The Great Hopper Conspiracy

What if Sirisena’s defection was not a coup as believed by the anti-Rajapaksa front, but a clever ploy by Mahinda to hedge his bets? What if the entire ‘Hopper Story of Betrayal’ was played out to fool the UNP? – Pic by Shehan Gunasekara

By a Special Correspondent

The night before Sirisena announced his candidature against President Mahinda Rajapaksa, he had partaken in hoppers at the latter’s residence. The story of this betrayal has almost become a legend in Sri Lankan politics. Largely spread by Mahinda himself, the story was in reality a brilliant counter-move by Mahinda against the United Opposition. Contrary to what the nation believes, it was, in reality, a conspiracy hatched between Mahinda and Sirisena that fateful night. 

Mahinda announced the Presidential Election two years ahead of completion of his term. It is important to understand the reasons for this momentous decision. There is no doubt that Mahinda’s popularity was on the decline – the cost of living was steadily climbing, the economy was tanking under the heavy debt burden, despite a pervasive fear of reprisal, people had started talking about corruption, nepotism and the ill-conceived Chinese projects in Hambantota that were weighing down the economy. 

In two more years it would have been impossible for Mahinda to silence his critics and the Opposition would have defeated him on anti-incumbency alone for Mahinda had no clue on how to reverse the downward economic trend.  

On 8 January 2015 nobody would have believed this Houdini trick but four-and-a-half years later, in hindsight, one only has to look at the facts to understand the sheer cleverness of Mahinda’s game. Everything that Sirisena did after assuming the presidency, was directed at damaging the UNP. Sirisena made Ranil PM despite the UNP having a handful of MPs in Parliament. Then gave him a long rope to hang himself with. When the noose had tightened sufficiently around Ranil’s and others’ necks, Sirisena deftly pulled the chair from under their feet appointing a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate the bond scam. The proceedings were held in full presence of media and did irretrievable damage to the UNP’s top leadership

Abductions, murders and threats had become synonymous with the Rajapaksa regime. Mahinda’s victory over the LTTE could no longer compensate for the first family’s excesses. The murder of Lasantha Wickrematunge for exposing Gota’s corrupt MiG deal and that of Ruggerite Wasim Thajudeen still continue to be seen as acts of utter impunity and which bore down heavily on Mahinda’s prospects. Another two years would have made things even worse. 

While it finally took an astrologer to convince Mahinda that January 2015 was auspicious, one did not need to be a rocket scientist to understand why Mahinda chose to hold elections ahead of schedule. Many called him a fool for this but he really had little choice. Had he won, he would have tried to complete his full second term before embarking upon the third. 

The only challenge for Mahinda was to seal that miniscule chance of losing to a UNP candidate a.k.a. Ranil Wickremesinghe. The opportunity presented itself when the UNF alliance came to the conclusion that Ranil was not a winnable candidate and they needed someone from the SLFP to augment the UNP and minority votes. 

A clever ploy by Mahinda?

What if Sirisena’s defection was not a coup as believed by the anti-Rajapaksa front, but a clever ploy by Mahinda to hedge his bets? What if the entire ‘Hopper Story of Betrayal’ was played out to fool the UNP? Mahinda was confident of winning but in the off chance that he didn’t, he wanted his proxy on that chair to ensure his and his family’s wellbeing and at the same time hollow out the UNP from within. 

As luck would have it, he lost the election, but his safety valve strategy worked. On 8 January 2015 nobody would have believed this Houdini trick but four-and-a-half years later, in hindsight, one only has to look at the facts to understand the sheer cleverness of Mahinda’s game. Everything that Sirisena did after assuming the presidency, was directed at damaging the UNP.  

For the last four-and-a-half years Ranil lived under the false hope that he was cleverly keeping the SLFP divided, his ticket to the next presidency. He may have been successful had Sirisena not been Mahinda’s stooge. By not going after the Rajapaksas for their many crimes, Ranil believed he was keeping the SLFP from going completely into Sirisena’s hands. While Ranil basked in the success of dividing the SLFP, the party, with the help of Sirisena, literally ran a parallel government blocking any progressive legislation that could potentially cement the minorities’ future votes for the UNP

Sirisena made Ranil PM despite the UNP having a handful of MPs in Parliament. Then gave him a long rope to hang himself with. He allowed him to appoint Arjuna Mahendran as Governor of Central Bank knowing fully well where the UNPers were headed. Sirisena was not a novice. He knew, like most people in informed circles, that Perpetual Treasuries owner Arjun Aloysius was Mahendran’s son-in-law who had worked closely with Mahinda’s Central Bank Governor Nivard Cabral and together they had milked the system through the same modus operandi. Sirisena just let things happen making sure that all the blame came to Ranil when the scam blew up. 

