Actor Ranjan in COPE tug-of-war

The so-called ‘Joint Opposition’ group formed by UPFA rebel parliamentarians, made an interesting move last week when it nominated Mahindananda Aluthgamage as a member of the COPE committee inquiring into allegations of corruption levelled against State sector institutions.

The rebel group’s move raised many an eyebrow last week, as Aluthgamage was at the receiving end of allegations of corrupt activites, in the recent past. Many observers believed that appointing Aluthgamage to the COPE committee would make a mockery of the Parliamentary committee system. Some said it resembled the adage horage ammagen pena ahanava vagai which conjures a scene of a villager consulting an elderly woman about his stolen goods but the woman happens to be the mother of the robber!

Aluthgamage’s appointment, not so surprisingly, came under fire from other members of the committee. Under the present administration, the COPE committee was fully empowered by Parliament with an Opposition MP, Sunil Handunnetti, functioning as its Chairman.

The most perturbed COPE member was Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayake who contacted the Prime Minister and the Speaker over the move.

However, none of them were in a position to take any action in this regard as Aluthgamage was nominated by the UPFA rebel group.

Disappointed

Last week, a visibly annoyed Ramanayake spoke to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya over the phone and said he did not wish to serve as a member of the committee under current circumstances. He said he was utterly disappointed with the appointment of Aluthgamage as a member of the committee as the COPE was inquiring into multiple allegations against some institutions that came under his purview earlier. He said he was ashamed to sit alongside Aluthgamage during COPE committee sessions as he (Ramanayake) vociferously campaigned against bribery and corruption at the last two national level elections.

Speaker Jayasuriya, being the seasoned politician that he is, tried his best to pacify the Parliamentarian saying there was no point in resigning from the committee in protest of another appointment. “Ranjan, you need to stay in the committee and fight,” the Speaker advised the firebrand Parliamentarian.

Ramanayake then approached JVP MP Sunil Handunnetti, the Chairman of the COPE committee. Ramanayake and Handunnetti recently took part in an anti-corruption conference for Parliamentarians in Indonesia and they had earned a reputation as politicians with ‘zero tolerance’ for bribery and corruption.

Ramanayake told Handunetti had the committee’s operations would hit a snag if Aluthgamage continued to function as a COPE member.

He said the investigation involving the questionable import of carrom boards just before the last Presidential election would come before COPE and Aluthgamage, who was the Sports Minister at the time of the incident, would take part in the sessions.

“A large number of officers, who will come before the committee with regard to the investigation, have served under Aluthgamage. It will, indirectly, make an impact on the committee’s functioning,” Ramanayake said.

Handunnetti, however, responded to Ramanayake’s concern saying that he would not allow any person to stand in the way of the committee’s work.

The COPE Chairman, however, said Aluthgamage’s appointment was a matter concerning the Joint Opposition and the committee had nothing to do with it. “We will do our work and it doesn’t depend on individuals,” Handunnetti said.

Speaking to the Sunday Observer, Ramanayake said he even received a telephone call from Aluthgamage in the wake of the controversy.

“He addressed me in a very friendly manner and asked why I was protesting against his appointment. He also assured to stay away from committee proceedings when matters relating to his institutions are discussed.

But, I clearly told him that my opposition to his appointment was not personal,” Ramanayake said, adding that he would raise this matter at the next group meeting of the ruling coalition.

Interesting history

However, it should be noted that Ramanayake and Aluthgamage have an interesting history. When Aluthgamage took part in a television debate soon before the Presidential election in 2015, an individual by the name of ‘Matara Sunil’ contacted the talk show over the phone and lashed out at the former Minister over certain bribery and corruption allegations levelled against him.

The phone call irked the former Minister and he left the show, alleging that the controversial phone call was pre-arranged by the TV channel.

Aluthgamage, however, later alleged that it was Ramanayake who gave the call in the guise of ‘Matara Sunil’ and he even sent a letter of demand to the UNP Parliamentarian over the incident.

COPE Chairman Handunetti, when he spoke to the Sunday Observer on Friday, took a ‘sober position’ on Aluthgamage’s appointment.

“Aluthgamage’s appointment has been made by Parliament and committee members can’t do anything about it. On the other hand, a sizable proportion of MPs in Parliament have held ministerial and deputy ministerial portfolios and institutions coming under their purview have been probed by the COPE committee.

“If we wait for Parliamentarians who never faced such problems, committees like COPE will never find members! However, the members should have the basic ethics to make way for independent and impartial inquiries,” Handunetti said.

“For instance,” he said, “officials from a body coming under the Sports Ministry were summoned before the COPE committee recently, the Sports Minister, a member of COPE, stayed away from its proceedings. We have a basic working understanding of that nature. But, it’s not a law.”

However, Parliamentary sources told the Sunday Observer that Aluthgamage has already attended a session of the committee, despite mounting criticism over his appointment.

