Cometh The Hour, Cometh The Man

By Godwin Constantine –FEBRUARY 28, 2018

Dr. Godwin Constantine

The recently concluded local government election has created much controversy, expectations and assumptions regrading the present government. Most of the parties that are opposed to the Unity Government have regarded this election as a referendum of sorts and said that the results of this election reflected the lack of acceptance of this government by the masses. Hence there was a call for the government to stepdown.

The president who tolerated the high-handed work of the Prime Minister used this opportunity to look for a replacement. He has been looking for a suitable candidate for the Prime Minister’s post within UNP and SLFP. He is now experiencing the consequence of introducing the 19th amendment without much consideration during honeymooning with the Unity Government.

On the other side Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has completely disregarded his humiliating defeat and attributes the defeat to fertilizer crisis, Meetotumulla tragedy and the likes. However, the bond scam, failure to persecute the culprits of the previous regime, increasing cost of living and economic setbacks had been the main reasons for this major debacle of the ruling coalition.

This election results have undoubtedly established the popularity of the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa yet again. However, the percentage of votes polled by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) still remains less the 50% of total polled votes. There is nothing much to celebrate since the percentage of votes obtained by the SLPP is slightly less than that obtained at the last Presidential election by Mahinda Rajapaksa. The most important change that has taken place with this election is the emergence of SLPP as a major contender, with the blessings of the former President.  The SLPP has shifted the SLFP’s voter base in its favor at the grass root level.

There are only two main personalities in the SLPP at present. They are the chairman of the SLPP Prof GL Peiris and Basil Rajapaksa. The real winner of this election is Basil Rajapaksa. This victory of SLPP is going to affect Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) more than any other party in the future elections.  Today the jubilation of the joint opposition is due to the victory achieved by the SLPP. One cannot expect the SLPP which has secured a historic victory to windup and become part of SLFP for the next election. The future of the SLFP will depend on whether the SLPP will be willing to function under SLFP in future elections.

Since the time Mahinda Rajapaksa lost the Presidential election he and his group had been testing his popularity from time to time by organizing various meetings. These meetings showed that  Mahinda Rajapaksa remained popular amongst the masse and possibly become more popular as a result of growing discontent of the masses with the present government.  Though he was very popular it was of no consequence as he was not the leader of the SLFP. Hence there was a suggestion to form a new party under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership, since the time he lost the Presidential election. However Mahinda Rajapaksa remained non-committal to the idea of forming a new party, probably fearing the worst case scenario of being marginalized from the history of SLFP.

After long period of speculation and expectation the news about the formation of SLPP emerged. Though it was expected that Mahinda Rajapaksa will be the leader of the new party Prof G L was appointed as the chairman of the new party (This strategy would have been adopted since it is easy to wash hands off the new party if it proves to be a failure.) Basil Rajapaksa became an active member since he had nothing to lose even if the new party is a failure. For Basil who could not secure an important position in the central committee of the SLFP this was a good opportunity to advance his career prospects in politics.

Since the SLPP has clearly dissociated it’s self from SLFP to contest the local government elections it is unlikely that the SLPP will join with the SLFP or work under SLFP in the forthcoming provincial elections. In a recent interview when Basil Rajapaksa was asked about the future plans of the SLPP he said “next we will have to face the Provincial Councils elections. Afterwards, we will have the Presidential or General election. We will face them according to a systematic plan”.

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