The former president will have to sit in
the Opposition benches in the same parliament where his writ ran challenged.
COLONEL R HARIHARAN @colhari2 |POLITICS| 5-minute read| 18-8-2015
Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa’s hopes of coming back
to power as Sri Lanka’s prime minister crashed when the.
United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA), which fielded him as a candidate, lost
out narrowly to the United National Party (UNP)-led coalition in the
parliamentary election held on August 17.
In the most peacefully conducted election in Sri
Lanka in recent times where over 70 per cent of the people are said to have
voted, the UPFA could win only eight of the 22 electoral districts as against
its rival UNP’s victory in 11 districts. The Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi
(ITAK)-led Tamil National Alliance (TNA) won in three predominantly Tamil
districts of Jaffna, Vanni and Batticaloa South. It would support UNP-led
government rather than that of UPFA.
In Sri Lanka’s electoral system, out of the 225
parliament members, 196 members are elected through proportional representation
system from 22 electoral districts. Each party is allocated a number of seats
from the quota assigned to the district in proportion to votes secured by the
party. The balance of 29 seats known as national list are allotted to parties
according to the country-wide proportional votes they obtain in the election.
Rajapaksa conceded defeat in the morning of August 18 even before
results were officially announced. He told the AFP news agency "My
dream of becoming prime minister has faded away…I am conceding. We have lost a
good fight." Though a message from his twitter account later contradicted
this, he must have seen the writing on the wall early in the day.
As Wickremesinghe described, the presidential election
was in a way a referendum. Over 15 million voters of Sri Lanka had to decide
whether they wanted Rajapaksa’s return to politics after a decade in power.
Once hailed as Sri Lanka strongman, Rajapaksa must be a disappointed man to be
rejected once again by the people in his bid for national leadership within a
year after he lost the presidential election in January 2015. He had high hopes
of coming back to power as prime minister after the powers of executive
presidency were cut down to size by President Maithripala Sirisena. Rajapaksa
also had to overcome the efforts of Sirisena as chairman of the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party (SLFP), to prevent him from contesting as a UPFA candidate.
Though neither the UPFA nor UNP-led
alliance is likely to have a majority in parliament, Ranil Wickremesinghe,
victorious leader of the UNP having larger number of seats, is expected to be
sworn in once again as prime minister. President Sirisena is likely to pick his
loyalists within the SLFP to join the national alliance government led by
Wickremesinghe. Thus both Sirisena and Wickremesinghe will be able to follow up
in action to fulfill their agenda for structural and constitutional reforms and
pull up the sagging economy.
Rajapaksa’s failure is a political
triumph for Sirisena, particularly after senior members of the SLFP central
committee challenged his leadership and tried their best to bring back
Rajapaksa to the detriment of Sirisena loyalists. Sirisena sent a strong
message of his authority and sacked 13 senior members of the central
committee including the all important secretaries of UPFA and SLFP and
appointed his own nominees soon after polling ended on August 17.
But Sirisena’s action could be challenged
when the Supreme Court reopens on August 31 from vacation. According to a
former chief justice, as per the party constitution only the secretary of the
party has to nominate the national list members. On the other hand court action
may well be deferred as some of those affected appear to be making friendly
noises to get back into good books of Sirisena.
Rajapaksa as a successful member of the UPFA
will have to sit in the opposition benches in the same parliament where his
writ ran unchallenged when he was president. If he is chosen as a leader of the
opposition by UPFA members, he will be presiding over an anomalous situation
when some of the members join the cabinet. Would he do it?
Out of power and after two successive
failures, Rajapaksa’s political influence has been slashed. But his
support base among the conservative Buddhist nationalist southern Sinhalas
appears to be largely intact. Will he bounce back into politics? Apart from
Rajapaksa, two other people – Sirisena and Wickremesinghe – also are probably
pondering over this question
In addition to former president Rajapaksa,
his brother Chamal Rajapaka and son Namal Rajapaksa have also won. This would
ensure an element of protection for the three Rajapaksas as they cannot be
arrested when the parliament is in session. This becomes important in the
investigations into cases of corruption and misuse of office now
underway.
But this will spell trouble for Rajapaksas.
Mahinda is facing cases of corruption in handling of public funds and his
brother and former minister Basil is tangled in another similar case in the law
courts. These cases are likely to move on a fast pace. But we can expect both
Sirisena and Wickremesinghe to tread carefully lest they antagonize Sinhala
nationalist segment by vindictive action.
As far as India is concerned the news of
Wickremesinghe combine’s victory would be welcome though even had Rajapaksa come
to power he would have handled India with kid gloves. As far as China is
concerned, probably it would rue the failure of Rajapaksa as a lesson learnt,
and court the new leadership to get its stalled projects through and get back
to business. Nothing moves Chinese like money and President Xi Jinping
like 21st Century Maritime Road. Sri Lanka is important for China on both
counts.
[Col R Hariharan, a retired military intelligence
specialist on South Asia, was head of intelligence of the Indian Peace Keeping
Force (1987-90). He is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and
the South Asia Analysis Studies. E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com
Website: http://col.hariharan.info ]
Courtey: India Today Opinion portal DailyO http://www.dailyo.in/politics/maithripala-sirisena-mahinda-rajapaksha-upfa-unp-sri-lanka-elections/story/1/5736.html
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