When the noose had tightened sufficiently around Ranil’s and others’ necks, Sirisena deftly pulled the chair from under their feet appointing a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to investigate the bond scam. The proceedings were held in full presence of media and did irretrievable damage to the UNP’s top leadership. 

Ranil’s false hope

For the last four-and-a-half years Ranil lived under the false hope that he was cleverly keeping the SLFP divided, his ticket to the next presidency. He may have been successful had Sirisena not been Mahinda’s stooge. By not going after the Rajapaksas for their many crimes, Ranil believed he was keeping the SLFP from going completely into Sirisena’s hands. 

Most Sri Lankans, including Lasantha Wickrematunge’s daughter, blame Ranil for protecting the Rajapaksas. On the few occasions when some action was contemplated against Gota and former defence officers, Sirisena stepped in claiming that he was protecting the honour and dignity of decorated heroes!  

The victory in the Presidential Election should have allowed the UNP to get a comfortable majority in the August 2015 Parliamentary Elections. 

Sirisena gave nominations to Mahinda and his cronies after much drama that allowed Mahinda and the SLFP to return to Parliament with a healthy share of the seats. The resulting scenario was a tragi-comedy with part of the SLFP enjoying the fruits of Government and the rest sitting in Opposition. While Ranil basked in the success of dividing the SLFP, the party, with the help of Sirisena, literally ran a parallel government blocking any progressive legislation that could potentially cement the minorities’ future votes for the UNP.

Sirisena and the Rajapaksas not only destroyed the UNP but also the TNA’s credibility. The TNA is now being perceived as a lackey of the UNP and the Alliance is split down the middle taking away the minority advantage of the UNP.

Dividing the UNP

While the division in the SLFP only led to the rebirth of the party in a new avatar firmly under Mahinda’s control, his loyal stooge Sirisena was far more effective in dividing the UNP than Ranil was in dividing the SLFP. He cultivated the Deputy Leader of the UNP Sajith Premadasa to mount a silent rebellion against Ranil. 

He was ably assisted by a TV tycoon in this endeavour. Blinded by the hatred for Ranil, the TV tycoon could not see the game that was being played. He believed he had Sirisena in his pocket and perhaps the next President too. He became a pawn in Sirisena’s hands attacking Ranil and other UNPers relentlessly and encouraging Sajith. The result is for everyone to see. For all his cleverness, Ranil just could not realise how TV tycoon was also being manipulated though insiders insist it isn’t so but he is calling the shots.   

Although Sirisena was not able to pin the blame on Ranil and the UNP for the ghastly suicide attacks, he made sure that the Muslim allies of the UNP, who were largely responsible for saving Ranil’s back during Sirisena’s coup, were not spared. Besides whipping up an anti-Muslim frenzy in the Island, Rishad Bathiudeen and few others were made to look like they were behind the attacks. The objective was clear, rally the chauvinist Sinhalese behind the Rajapaksas, the war heroes, the only ones who could deliver Sri Lanka from Muslim terrorists. Little attention was paid to Sirisena’s own poor administration and accountability under whom both the armed forces and the police served

A relatively less known development that should have given an indication to the UNP about Sirisena’s real designs was the rejection of a rather attractive offer to abolish the Executive Presidency and get elected to a second term through a simple majority in Parliament. Had Sirisena genuinely been concerned for his future safety, he would have happily taken the deal. He sheds crocodile tears in public when narrating the risks to himself and his family from the Rajapaksas if they ever returned to power. But everything that he has been doing since assuming power has been cleverly designed to do exactly that, return them to power.

Appointing Mahinda as Prime Minister

Sirisena, generally seen as a bungling, vacillating, bumpkin, made his first mistake when he appointed Mahinda as Prime Minister, Even though this was clinching evidence, nobody still suspected that this move was the product of a four-year long conspiracy. A mistake in hindsight only, for had Sirisena pulled it off, it would have been a disastrous and humiliating exit for the UNP and game set and match for Mahinda. 

