By Kassapa
Two much awaited announcements- whether Ranil Wickremesinghe will run for President and whether the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) will support him- came this week and caused raised eyebrows in many quarters and led to confusion on all fronts.
Wickremesinghe’s agents were the doorstep of the Elections Commission no sooner the formal announcement of the presidential election was made, paying his deposit. He can, of course, still withdraw simply by not submitting nomination papers as Chamal Rajapaksa did in 2019, but the chances are that this time, he really intends to run.
The surprise announcement though, came from the SLPP. After a meeting of its Politburo, the party decided that they would not endorse Wickremesinghe but will name their own candidate. The odds-on favourite as nominee is Dhammika Perera.
What caused the SLPP to change their mind-because a few weeks ago, they were quite keen to see Wickremesinghe run a race that they knew they themselves couldn’t win? It is learnt that several factors were in play and Wickremesinghe’s action in recent weeks didn’t endear him to the SLPP hierarchy, i.e., the Rajapaksa family.
It was obvious that Wickremesinghe was slowly building his own support base in the SLPP, winning over ‘Pohottuwa’ loyalists such as Prasanna Ranatunga, Kanchana Wijesekera, Ramesh Pathirana and Mahindananda Aluthgamage, in addition to a host of state ministers. What riled the SLPP however was the fact that some of them, Ranatunga and Wijesekera for example, began publicly endorsing Wickremesinghe despite the SLPP cautioning them not to do so. Ranatunga went to the extent of having a show of hands at a rally at Kadawatha. It was clear that these MPs were veering towards Wickremesinghe despite being ‘hardcore’ loyalists of Mahinda Rajapaksa.
The crunch came when the contours of a possible future government headed by Wickremesinghe- in the event that he wins the election- was discussed. The SLPP was demanding its pound of flesh, the Prime Ministerial position. Also on the shopping list was the allocation of several key Cabinet portfolios.
Being in politics for almost half a century now, Wickremesinghe deftly dodged that question. The Prime Minister can only be the person who commands the confidence of a majority of MPs in the next Parliament, he said. Translated, that meant that he was making no promises.
This is when the push for a SLPP candidate intensified. As noted in this column last week, the school of thought within the SLPP leadership that, Wickremesinghe will decimate the party if he is given a five-year term as elected President with full executive powers gained currency.
Knowing instinctively that they have little to gain at the upcoming election anyway (even if Wickremesinghe wins), they decided to preserve the SLPP for heir apparent Namal Rajapaksa. They wanted to live politically to fight the next election in five years, rather than have the Rajapaksa legacy devoured by Wickremesinghe. Hence the decision to withdraw support to Wickremesinghe at the eleventh hour, even though a vast majority of SLPP of parliamentarians continue to support him.
From the perspective of these parliamentarians, especially those with greater leadership ambitions such as Ranatunga and Wijesekera, they realise that life in the SLPP is all about slaving their political lives away for the Rajapaksas just as it once was with the Bandaranaikes and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). The potential to achieve greater heights is more under Wickremesinghe, they feel, even if they now have to jostle for electorates and local power bases with those from Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP).
It is not all bad news for Wickremesinghe either. Those who defected from the SLPP early and identified themselves as the ‘New Alliance’, the group led by Nimal Lanza and Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, has maintained they will support Wickremesinghe but will not be on the same platform with the Rajapaksas. Now, they can assist him without any reservation.
There is a similar group in the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) who did wish to rejoin the UNP but were afraid to do so as aligning themselves with the Rajapaksas could cost them re-election. They too can now return to their political ancestral home.
Is this then a blessing in disguise for Wickremesinghe? Wickremesinghe may have got rid of the Rajapaksa baggage that encumbered him but many miscreants from the original SLPP camp have flocked around him. The words and deeds of these individuals are too recent for the average Sri Lankan voter to forget, amnesic though they may be. So, he wouldn’t be suddenly perceived as Mr. Clean, just because the Rajapaksas have distanced themselves from him now.
However, these gains will come at a cost to Wickremesinghe. His request for support from the SLPP was mostly because he wanted access to the well-oiled election machine of the SLPP with its vast and well-established grassroots network, nurtured during the heyday of the Rajapaksas. This will no longer available to him now. There will be some compensation in the form of district leaders who are with Wickremesinghe, Ranatunga in Gampaha for instance, mobilising their support bases for him.
Quite apart from SLPP and SJB MPs willing to support Wickremesinghe because the Rajapaksas are no longer with him, there will also be voters who may vote for Wickremesinghe for the same reason. In the final analysis, it is difficult to predict whether Wickremesinghe will ultimately gain or lose because the Rajapaksas have disowned him.
While Wickremesinghe may not be too unhappy with these developments, the SJB should be worried. There will be many a voter who will now switch from the SJB to Wickremesinghe simply because they see him as better presidential material as compared to Sajith Premadasa, now that he has shed the ‘saatakaya’ that enveloped him.
There is potential for further chaos now. There was a show of strength from some 92 MPs for Wickremesinghe but that is well short of a majority in Parliament. If the SLPP so wishes, they can combine with the SJB and the Jathika Jana Balavegaya (JJB) to bring down the government which in fact now consists mostly of SLPP ‘rebels’. This will effectively undermine Wickremesinghe’s presidential election campaign.
So, with less than eight weeks to go for the presidential poll, the fun and games have only just begun.
