A vote of confidence to ascertain the support for Ranil as PM

• Is a parliamentary majority simply a show of hands ?

• Police arrest hundreds out of Colombo after the 9^th of May

The new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe ran into a storm hours before his swearing in last Friday after a group of leading clergymen and the Opposition challenged his suitability for the post. In a nutshell, what the Ven. Omalpe Sobitha, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith and the leader of the National Peoples Power (NPP) Anura Kumara Dissanayake said during a media briefing is that Wickremesinghe is a politically bankrupt reject of the people and that his swearing in must be stopped. They saw Wickremesinghe more as the salvation of the Rajapaksa family than a messiah for the people.

Their opinions, based on antecedents, projects the reservations of most.  Wickremesinghe has been a serial loser at elections.  He has piggy backed with all and sundry to reach his star and this has earned him the reputation of a political whore.  This time, he made an opportunistic move to step into the vacuum created by the principled stance taken by the NPP, Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) who said they will not work with President  Gotabaya Rajapaksa and will not accept the premiership unless he steps down. At the last parliamentary election, Wickremesinghe was booted out of his Colombo electorate after a paltry poll.  His party, the United National Party (UNP), was not able to secure any parliamentary seats either and both Wickremesinghe, who is the leader of the UNP and the party were banished into the political wilderness. After months of haggling with his bedraggled party members most of whom had defected to the UNP offshoot SJB, Wickremesinghe returned to parliament on the National List. The strong objections to Wickremesinghe’s appointment as PM is that he does not have the mandate of the people nor the backing of a party to be in parliament.

Wickremesinghe comes with baggage.  His reputation as an incarnation of the Rajapaksas to cover up for them and to protect them has earned him the sobriquet of a ‘deal maker’.   The people hold Wickremesinghe accountable for obstructing investigations against the Rajapaksa family when he was prime minister during the last government of which he was PM. His role in the country’s biggest financial scam, the torturous incidents at Batalanda and his command of the Black Cat paramilitary have stripped away his integrity and the trust the people have in him.

‘They are both carcasses who have been rejected by the people’, says Anura Kumara.  ‘Ranil was rejected by them in the last election.  Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been rejected by the people now and they want him to step down’.

According to the Constitution the president has to appoint a prime minister who commands the confidence of the majority of political parties in parliament. It is unclear whether Wickremesinghe meets this requirement because his appointment has not been transparent. At the same time a show of hands will not be difficult to get. Ven Sobitha and Anura Kumara have spoken out about the ‘bidding’ for MPs which has begun.  Wickremesinghe, who is effectively the UNP’s last man standing in parliament, needs a party to back him and the stops are being pulled out to shore up his support including attempts to bring in UNP members through the National List by getting SLPP MPs to resign.

But did the drafters of the Constitution envisage a mere theoretical interpretation of it where only a show of hands would suffice or is it something deeper which goes into the heart of its spirit? In a statement it issued on Saturday, the Bar Association of Sri Lanka (BASL) said ‘on the 23^rd of April 2022, the BASL submitted its proposals to His Excellency the President to restore political and economic stability in the country. The President indicated broad agreement with the proposals including the establishment of a government of national unity. Among the BASL’s proposals was the establishment of an interim government of national unity consisting of 15 cabinet members. The prime minister to be a member of parliament who is able to establish a consensus among all political parties recognized by the speaker in parliament, on the national economy and to enact necessary reforms’.

The statement went on to say that the essence of the proposals was that in the current political and economic instability it is necessary to appoint a prime minister who is able to establish a consensus among all political parties in parliament rather than merely relying on the existence of a parliamentary majority.

The operative word here is the prime minister’s ability to muster the consensus of all political parties in parliament. To clear all doubt, when parliament meets this week the Opposition must ask for a vote of confidence or hand over a motion of no confidence to the Speaker.

Wickremesinghe’s political life story is replete with a trail of destruction. Pushing through his political agendas, he is more a divider and a destroyer than a unifier. He succeeded in decimating the country’s oldest political party, grinding it to dust and wiping it off the face of parliament. He refused to groom a successor to take over the party leadership and a frustrated group of UNP MPs defected to form the SJB.  His current resurrection has divided the SJB which could see them heading off into political oblivion. The SLPP is more a Mahinda Rajapaksa hotbed than a Gotabaya one and some of its MPs have said they will sit in parliament as Independents although they are still likely to throw Wickremesinghe a double ended lifeline to show that he has the majority in parliament if only to ensure their survival.

