or the government in waiting. It seems to think attack is the best form of defense. Hence its show of strength on Tuesday regardless of the health risks its leaders and supporters faced, and the possibility of its protests contributing to the spread of the pandemic.
The government has lambasted the SJB for exposing the people to coronavirus by launching street protests, but it too has been holding political events. The SLPP leaders would do just like their SJB counterparts if they happened to be in the Opposition. They do not seem to care to lead by example.
