Politics of presidential election
Media is agog with speculative
articles on the next presidential election after President
Maithripala Sirisena completed four years in office on January 8, 2019.
According to the Constitution, the President may at any time after the four
years declare from “the commencement of his first term of office by
proclamation declare his intention of appealing to the people for a mandate to
hold office, by election, for a further term.” The Constitution further
stipulates that the poll for the Presidential election shall be held not less
than one month and not more than two months before the expiration of the term
of office of the President in office. This means the presidential
election has to be held between November 8 and December 8, 2019.
This has triggered widespread
expectation that President Sirisena would call for the presidential election to
restore his political credibility eroded after the failure of his misconceived
“constitutional coup” to replace Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe with
former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Though President Sirisena had initially
declared that he was not interested in a second term, the changed political
equation with the PM may force him to seek a second term to restore his
reputation as the leader of the SLFP. Having burnt his bridges with PM
Wickremesinghe and the United National Party (UNP) who support him to come to
power, Sirisena needs the support of both the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna
(SLPP) and Rajapaksa-loyalists within the SLFP.
This was further confirmed when
SLFP secretary Dayasiri Jayasekara had announced that President Sirisena would
be the SLFP candidate in the forthcoming presidential poll. The President’s
close confidante and SLFP deputy leader Nirmal Siripala de Silva also has said
the same. These announcements, probably made with the consent of President
Sirisena, have not been well received by the SLPP. Many of the SLPP members
have declared that Sirisena should not be backed by the SLPP and the
presidential candidate should be from the SLPP.
Probably, President Sirisena still
seems to be hopeful of winning back the support of right wing
Buddhist lobby. He is reported to be favourably considering a recommendation
from the Minister for Buddha Sasana to pardon Gnanasara Thera, leader of the
Bodu Bala Sena, a Buddhist fringe group, involved in hate campaign and attacks
on Muslims during the Rajapaksa rule. The monk was convicted in August 2018 by
the Court of Appeal on four charges of contempt of court for disturbing and
threatening the state counsel in Homogama magistrate’s court subsequent to the
refusal of bail to military intelligence officers suspected to be involved in a
case of disappearance. The monk was sentenced to 19 years rigorous imprisonment
to run concurrently and completed within 6 years. Earlier in May 2018, the monk
was convicted of contempt of court and sentenced to six months rigorous
imprisonment for intimidating victim-witness Mrs Sandya Ekneligoda in the case
of enforced disappearance of political cartoonist Prageeth
Ekneligoda.
The controversial former defence
secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa also appears to be nursing ambitions to contest
the presidential election as he is said to enjoy the support of Sinhala
nationalist elements and Buddhist clergy. However, Rajapaksas do not
seem to be keen to propose him as the Pohotuwa party (as SLPP is known)
candidate, presumably because Mahinda Rajapaksa does not seem to have made up
his mind on his own future. Moreover, Gotabaya is a US citizen and
will not be eligible to contest the poll unless he renounces his American
citizenship. He does not seem to have taken a decision on this issue so far.
Increasing external economic
vulnerability
Sri Lanka has paid a high cost for
the 51-day political crisis that brought the country’s economic activity to a
grinding halt. The October 26, 2018 crisis not only exposed Sri Lanka’s
limitations in servicing its huge foreign debt burden but underlined the
country’s strategic dependence upon India and China, which chipped in with
money to ward off Central Bank’s imminent financial crisis. This is
likely to aggravate Sri Lanka’s problems in delicately balancing its relations
with the two Asian giants.
Sri Lanka Central Bank Governor
Indrajit Coomaraswamy addressing the 33rd annual sessions of the Sri Lanka
Economic Association, explained the measures he had taken to overcome the
“political tsunami” as he called the economic crisis. He said the country’s
good international and regional relations, especially with India and China,
enabled the country to escape serious debt crisis it face in the wake of the
political crisis. Sri Lanka will have to pay $ 5.9 billion in foreign debt
repayments in 2019 and the first instalment was $1.6 billion. Sri Lanka had
repaid $1 billion by drawing on its foreign reserves; this has brought it to a
“critically low level.”
He said the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) had halted the release of the final tranche of the Extended Credit
Facility when the political crisis occurred. However, the IMF was now
supportive of the government’s stabilization measures and he expected the IMF
to release the fund in mid-February when the fiscal data for 2018 would be
available.
The Governor stressed the importance of the assistance of India
and China in supporting the reserves. “Sri Lanka’s friends, the two regional
giants, have stepped in to support us when we were pushed into a rather
difficult corner.” Their combined assistance should replenish the reserves in
the next few months. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) agreed to
provide a $400 million currency swap facility to the Central Bank. He said “The
RBI’s very rapid and timely assistance will serve to boost investor confidence
by supporting Sri Lanka to maintain an adequate level of external reserves.”
The RBI was likely to provide a line of credit of US$ 1 billion early.
The Bank of China (BOC) has offered $300 million loan tied over
the immediate need. Dr Coomaraswamy said both the RBI and the BOC were
considering plans to scale up their offers to $1 billion each. He stated that
the Chinese loan was likely to come at an interest of about 5.5 percent. In
addition to this, the Central was also trying to scale up a $1 billion loan
received from China Development Bank in 2018 by a further sum of $500 million,
which was expected to be available in February.
He further explained other measures taken to be prepared for
“the worst and we learnt a lesson on October 26, 2018. We don’t know what
political tsunami might come next. So we have to plan and get the money as fast
as possible.” The proposed measures included issue of an International
Sovereign Bond (ISB) to borrow up to $2 billion; the Bank of Ceylon and the
Peoples Bank raising lines of credit on behalf of the government. However,
these would further raise the debt burden of the country.
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, South Asia Analysis
Group and the International Law and Strategic Analysis Institute, Chennai.
E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com Blog: http://col.hariharan.info
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