In his address to the country on Monday night, Wickremesinghe said his responsibility now is to take the baby safely across the bridge which he knows is suspended shakily above a growing sea of heads that is opposing his appointment. The peoples movement at Galle Face has rejected him and so have others.  The protests against him have started.  A significant number of people turned up at a protest march past Temple Trees in the weekend. Wickremesinghe’s entry will effectively made the peoples struggle more protracted and it will be detrimental to a quick turn around of the political and economic landscapes that the country desperately needs.

Wickremesinghe didn’t waste time proving the peoples’ perception that a leopard will not change its spots.  The Convenor of the Inter University Students Federation Wasantha Mudalige went public and accused Wickremesinghe of creating the environment for the arrest of hundreds of students, youth, trade unionists and professionals from Badulla, Polonaruwa, Anuradhapura, Gampaha and Kurunegala after the debacle of the 9^th.   The witch hunt is taking place based on a list of 1500 names which the government has put together.

Wickremesinghe was catapulted to the prime minister’s chair for the sixth time in a political career of nearly half a century after his predecessor, prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s last ditch attempt to cling on to the job ended disastrously.  The scenario epitomized the old Sinhala proverb yana yaka korahath bindagene yanawa, or for a lose translation of its meaning the devil who is leaving leaves after doing the most damage.

About ten people have died and more than 200 were injured during after pro Mahinda supporters clashed with peaceful protesters and during the backlash. The properties of at least 65 MPs were damaged and burnt.

Following the events of the 9^th of May, there have been calls for the arrest of Mahinda Rajapakse and a host of others including SLPP MPs for inciting violence which was unleashed on the streets of Colombo and the MynaGoGama and GotaGoGama which were set up to demand the resignation of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Gotabaya Rajapaksa who ironically, has been overseeing the sending off of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet of Ministers while ensuring that he remains rooted.

Almost on the heels of the attacks Mahinda, who until then had refused to resign and was propped up further by the adulation of his supporters, sent his letter of resignation to the President who accepted it.   According to the Sri Lankan constitution, when the PM resigns the Cabinet of Ministers stands dissolved automatically.

The violence which spilled over onto the streets on the 9^th of May was preceded by a meeting at Temple Trees packed with an estimated 6000 supporters.  They had been transported by the Pohottuwa ministers and local councilors in more than 20 buses from out of Colombo. Videos of the meeting which have since been leaked to the public show a Fuhrer like Mahinda Rajapaksa, surrounded by a coterie of trusted men including MPs Sanath Nishantha and Johnston Fernando, presiding over the meeting. Johnston Fernando is seen addressing the meeting with a speech which is almost 15 minutes long.  He thrills the crowd with the prospect of a return of Mahinda Rajapaksa and averring to Goatabaya Rajapaksa says if the job cannot be done it must be given to them.  Some of the supporters in the hall can be heard shouting Gahamu, Gahamu (hit, hit) in response to Fernando’s rousing.

The picture which has emerged since is that these supporters, who were armed with sticks, iron rods and poles, were then released onto the streets to attack the peaceful protesters at the MynaGoGama tent which was opposite Temple Trees and to destroy it.  The protesters then marched down Galle Road to GotaGoGama to destroy and burn tents including the library, and to attack peaceful protesters who had been there for more than 30 days. The untimely use of three water cannons which were stationed at Galle Face and the teargas failed to prevent the attack.

The backlash to the attacks was almost instant with groups of men hunting down pro government supporters and burning and damaging the buses which had been used to travel to Colombo in.  Luxury vehicles of ministers and other supporters met with the same fate.  A large number of supporters who were thrown into the nearby Beira Lake along with the buses had to stay afloat in the Lake for hours, some until well past midnight, until they were rescued by the Sri Lanka Navy. That night hundreds of angry protesters who had marched from GotaGoGama gathered outside Temple Trees and broke open its side gates before moving to try and break open the main gates at the front which faced the Galle Road. Police used tear gas liberally and fired into the air twice.

On Thursday, Attorney at Law Senaka Perera, who is also the chairman of the Committee to Protect the Rights of Prisoners, filed a private plaint in the Colombo Magistrates Court for the CID to arrest and produce Mahinda Rajapaksa and six others in Court. The Attorney General took steps to ban Mahinda Rajapaksa and several others from traveling overseas.

The response of the police has been glaringly skewerd and the public clamour is for them to be held accountable for their wilful oversight of not stopping the attacks . On the day following the violence, SDIG in charge of the western province Deshabandu Tennekoon who was traveling in a cab in civvies was stopped and assaulted.  Since then three people have been arrested and remanded.  Despite prima facie evidence the perpetrators of the state sponsored violence remain at large.