Col R Hariharan | 28-2-2018
Courtesy: South Asia Security Trends, March 2018 issue
National
unity coalition of the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom
Party (SLFP) so far has not been able to evolve a coherent action plan to
recover its lost ground after they suffered a crushing
defeat at the hands of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa-backed Sri Lanka
Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) in the local government elections held on February 10,
2018.
It
has hurt the images of both President Maithripala Sirisena (SLFP) and
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (UNP) and they are trying to retain
their hold on party leadership. Acting under such stress, their efforts to
subsume disagreements between the two coalition partners and take measures to tackle
adverse public opinion on their performance so far have not yielded
positive results. Instead, they have courted derisive comments than
appreciations. President Sirisena’s cabinet reshuffle saw the swearing in of
six cabinet ministers and his refusal to swear-in former army chief Sarath
Fonseka as minister of law left a lot of red faces.
In the LG elections for 340 local bodies (24 municipal
councils, 41 urban councils and 275 divisional councils), the newly formed SLPP
came on top securing 44.65% of votes. The UNP was a distant second
with 32.63% votes and the National Peoples Freedom Alliance (NPFA) polled a
dismal 8.90%. The SLFP led by Maithrisena came off with the worst performance
securing only 4.46% votes. The results have increased the
chances of Rajapaks successfully returning to political mainstream.
The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) leader R Sampanthan
speaking in parliament tried to play down the significance of Rajapaksa’s
victory in the LG eletions. He said Rajapaksa “has always been below 50 percent
at the Presidential Election, at the Parliamentary Election and at the Local
Authority Election. Rajapaksa had never polled more than 45 percent in local
elections so there is nothing to get excited about.”
But the point is, the local government elections were as
much a reality check of Rajapaksa’s political relevance as the mid-term
performance of the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo. Rajapaksa was fighting with his
back to the wall, trying to regain his place in the sun after successive
defeats in presidential and parliamentary elections in 2015. Over three dozen
cases of corruption, misuse of office and many other such criminal offences
against Rajapaksa’s family and siblings are still in various stages of
investigation and prosecution.
Even under such circumstances,
Rajapaksa has managed to retain bulk of 47.58% voters who supported him in the
2015 presidential poll indicating that most of the loyal SLFP followers have
for the SLPP. Energised by the election results, Rajapaksa is riding the crest
of confidence as the results have increased his hopes to stage a triumphant
reentry into the national mainstream.
On the flipside, the UNP, NPFA and the
SLFP together have polled 45.99% votes in the LG election. So there is hope for
their chances of survival if they maintain unity in the face of adversity and
work hard to redeem public confidence. The coalition has to quickly get its act
together in all three fronts of good governance – speeding up action to
prosecute those involved in acts of corruption and misuse of office during the
Rajapaksa rule, complete structural reforms through the new
constitution and address the national question to resolve minority
grievances. Its longevity will be determined only sustained improvement in
performance.
Perils of election campaigning
The TNA leader R Sampanthan in a hard
hitting speech in parliament on the LG election, referred to Mahinda
Rajapaksa statement “The Eelam is likely to bloom after the Local
Authority Elections if the people are not careful” during campaigning. The TNA
leader said that this message was propagated “amongst the innocent Sinhala
people” who were told, “this is a referendum for Sinhala people in this
country. If you vote for the UNP, it will result in an Eelam being created. So
do not vote for them. Vote for the Lotus Bud [the election symbol of
SLPP].”
Explaining that the TNA stood for a unified
Sri Lanka, he branded the statement as “a malicious, fallacious, false
propaganda” on the part of Rajapaksa and the SLPP. He cautioned that if they
proceeded with the agenda, Eelam would bloom, not on account of Tamils, but on
account of him and the SLPP. He added, “Your Lotus Bud will bloom into an
Eelam….Therefore, please resist your temptation to achieve cheap political
gains by carrying on such false propaganda.
The ethnic issue
continues to be on a short fuse. During the elections, it is capable of
kindling explosive ethnic confrontations. So Sampanthan’s warning has not come
a day late, as the SLPP buoyed by the election success, may well use Tamil Eelam
scare as the core issue of its campaign in the provincial council and
parliamentary elections. The furore created after the recent recall
of Brigadier Priyanka Fernando, defence adviser in Sri Lanka High Commission in
London is an example of how a single mindless act can trigger ethnic passions. On the occasion of independence day celebrations, the Brigadier made a gesture of slitting the throat at a
group of LTTE flag-waving sympathisers demonstrating in front
of the High Commission on February 4, 2018. When a video showing the
Brigadiers unseemly conduct went viral, he was recalled to Colombo.
The army headquarters’ contradictory
statements on his recall showed the dilemma of the government in handling the
incident. Under normal circumstances, the Brigadier would have been given a
warning to conduct himself better while handling such provocative demonstrations of pro-LTTE crowds. But the incident degenerated into Sinhalas versus Tamil
issue at home, providing a field day for rival political parties.
Col R Hariharan, a retired MI officer, served as the head of
Intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka from 1987 to 90. He
is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the International
Law and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info
No comments:
Post a Comment