Crossover talks

While Aluthgamage found his way into the COPE committee, the Joint Opposition’s rumour mill was agog with stories that eight opposition MPs were to cross the aisle of Parliament.

It was already in the grapevine that the Ceylon Workers Congress, led by Arumugam Thondaman, was holding under-the-radar discussions to join the government. Thondaman, who was, at one point, dubbed as the kingmaker of Sri Lankan politics, lost his political clout in the hill country, due to emergence of other rival political groups in the estate sector.

The biggest challenge to Thondaman’s political power in the hill country is the party led by Minister P. Digambaram.

The emergence of Digambaram’s political party in the Central province reduced Thondaman’s bargaining power in national politics, to a great extent.

The Ceylon Workers Congress, from time immemorial, was a stakeholder of successive governments. Whenever there was a regime-change, the CWC switched sides and joined hands with the winning party.

However, the CWC got its ‘calculation’ wrong in January, 2015, when the party decided to back the wrong horse, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa who lost the Presidential election.

Rubbing salt to the CWC’s wound, its arch-rival, Digambaram’s party backed Common Opposition’s candidate Maithripala Sirisena at the election and became an ally of the new government.

As a result, Thondaman’s party could not perform any post-election summersault, as it did in the past.

At the last Parliamentary election, the CWC had no option, but to back the UPFA whose campaign revolved around former President Rajapaksa and his clique.

The CWC signed an MoU with the UPFA before the Parliamentary election and ended up on the losing side. Digambaram’s party contested on the UNP ticket and secured victory in the hill country, with ease.

Cabinet portfolio

However, Thondaman’s move to cross over to the ruling alliance has ruffled a lot of feathers in Digambaram’s camp. It was revealed that the CWC was eying a Cabinet portfolio and a deputy ministerial position. It would inevitably restore the party’s strength in the hill country.

Expressing his concerns over Thondaman’s possible crossover, Minister Digambaram said, last week, that PresidentSirisena should consult government politicians representing the estate sector before giving any ministerial posts to the CWC. Digambaram, speaking to media, said there was a moral obligation on the President to consult his party before making a decision to allow Thondaman to join the national unity government.

The Minister added it was they who worked for President Sirisena at the Presidential election.

However, in an attempt to take the moral high ground over the matter, Digambaram also said his party did not have a problem with Thondaman joining the government.

“Our position is very clear. We want to highlight the fact that my party and others representing the estate sector should be consulted before making a decision on the matter,” he said.

Apart from Thondaman, Douglas Devananda’s EPDP too is toying with the idea of joining the government. The EPDP too became a political IDP after it decided to back the former President’s camp at the last two national level elections.

Meanwhile, a few other UPFA Parliamentarians too have held a round of negotiations to join the government, accepting ministerial and deputy ministerial portfolios. Highly placed political sources said a senior Cabinet minister representing the UNP and an SLFP stalwart were involved in discussions.

Somawansa Amarasinghe

Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan paying his last respects to Somawansa Amarasinghe

It is naïve to believe that the public will respond to the imminent ‘cabinet expansion’ positively. The ruling alliance defeated the no-confidence motion against Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake with a resounding majority and it demonstrated that the government did not have a ‘majority trouble’ in the House. In this context, any move to expand the cabinet is likely to provoke resistance from the public.

Somawansa Amarasinghe, the man who was instrumental in the JVP’s revival after the 1988-89 insurrection, bade adieu to his life, last week, at his brother’s residence, in Kaduwela. The son of a former Police officer and a past pupil of Kalutara Maha Vidyalaya, Amarasinghe joined the JVP in 1969, two years before the party’s first uprising. Before joining the JVP, Amarasinghe served as an technical officer at the Irrigation Department office in Colombo and at branches in Galle, Kalmunai, Bibile and Rajangana.

On April 5, 1971, at the outbreak of the first JVP insurrection, Amarasinghe, a young revolutionary, was a member of the group assigned to capture the then Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. After the ill-planned abduction attempt, Amarasinghe and his ‘comrades’ were arrested by the Police and prosecuted before a special judicial body. In 1974, he was sentenced to two years in prison.

In December 1975, Amarasinghe was released along with several others including Kelly Senananayake, Upatissa Gamanayake and Ragama Somay. Thereafter, Somawansa appealed for the release of the remaining political prisoners and did the ground work to resurrect the party.

According to journalist Dharman Wickramaratne, their de facto party headquarters was a house at Dewanampiyatissa Mawatha, Maradana. Amarasinghe was commonly known as ‘Siri Ayya’ among the JVP membership.

Amarasinghe became a Politburo member of the JVP in 1984, Lionel Bopage’s resignation from the party over the JVP’s position on the North and the East issue. Sumith Athukorala, Piyadasa Ranasinghe, Nandathilaka Galapathi, Gunarathne Wanasinghe, Shantha Bandara, Saman Piyasiri Fernando and D.M. Ananda also became Poliburo members in the same year. All of them, except Amarasinghe, were killed during the 88-89 insurrection. According to Wickremaratne, during the second JVP insurrection, Amarasinghe was frequently seen at Gothami Vihara, Borella. When an armed gang broke into the Gothami Vihara on September 7, 1988 and abducted eight bhikkus of the Manawa Hithawdi organisation after seizing all their documents, Amarasinghe, who by then had gone ‘underground’, contacted Amnesty International in London.

