There have been many dramatic ups and downs, and twists and turns in Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s colorful political life, which is at a crossroads again. A section of theruling SLPP coalition has reportedly pledged support for the no-faith motion the Opposition is planning to move against the government. PM Rajapaksa is racking his brain to devise ways and means of retaining the SLPP’s parliamentary majority. He is reported to be personally meeting the government MPs who arestraddling the fence in a bid to prevent them from crossing overwhile trying to win over the dissidents.
Leader of the Pivithuru Hela Urumaya and former Minister Udaya Gammanpila, speaking for the 40-member rebel group of the SLPP, has told the media that as many as 120 MPs will support the no-confidence motion, and the government is doomed. If his claim is true, then the PM and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa will have their work cut out to save the government.
The Opposition, however, is treading cautiously and does not look so keen as to have the no-faith motion taken up for debate and put to the vote anytime soon, and this is considered an indication that the SJB is not confident of having enough numbers in the parliament to dislodge the government. Leader of the House Minister Dinesh Gunawardena keeps daring the SJB to present the no-faith motion and secure its passage. He would have the public believe that the government has a working majority in the House, and the no-confidence motion is stillborn.
The proof of the pudding however is said to be in the eating, and we will have to wait until a vote is taken on the no-faith motion to be presented to the parliament to see who is telling us the truth. Nothing is so certain as the unexpected in the shifting sands of politics.
Fighter and strategist
Mahinda has been a fighter blessed with political acumen. Otherwise, he would not have survived in Sri Lanka’s cloak-and-dagger politics, much less risen to the highest position in the country. No one else would have been able to outfox the members of the Bandaranaike family and become the SLFP’s presidential candidate. His greatest achievement is generally thought to be the successful war against the LTTE, but it, we believe, was the act of cornering President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, who was all out to ruin things for him politically, and leaving her with no alternative but to appoint him the PM in 2004 and then nominate him to contest the presidential election in 2005.
Chandrika and the SLFP did everything in their power to queer the pitch for Mahinda in the 2005 presidential race. He was not even allowed to use the SLFP headquarters for electioneering purposes, and party funds were not made available to him. The state media had presidential orders to remain neutral. Mahinda not only won against all odds but also shored up the weak UPFA (United People’s Freedom Alliance) government and provided political leadership to the country’s war against the LTTE, while launching and completing severallarge-scale development projects.
Mahinda has been a master strategist, but he has blundered badly on several occasions and suffered painful setbacks, which are mostly due to his overconfidence, the most humiliating one being his failed bid to secure a third presidential term. He became so cocky during his second term, after war victory and his comfortable win at the 2010 presidential election, that he thought his government with a two-thirds majority was fully under his control; he was hugely popular, and no one was capable of challenging him politically. He opted for a snap presidential election, which proved to be his undoing. Mass crossovers began immediately after the declaration of the election, and Maithripala Sirisena came forward as the Opposition’s common candidate, and the rest is history.
A replay of history
What is currently unfolding on the political front looks like a replay of what happened in late 2014. The Opposition is making a concerted effort to oust the Rajapaksa government with the help of a group of dissident ruling party MPs. The alignment of political forces is similar to the one in 2014, with the UNP, the JVP, the SLMC, the TNA, etc., joining forces against the government. It is Sirisena who is providing leadership to dissident government MPs.
The presence political scenario reminds us of Mahinda’s struggle after President Sirisena sacked the UNF government and appointed him Prime Minister in October 2018; he had to fight quite a battle to raise numbers in the parliament to retain the premiership, but his efforts failed. He has also had to take on the entire Opposition and a group of dissident government MPs, almost single-handed. Whether he will succeed in his endeavorthis time around remains to be seen.
Family and paradox
Mahinda’s family has been his strength; it has also been his weakness, paradoxical as it may sound. His family members stood by him solidly, making possible his success, and he looked after their interests to the extent of being accused of nepotism. They have remained united all these years, but whether their unity has survived the present crisis, which has brought the President and the Prime Minister on a collision course, is in doubt. Their loyalists are at loggerheads and trying to throw one another to the wolves.
It has been reported the members of the Rajapaksa family met on Monday night (25) in Colombo to discuss the current political situation, where the government is under pressure to resign and appoint an interim administration. The non-inclusion of its members, other than the President and Mahinda, in the present Cabinet, must be really hurting the Rajapaksa family.
It is argued in political circles that Mahinda’s biggest weakness that has cost him dear politically is that he subjugatedthe interests of the country and his governments to those of his family. This argument is not untenable. He has been very open about his partiality to his family as evident from the allocation of plum ministerial posts and key appointments in the state sector to his kith and kin, much to the envy of other ambitious politicians in the government. Most of his family members and relatives who benefited from his generosity only made him unpopular and turned public opinion against the entire family. It was a huge mistake for him to make his government look like a family concern.
In furthering the interests of his family, Mahinda failed to look after the ambitious non-family members in the government, thus making them revolt. The main reason for Sirisena’s breakaway from the Rajapaksa government in 2014 was that he had been denied the premiership. That he and Basil Rajapaksa had been on bad terms was public knowledge.
Struggle continues
Mahinda’s political life has been a prolonged struggle. His rise was gradual and spanned over four decades. He became an MP in 1970 while he was still wet behind the ears, and lost his seat in 1977. He reentered the parliament in 1989, having made a name for himself as a human rights lawyer and campaigner. Thereafter, he became a minister (1994), Opposition Leader (2001), Prime Minister (2004) and twice-elected President (2005 and 2010). His downfall occurred in 2015, when his reelection bid failed with his government falling in quick succession. He became an ordinary MP again (August 2015), Opposition Leader (2018) and Prime Minister (2019). He failed to function as the Prime Minister in 2018 after the then President Maithripala Sirisena’s abortive power grab, and resigned. If the government loses the no-faith motion to be moved, Mahinda will be reduced to an ordinary MP again, and his political career is very likely to come to an end. Those who do not learn from history are said to be doomed to repeat it.
Mahinda must be regretting that he ever introduced the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, which among other things did away with the presidential term limit, enabling him to seek a third term. If he had not changed the Constitution, he would have been in the current mess, which is preventing him from retiring gracefully. But he will remain a fighter to the last.
