By

C.A.Chandraprema

The exchanges between the the UNP and the SLFP (Sirisena faction) became shriller as the year came to a close. Usually, the run up to Christmas and the following days up to the dawn of the New Year and about two weeks into the New Year is a lean period for the media with most politicians out of the country and everybody taking a long break from work and infighting. But this year, we have reached the end of the year with no diminution in the sound and fury of the political give and take. Even the ministers who have gone abroad continued to make noises even in their absence. The almost daily exchange of recriminations and insults between the UNP and the SLFP continued last week as well with the UNP going on the offensive and responding more forcefully to the jibes and brickbats of their SLFP colleagues.

Last week Ministers Mano Ganesan and P.Digambaram holding a joint press conference told the SLFP group to leave the government if they are not happy. Then three UNP backbenchers including parliamentarian Nalin Bandara held a press conference at Sirikotha and said much the same thing. UNP parliamentarian Mujibur Rahaman wrote a letter to the President saying that the Presidential Media Unit has been carrying out chauvinistic propaganda. What he meant by this was that the statements that had been made about the Muslim people and Islam by Galagodaatte Gananasara during a meeting with President Sirisena had been circulated to the media by the Presidential media division. Rahaman had taken exception to the allegation made by Gnanasara to the effect that Islam teaches Muslims to destroy places of historical value. Last week, Dilan Perera, the official spokesman of the SLFP once again lashed out at the UNP on the Sirasa Newsline programme.

All this took place in the backdrop of resounding and embarrassing defeats for the UNP’s Development Special Provisions Bill in all the SLFP controlled provincial councils with the Joint Opposition and the SLFP government group as well as the JVP joining hands to defeat it. Unless the president had specifically instructed the chief ministers to oppose the Bill they would not have thrown their weight behind the Joint Opposition and the JVP. Yet this Bill had been approved by cabinet which is headed by the President. In fact after helping to defeat this Bill in the Western Provincial Council, Chief Minister Isura Devapriya told the media that it was the SLFP that was the decisive group in the government and not the UNP.

He crowed that since the Development Special Provisions Bill had been defeated in the Provincial Councils the only way to get it passed would be with a two thirds majority in Parliament and that too was not possible because the SLFP held the balance in parliament as well. This showed the President’s ability to throw the spanner in the works using the SLFP rump that supports him. There is a very thinly disguised attempt on the part of the SLFP group in parliament to masquerade as the opposition to the UNP because that is the only way they have any prospects of being able to survive the local government elections. Because of the SLFP (Sirisena Group’s), attempt to outdo the Joint Opposition in opposing the UNP, the UNP has been left holding the short end of the stick which is doing them untold damage among the floating voters. They were left with egg on their faces on the bond issue, and now again with the repeated defeat of the Development Special Provisions Bill in the SLFP controlled PCs.

It is just as well that the UNP has begun hitting back. This has been having some effect because every time the UNP reminds the public that it is they who made Sirisena President, the SLFP group in the government loses face. It can be seen that despite President Sirisena’s encouragement of the attacks on the UNP, only a handful of SLFP members like Dilan Perera and Chief Minister Isura Devapriya have been condemning the UNP, while the majority of the SLFP ministers serving in the government have kept quiet. Even S.B.Dissanayake has not really been attacking the UNP though he did make some offhand comments saying that the SLFP cannot continue for ever in partnership with the UNP and that there are difficulties in running a government in this manner. He is just telling the truth, without any undue criticism of the UNP.

Sirisena to serve hoppers to Ranil?

The reason why Dilan Perera’s voice tends to get amplified is because he is the official spokesman of the SLFP and he can’t possibly be saying all these nasty things about the UNP without a direct go ahead from his party leader. The awareness that Sirisena may be trying to do to Ranil Wickremesinghe what he earlier did to Mahinda Rajapaksa is poisoning the air. This would be like Judas Iscariot first betraying Jesus to the Romans and then betraying the Romans to the Huns – or any other barbarians who would happen to be clamoring at the gate! Everybody refers to Sirisena’s departure from the Rajapaksa camp as the ‘hopper theory’ of politics where you break bread with a man in the night and then stab him in the back in the morning. The possibility that he may be now trying to do the same thing to the UNP is certainly not going to endear him to the public.

In the meantime, 2017 promises to be an year of confrontations. Mahinda Rajapaksa put out a New Year message which was actually a call to arms. He had said that “2017 will be the year in which the future of Sri Lanka will be decided. The government’s devolution package to divide the country into what they call ‘distinct spheres of authority’, the ETCA with India to open up Sri Lanka to Indian service providers and workers, the privatization of the Hambantota harbour and other government owned assets, are just some of the unwelcome changes that the government has planned in the New Year. All this will come on top of the gross economic mismanagement, declining growth rate, declining foreign reserves, the deteriorating exchange rate, increased taxation, increased interest rates, increasing inflation and a phenomenal increase in the national debt that we have seen over the past two years.”

MR’s call to arms

Rajapaksa made overtures to the SLFP group serving in the government by saying: “The SLFP members in the government who were elected to parliament on an anti-UNP, anti-government platform, but have since joined the UNP led government, now appear to be engaged in a struggle with their conscience. Uncertain of the correct path to take, they keep vacillating. While condemning Arjuna Mahendran over the bond scam they defend the Prime Minister. They criticize the UNP in public but vote with them on the VAT Bill, the Office of Missing Persons Bill and the Budget. They cooperate with the Joint Opposition to defeat the ‘super minister’ Bill, but at the same time they cooperate with the UNP on the devolution proposals. At this decisive moment, they should be mindful of the future of the country above everything else.”

“Those who hold portfolios and vote with the government on important matters, are members of the government despite any criticism they may make in public about other political parties and ministers in the government. There are many Ministers and MPs in the SLFP group as well as the UNP who are genuinely perturbed by what the government has been doing. When the leaders of the Joint Opposition so decide, the doors of the anti-government coalition of forces will be thrown open to all such individuals. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of our motherland and the fate of future generations will hang in the balance in 2017 under this increasingly dysfunctional government. May all citizens of Sri Lanka have the courage and strength to meet the challenges that lie ahead from the first week of January onwards.”

Within hours of MR’s message appearing on the websites on Friday, the news went around that Priyankara Jayaratne, the State Minsiter of Provincial Councils and Local Government had resigned. Some saw this as a sooner than expected response to MR’s call while others thought it could be another ruse by the SLFP group in government to delay the acceptance of the local government delimitation report. In any case, a minister would not have to resign just to avoid accepting a delimitation report – he could simply make himself unavailable like Minister Faizer Mustapha. In any case, those likeliest to resign from the government are the SLFP (and even UNP) members holding State Minister and deputy ministerial positions in the government. These are the people who have the least to lose.

The members of the SLFP holding ministerial portfolios have been very silent not committing themselves either way. The fact is that if you have a cabinet portfolio, whether you serve in a UNP led government or SLFP led government makes no difference – you will still end up with the same powers. The cabinet ministers would be more interested in safeguarding what they have at present for as long as possible without taking any unnecessary risks. The State Ministers and Deputy Ministers on the other hand have little to lose given the fact that their cabinet ministers are hogging all the power without anything trickling down to them. By any reckoning, 2017 promises to be an eventful year. Anura Kumara Dissanayake has already said that the New Year will be an year of agitation. The JVP did start following through with their thereat and organized demonstrations in Hambantota against the privatization of the port and the alienation of 15,000 acres of land to foreign companies. Nihal Galappatti was seen leading the demonstrations in Hambantota.

Courtesy:Sunday Island