The organization exerted pressure on former Defence Minister Ranjan Wijeratne and requested that those taken into custody be provided with security.

Later they were released on the intervention of the then UNP Mayor of Colombo Ratnasiri Rajapaksa. Interestingly, Amarasinghe was a close relative of former Minister Sirisena Cooray, a stalwart under the Premadasa administration.

Although some believed that his relationship with Cooray was a key factor that saved his life, the JVP vehemently denied such assumptions. It is widely believed that he fled to India by sea route after paying Rs. 50,000 to a boat owner in Kalpitiya. Later, he travelled to Europe where he lived for nearly 11 years. After he fled the country, Amarasinghe initiated the arduous task of reorganizing the party. He addressed the party’s politburo meetings through lengthy fax messages and worked with various groups on the ground to bring back the party to its former glory.

The JVP, however, experienced fluctuating fortunes under Amarasinghe’s leadership.

The party received 38 seats at the Parliamentary election in 2004 and became a force to reckon with in the country’s legislature. It also entered into a historic agreement with the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and formed the United People’s Freedom Alliance. Under Amarasinghe’s leadership, the JVP played a pivotal campaign in former President Rajapaksa’s first election campaign in 2005.

At the same time, the party suffered two major splits when Amarasinghe was at the helm. In April 2008, the party expelled its firebrand Propaganda Secretary Wimal Weerawansa who later went on to form a breakaway party with eleven other JVP MPs. Weearawansa was the ‘face’ of the post-1994 JVP and losing him, needless to say, was a severe blow to the propaganda mechanism of the party.

A few years later, a group of front-line members of the party, led by Kumar Gunaratnam, left the party after an internal dispute with other Politburo members. If Weerawansa’s exit was a severe blow to the JVP, Gunaratnam’s breakaway cracked the very foundation of the party as they drew a strong support mainly from student groups affiliated with the JVP. The party even lost its clout in the Inter University Students Federation (IUSF) as a result of Gunaratnam’s breakaway.

From an ideological standpoint, under Amarasinghe, the JVP, a Leftist party at the core, strongly gravitated towards Sinhala nationalism. At one point, widely known ultra nationalists such as Prof. Nalin de Silva and Gunadasa Amarasekera became strong supporters of the JVP. This pro-nationalist leaning strongly affected the Leftist identity of the JVP and it was a key reason for the breakaway of the Gunaratnam Group. Amarasinghe sailed in different direction after he stepped down from the JVP to form his own point.

On February 4, 2015, he staged a one-man protest at the Independence Square, urging the President to take stern action against whom he termed as ‘January 8 election night conspirators’.

A few months later, taking a 180-degree turn, he joined the pro-Rajapaksa group, extending his fullest cooperation to the former President. Amarasinghe death, however, reunited all breakaway groups of the JVP. The former JVP Leader’s son, Isuru Amarasinghe, returned from London with former JVP Parliamentarian Wasantha Samarasinghe.

JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, MPs Vijitha Herath and Sunil Handunnetti were seen actively engaged in the funeral affairs. Members of the National Freedom Front were also involved in the organization of the funeral and they received the support of former JVP MPs including Nandana Gunathilaka and Achala Jagoda.

The Frontline Socialist Party, led by Kumar Gunaratnam, also extended its fullest support.

This re-union of sorts demonstrated that despite various upheavals in the party under Amarasinghe’s leadership, he, as a leader, was widely loved and respected by everyone.

[Central Bank Governor’s fate ]

Minister Rajitha Senaratne, last week, launched a campaign within the government seeking the removal of Central Bank Governor Arjuna Mahendran. Addressing the weekly Cabinet briefing last week, Senaratne openly said Mahendran’s term should not be extended, while adding that the yahapalanaya government would make a yahapalanaya decision on the Central Bank Governor’s post.

The Minister also had a meeting with President Maithripala Sirisena in this regard. He also had lengthy discussions with other key stakeholders of the government over questions surrounding the re-appointment of the Central Bank Governor.

President Sirisena has not given any commitment to any party, so far. Although many parties, including civil society representatives, urged the President to refrain from appointing Governor for another term, the President remained non-committal. His ‘blanket response’ was that he would take the most appropriate decision at the right time.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe too followed the same policy - to a great extent. When many members of the government raised the matter with him, the Prime Minister said he would arrive at the final decision, after discussing the issue with the President.

As a result, a strong sense of indecisiveness looms over the Central Bank Governor’s appointment. At the same time, it has turned out to be a contest of sorts between the UNP and the SLFP groups within the government.