Sirisena’s and Mahinda’s wrong presumptions about the Muslim MPs’ greed for power and money saved the day for the UNP. The duo also did not foresee that Speaker Karu Jayasuriya would have the conviction of courage to stand up to the might of the Rajapaksas. The Judiciary also came good eventually determining Mahinda’s appointment as unconstitutional and forcing him to vacate the chair he shamelessly clung on to for almost two months despite domestic and international castigation.

What many passed off as a clash of personalities or irreconcilable differences between Sirisena and Ranil was in reality a meticulously created smokescreen behind which Sirisena conducted his clandestine business with Mahinda. He hounded Ranil every step of the way to 26 October, creating the justification he needed to bring back Mahinda. He had even supported a failed no confidence motion against Ranil before illegally sacking him eventually.

Chipping away at the UNP

Not to be outdone by his failure to return Mahinda, Sirisena continued chipping away at the UNP, criticising and undermining the Government at every turn. He forced his MPs against their desperate desire to join Ranil’s Government to stay away from it while he himself added to his portfolios by taking over the Law and Order Ministry, essentially to ensure that Ranil, now presumably wiser about the grand conspiracy, would not be able to act against the still vulnerable Rajapaksa family and friends. 

Not only did he take Law and Order away from Ranil, he even banished him from the Security Council meetings. It proved a blessing in disguise for Ranil as Sirisena unconvincingly tried to implicate him in the Easter Sunday suicide attacks. 

Sirisena, generally seen as a bungling, vacillating, bumpkin, made his first mistake when he appointed Mahinda as Prime Minister, Even though this was clinching evidence, nobody still suspected that this move was the product of a four-year long conspiracy. A mistake in hindsight only, for had Sirisena pulled it off, it would have been a disastrous and humiliating exit for the UNP and game set and match for Mahinda

What many passed off as a clash of personalities or irreconcilable differences between Sirisena and Ranil was in reality a meticulously created smokescreen behind which Sirisena conducted his clandestine business with Mahinda. He hounded Ranil every step of the way to 26 October, creating the justification he needed to bring back Mahinda. He had even supported a failed no confidence motion against Ranil before illegally sacking him eventually

Although Sirisena was not able to pin the blame on Ranil and the UNP for the ghastly suicide attacks, he made sure that the Muslim allies of the UNP, who were largely responsible for saving Ranil’s back during Sirisena’s coup, were not spared. Besides whipping up an anti-Muslim frenzy in the Island, Rishad Bathiudeen and few others were made to look like they were behind the attacks. 

The objective was clear, rally the chauvinist Sinhalese behind the Rajapaksas, the war heroes, the only ones who could deliver Sri Lanka from Muslim terrorists. Little attention was paid to Sirisena’s own poor administration and accountability under whom both the armed forces and the police served.

Sirisena’s charade

Local Government Elections of 2017 had already showed where Sirisena’s SLFP stood with the people of Sri Lanka, coming fourth in the overall tally. Recent unofficial public opinion surveys peg his popularity even lower. 

Sirisena, however, continued to play the charade, that he was interested in a second term, to keep the UNP in its fool’s paradise in the belief that the SLFP and SLPP were two separate entities. Ranil’s dream of keeping the party divided was finally coming true! Funnily enough, the SLFP is still talking about putting up its own candidate.

Interestingly, Sirisena did not take any action when a bunch of SLFP MPs joined the SLPP the day it was formed. Nor did he take any action against Mahinda who brazenly became the leader of a party not even represented in Parliament. Not only does he continue to enjoy being an MP, he has been bestowed the post of Leader of the Opposition. This despite the fact that the leader of the party that he represents in Parliament is holding charge of three ministries. Between them, Sirisena and Mahinda have not only taken the UNP, but the entire nation for a ride.

It is comical that the UNP is still not aware of the tragedy that has befallen. It continues to be manipulated by Sirisena and others like the TV tycoon. It could not have chosen a worse time to get embroiled in a leadership struggle. It has been completely outwitted and out-manoeuvred by the old fox and his Trojan horse. 

Someday this intriguing conspiracy would be converted to celluloid in the form of a juicy political thriller for which the UNP can claim royalty, but today there is still time for the UNP to wake up and rally behind a deserving leader. Surely, it can’t be manipulated by the likes of Sirisena or the TV tycoon. The party and the country need a leader who has the dignity and credibility to occupy the most hallowed of all offices.