Former President Maithripala Sirisena may have thought of capitalizing on the SLPP’s internal disputes and gaining a boost for his political project. That he has been biding his time, and his exit from the government is only a matter of time is public knowledge. There is no love lost between him and the Rajapaksa family; they have wronged each other politically and otherwise so much that they cannot bury the hatchet. It was adversity that made them strange bedfellows in 2018, when the UNP took on both of them. They have since stuck together out of expediency rather than principle. The shattering of the SLPP’s unity with some of its key members striking discordant notes on vital national issues and the frustration of some ministers who feel slighted may have warmed the cockles of Sirisena’s heart, which must also have been gladdened by an improvement of the SLFP’s performance at the recent cooperative society elections, where the SLPP fared badly. But on Sunday (09), it became evident that the SLFP was also facing a serious internal problem.
There were two events in quick succession on Sunday to mark the 123rd birth anniversary of SLFP founder, the late Prime Minister S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, near his statue at the Galle Face green. First came former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and her sister Sunethra together with their friends and political supporters. They paid a floral tribute to their father’s statue. Prominent among those present were SJB MP Kumara Welgama, who calls himself an SLFPer, and SLPP MP Susil Premjayanth, who lost his ministerial post recently for lambasting government policies and ridiculing some ministers.
Two factions, two events
No sooner had the Bandaranaike sisters left than former President Sirisena, accompanied by his trusted lieutenants such as SLFP General Secretary and State Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera and Minister Mahinda Amaraweera arrived at the Bandaranaike statue and paid a floral tribute to the late leader.
Thus, it is clear that the SLFP is torn between Chandrika and Sirisena. The latter has control over the party at present, but Chandrika is not likely to give up. She has said the SLFP should encourage the youth to play a more active role in the running of it. Sirisena also has a long-term plan. He has made his son, Daham, a provincial leader of the SLFP. Speculation is rife that his daughter, Chathurika, will also take to active politics. He is building a political dynasty.
The late PM Bandaranaike would never have expected his party to be so faction-ridden. He would be moved to tears if he knew the fate of his beloved party!
Welgama’s love for SLFP
The fact that Chandrika and Welgama are seen together in public must be a worrisome proposition for Sirisena, for they are thought to be working according to an undisclosed plan. Welgama, fielding questions from reporters, at Galle Face, on Sunday, declared that he was still an SLFPer at heart, and he had contested the last general election from the SJB as there was no other way available for him to enter the parliament. He made some disparaging remarks about the SJB signaling that he would sever links with that party and return to the SLFP’s fold.
It is no secret that Welgama has presidential ambitions. In fact, as an influential member of the Joint Opposition, which later became the SLPP, he labored under the delusion that he would be nominated to contest the 2019 presidential election. His position was that he was the second most senior member of the SLFP; Mahinda Rajapaksa, the most senior SLFPer at the time could not contest another presidential election because of the constitutionally stipulated term-limit, and other senior leaders in the Joint Opposition, Dinesh Gunawardena and Vasudeva Nanayakkara, represented other political parties.
Welgama was disappointed when Gotabaya was nominated to run for President. He has since been very critical of Gotabaya, whom he ridicules at every turn. The only way he could achieve his dream of standing for President is to rejoin the SLFP and be its presidential candidate.
Sirisena has served only one term, and can contest a presidential election again. The SJB has already announced that it will field its own candidate at the next presidential election, and not field anyone other than its leader Sajith Premadasa. President Rajapaksa has also indicated a desire to seek a second term. The JVP has said it will not coalesce with any other party. Chances are the next presidential election will be a four-cornered fight—with candidates from the SLPP, the SLFP, the JVP and the SJB being in the fray.
Who will be the SLFP’s presidential candidate? Will it be Sirisena or anyone else? Will the SLFP be split?
Chandrika’s plan
Sirisena is a seasoned politician, and he is sure to do whatever it takes to consolidate his position in the SLFP, but he will have his work cut out if Chandrika throws her weight behind someone else and promotes him as an alternative leader. Welgama is apparently in her good books, and assertive, if not aggressive, enough to take on Sirisena.
The SLFP was able to obtain 14 seats under Sirisena’s leadership, at the 2020 general election, but it would not have been able to do so if it had not hitched its wagon to the SLPP. If Sirisena pulls out of the government, he is likely to lose several of his MPs to the SLPP, for politicians know which side their bread is buttered. Chandrika knows how to make her moves and when. She was instrumental in engineering the 2015 regime change, and the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa did not know what hit him. Will she spring a similar surprise for Sirisena as well?
Chandrika threw in her lot with Sirisena in late 2014 not because she was fond of him; she wanted someone from the Rajapaksa government to challenge President Mahinda Rajapaksa, and Sirisena fitted the bill. She, however, made a miscalculation; she thought she would be able to manipulate Sirisena and act as the power behind the throne. Sirisena asserted himself much to the disappointment of Chandrika as well as the then Prime Minister Ranil Wckremesinghe.
When Chandrika was the President, she did not consider Sirisena fit enough to be even the SLFP General Secretary. She manipulated the SLFP to ensure that S. B. Dissanayake was elected to that post, which Sirisena got only after Dissanayake defected to the UNP in 2001 together with more than a dozen People’s Alliance MPs, bringing down the Kumaratunga government.
Sirisena lost his magic years ago, and has nothing new to offer to the electorate as a national figure. He is facing several law suits for his failure to prevent the Easter Sunday bomb attacks, which occurred while he was the President, the Defence Minister and Commander-in-chief. The presidential commission of inquiry which probed those attacks has recommended criminal proceedings against him.
It is believed in political circles that Chandrika is planning to have a common candidate fielded again to settle political scores with the Rajapaksa family, and she will need a political party for that purpose. The UNP is too weak to be of any use, and the SJB has decided to go it alone. So, she is left with only the SLFP. This is bad news for Sirisena, who has many other problems to contend with.
What could the President’s move be?
The government is likely to have the Local Government elections due in a few months postponed on some pretext or another as its popularity is at a very low ebb. Hence speculation in political circles that there will be no polls until the next parliamentary election, which is expected to be advanced. This looks an option the President is likely to adopt, given the political and economic difficulties the government is faced with. The 20th Amendment allows the President to dissolve the parliament after the expiration of two and a half years from the date of the formation of a government, or upon a resolution by the parliament requesting him to dissolve it. SJB Spokesman Tissa Attanayake has said his party is preparing itself for an early general election.
President Rajapaksa has at a recent meeting with newspaper editors lamented that his parliamentary team is not supportive enough, and the bureaucracy is not carrying out his orders properly. So, the reports that the government is mulling over a snap general election will help jolt the SLPP MPs, especially lethargic ministers, into action. The President is very likely to consider an early general election as an option, and if what is being speculated comes to pass, plans and strategies of all those who are aspiring to be the President and grabbing political parties will have to be rethought and reworked.
