{"id":56764,"date":"2017-12-10T01:17:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-10T06:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=56764"},"modified":"2017-12-10T01:17:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T06:17:09","slug":"if-president-sirisena-wants-his-slfp-to-avoid-defeat-at-local-authority-polls-the-best-option-is-for-the-party-to-refrain-from-contesting-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=56764","title":{"rendered":"If President Sirisena Wants “His SLFP” To Avoid Defeat at Local Authority Polls the Best Option is for the Party to Refrain From Contesting elections."},"content":{"rendered":"

By C.A.Chandraprema<\/strong><\/p>\n

With nominations set to open on Monday for the first 93 local government institutions, frantic last minute moves are being made to form an alliance between the Joint Opposition and the SLFP faction in the government. The initiative in these moves is from the latter rather than the former. Several public figures like Ven. Elle Gunawansa thera have been involved in these negotiations on the assumption that the Sirisena faction of the SLFP is more progressive than the UNP and therefore, the Joint Oppositioin should form an alliance with them in order to keep the UNP and the TNA at bay. Ven. Gunawansa has put forward three main conditions on which he hopes the two estranged factions of the SLFP will be able to unite – halting the process of formulating a new constitution, halting the privatization of national assets and filing action against the persons involved in the bond scam.<\/p>\n

What is missing is the main demand put forward by the Joint Opposition which is that the Sirisena faction should leave the government before serious consideration can be given to their request to field a joint list for the elections. This was a demand put forward for practical reasons \u2013 the impossibility of the opposition and a part of the government running a joint campaign against the government. The fact that the monks have chosen to de-emphasise this fundamental demand put forward by the JO indicates that theirs is an agenda based quest \u2013 to put a stop to the constitutional reform process, to stop privatization and to have the bond scam culprits brought to book. These are laudable objectives no doubt, but whether an election alliance can be forged on such an agenda is questionable.<\/p>\n

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In the first place, these three demands assume that the SLFP Sirisena faction is against the new constitution, against privatization and are willing to prosecute those at fault with regard to the bond scam. We have to bear in mind that when Arjuna Ranatunga was opposing the agreement with China Merchant Co in relation to the privatization of the Hambantota harbor, President Sirisena himself removed Ranatunga from that post and replaced him with Mahinda Samarasinghe and it was the latter who worked with his UNP colleagues to sell of the rights to the Hambantota port to China Merchant Co. Then when it comes to the new constitution, members of the SLFP like Dilan Perera and Nimal Siripala de Silva have been as vocal as anyone in the UNP on the need to devolve power in the manner recommended in the documents put out so far by the subcommittees and steering committee of the Constitutional Assembly. Furthermore, when Ven. Medagoda Abhayatissa had met the President to speak to him about the constitution, the former had told Ven. Abhayatissa that the Tamil people have an issue and that some solution has to be given to this problem.<\/p>\n

Referring to the people of the North, Sirisena had even said “Egollange mune le binduwak ne”. To this Ven. Abhayatissa had replied that this so-called Tamil problem is that of the Tamil people not having a state of their own and that this is not an issue that can ever be resolved in Sri Lanka. What that exchange shows is that the President Sirisena himself is committed to the new constitution proposed by the UNP except to the part where the executive presidency is abolished. President Sirisena if at all is even more beholden to the TNA than is Ranil Wickremesinghe. The only reason why President Sirisena is the President today is because of the majorities he received from the northern and eastern provinces. The people of the North gave him more votes than they gave Vigneswaran. So he is acutely aware of his obligations to this constituency. Even in the early days of the yahapalana government, President Sirisena was in the habit of saying that during the Rajapaksa era various things had been distributed to the people of the North but that not one of the recipients had a smile on their faces. He was implying thereby that the only thing that will put a smile on the faces of the northern Tamils are not various chattels but the granting of their political demands. So to imagine that Sirisena is more progressive than Ranil Wickremesinghe with regard to the constitution is obviously a mistake.<\/p>\n

As for filing action against the culprits in the bond scam, that will be a matter of political strategy. Once the report of the bond commission is in the hands of the President, it will become a weapon with which he can manipulate the UNP at will. In the event that Sirisena wishes to contest the presidency next time, the bond commission report will be the tool he will use to ensure that there is no UNP candidate and that he is the UNP\u2019s candidate for the second time. He may not use it to file action against the UNP simply because the bond scam happens to be a crime. So to imagine that Sirisena is more progressive than Wickremesinghe would be a major folly. In terms of rhetoric the official SLFP sounds better than the UNP but what counts is what they do in practice. One gets the impression that the Sirisena faction which is in partnership with the UNP appears to be progressive only because they are a passive partner in this government. It is the UNP that drives policy and we see the SLFP responding to this policy sometimes from a populist standpoint and that is what gives them an appearance of being different.<\/p>\n

There is also an element of the good cop, bad cop routine in the way the UNP and the SLFP cooperate with one another in running the government. The UNP puts forward a proposition and the SLFP seemingly opposes it only to agree to it later saying that the original proposal has been modified appropriately. This is in fact a better way of handling public opposition without confronting it head on. For all these reasons, the UNP and the SLFP faction in the government are one. After voting with the UNP to hand over the Hambantota Port to China Merchant Co on Friday and voting with the UNP again to pass the budget in Saturday, it would be rather odd for the SLFP Sirisena faction to be handing in nominations this week as a partner of the Joint Opposition. Would the JO want to be seen in public with such a partner? With nominations set to open on Monday and close at noon on Thursday, time is running out for decisions to be made.<\/p>\n

The fiction of President Sirisena being able to hold his own as a political party leader is now being proved to be just that, a fiction. What President Sirisena needs now is not futile posturing but an exit strategy. The best option for him now will be to simply refrain from fielding any list at all on the grounds that those contesting on the JO list are members of the SLFP. By not contesting, he will avoid being defeated and he will also be able to claim that he did not allow the party to be divided. By not contesting the JO he will be able to (at least partly) wash off the sins of August 2015 when he deliberately undermined the UPFA campaign by saying that he would not make Mahinda Rajapaksa the Prime Minister even if the UPFA won and sacking the general secretaries of the SLFP and the UPFA and appointing his own loyalists to those positions on the eve of the poll. <\/p>\n

In fact, it is the bitter memory of August 2015 that has prejudiced members of the JO against any move to unite the two factions of the SLFP. If Sirisena does not field his own list and gives the JO a free run to confront the UNP, the acrimony between the two estranged factions of the SLFP will abate, and unification may become possible at some point in the future combined with an amicable exit strategy for Sirisena. <\/p>\n

Courtesy;Sunday Island<\/em><\/p>\n

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By C.A.Chandraprema With nominations set to open on Monday for the first 93 local government institutions, frantic last minute moves are being made to form an alliance between the Joint Opposition and the SLFP faction in the government. The initiative in these moves is from the latter rather than the former. Several public figures like …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘If President Sirisena Wants “His SLFP” To Avoid Defeat at Local Authority Polls the Best Option is for the Party to Refrain From Contesting elections.’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56764"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56765,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56764\/revisions\/56765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}