100 Days Of Uncertainties

By Hilmy Ahamed –April 24, 2015

Hilmy Ahamed

The much promised good governance of the 100-day government of Sirisena-Wickremesinghe has come to the end of its promised period. No dissolution of parliament as expected has taken place. A confident president went on national media and claimed a successful 100 days of governance. The promise of dissolution of the parliament on the 24th of April and early general elections is unlikely to happen until the 20th amendment to the constitution is passed and sufficient time is allocated to conduct the next general elections under the Proportional Representation (PR) system at the district level to a mixed First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) and PR system.

The majority of Sri Lankans who elected the incumbent against all odds were treated to unprecedented uncertainties during these 100 days. The end of the current government’s 100-day programme has not yielded the promised results as expected, even though people are able to sleep in peace, devoid of the Rajapaksa tyranny. The SLFP led UPFA called the shots in parliament during this 100 days and made sure that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe was held to ransom at every opportunity so that the corrupt and criminals among them would go scot free. Their trump card was their majority in parliament. President Maithripala Sirisena failed to use his executive powers to take control of the political chaos and ensure proper governance.

Will President Sirisena pay the price by becoming a President under siege in the next parliament, shouldMahinda Rajapaksa manage to get a sizable representation through a now inevitable coalition of political discards of the UPFA that he would lead? Fragmentation of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party votes is likely to ensure a long stay in opposition for those who will remain in Maithripala’s SLFP and Mahinda Rajapaksa’s coalition.

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