Sirisena politics dissected :

Why MR was given nomination

by Smruti S. Pattanaik

After months of negotiation and show of strength, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa was finally given a ticket to contest by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) which is part of the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), a conglomerate of around 16 parties. Few of its constituents had left UPFA before the presidential election.

A protest held last week opposite the Fort Railway Station against the nomination of former president Mahinda Rajapaksa Pic: Saman Mendis

General Secretary of the UPFA, Susil Premajayantha, who is also a supporter of Rajapaksa, said that President Sirisena has finally approved his candidature to contest the election from Hambantota constituency and rejected three other proposals, which were proposed to him during a meeting of the UPFA of which he is the Chairman.

The other three proposals that President Sirisena rejected were concerning the prime ministerial post for Mahinda Rajapaks, to give him leadership of the election committee and of the nomination board.

The question is: Why did President Sirisena, who had earlier rejected the proposal to make Rajapaksa the prime ministerial candidate, even entertain the idea of giving him a ticket from the Party? Without his approval, this would not have been possible.

Power wrestling

First, over the period of time, Rajapaksa has tried to build his constituency within the SLFP, "especially with the support of those MPs who benefitted immensely from the last regime in terms of power and economic gains.

They felt marginalized after Ranil Wickremesinghe was chosen as the Prime Minister as per the manifesto of the Common Opposition Parties that had made Sirisena their presidential candidate and ensured his victory.

While Sirisena's party was the opposition in the Parliament, many of the MPs from the party also became ministers as part of forming a post-election national government to bring changes to the constitution.

Rajapaksa supporters organised rallies based on the theme of 'Bring Back Mahinda' like the Nugegoda rally of February 18, Kandy rally on March 7 and another rally in Ratnapura on March 26 followed by a May rally in Kurunegala and a June 12 rally in Matara, demonstrating that Rajapaksa continues to enjoy popular support.

Projected popularity

In fact, these shows of strength were projected as popular demand for Rajapaksa to make a comeback to politics as he said: people's requests asking me to contest cannot be ignored.

Many of the SLFP members who had supported Sirisena in the last election felt that since he received nearly 48 percent of votes, mostly in the Sinhala constituency in the South in the last election, his candidature can only be ignored at the peril of the SLFP.

Second, unlike the last presidential election, the parliamentary election is going to be a contest between the SLFP and the UNP and their allies. Thus, battle lines will be drawn between these two political parties and their ideological differences.

Many in the SLFP thought that the only way to defeat the UNP would be to bring Rajapaksa back to the electoral scene.

It was generally believed that the UNP had a fair chance to win the forthcoming parliamentary election.

Ranil Wickremesinghe had successfully capitalized on the disaffection for the Rajapaksa regime by putting a common presidential candidate in which the dominant minorities' parties; i.e. the Tamils and Muslims, whole-heartedly supported Sirisena.

The voting pattern in the last presidential election showed that in case the SLFP votes are split and if Rajapaksa decides to contest outside UPFA (in case he was denied nomination from the party), then Wickremesinghe would surely win the election. Thus pro-Rajapaksa factions along with other SLFP members put pressure on Sirisena to accept Rajapaksa's nomination.

Third, President Sirisena may have calculated that nominating Rajapaksa as a candidate is not a bad option. After all, the President still retains the power to appoint the Prime Minister after the election.

Moreover, under the constitution the President continues to enjoy vast powers. The 19th Amendment which was introduced to correct the lopsided balance of power that was in favour of the President and attempted to transfer some of these powers to the Parliament, did not succeed in bringing major changes. Sri Lanka's Supreme Court ruled out major changes and clearly mentioned that any fundamental changes to the power balance would require a referendum as per article 123 of the Sri Lankan Constitution. However, it remains to be seen how many of Rajapaksa's loyalists are going to retain their seats in the next parliamentary election to pressurize Sirisena to nominate Rajapaksa as Prime Minister after election.

Consolidation of minorities

In the context of Rajapaksa's decision to contest in the election, one perceives a significant consolidation of the minority votes. Though the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress (SLMC) have announced that they will contest the election separately, it is likely that these two parties will be able to get most of the seats in the North and the East.

The Tamils have not forgotten the kind of State surveillance that was carried out when Rajapaksa was in power and how the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) was reduced to a non-entity. Tamils' political grievances were securitized under the UPFA regime.

Similarly, the Muslims suffered a number of attacks orchestrated by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS), an outfit patronized by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda Rajapaksa's younger brother and the dreaded former Defence Secretary.

It is also likely that Rajapaksa will up the ante by bringing in the Tamil issue to the electoral politics. He will play on people's fear that under Wickremesinghe's 150-day regime, the LTTE regrouped and strengthened, thereby making the war victory meaningless. Of course, it would be difficult for him to blame Wickremesinghe alone without bringing in the role of President Sirisena. Moreover, corruption and misuse of power by the Rajapaksa regime would also dominate the electoral politics and this election may not be a cakewalk for him.

Sirisena's approval of Rajapaksa's nomination has certainly disheartened the Sinhala liberal constituency that suffered in the hand of the Rajapaksa regime. Many journalists were tortured, some of them went missing while a few fled the country. The authoritarian tendencies of the last UPFA regime dismantled all independent constitutional bodies and made a mockery of the state institution.

As was reported, out of the Rs 1.7 trillion budget of Sri Lanka, Rs 1.2 trillion was controlled by the Rajapaksa family. Many perceive Sirisena's approval of Rajapaksa's nomination to be a betrayal of the mandate that people had given to him by voting for him overwhelmingly with the only hope that he would put democracy back on track. Only time will prove how prudent Sirisena's politics is.

(The writer is a political and security analyst attached to the Institute of Defence and Strategic Analyses, India) (Thedailystar.net)