Whoever wins, Ranil will be the loser!

Saturday, 13 December 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

What political analysts have failed to grasp so far is that the presidential election is essentially a home-and-home match. This is not a contest between the Government and the Opposition, or the SLFP and the UNP, plus the other minor parties. That is a myth. This is a straight fight between the Mahinda Rajapaksa wing of the SLFP and the Sirisena-Chandrika wing of the SLFP. Others in the Opposition like Ranil Wickremesinghe are bit players carrying the torch for the Sirisena wing of the SLFP.

As Rajiva Wijesinghe stated in his interview with C. A. Chandraprema, the SLFPers will rush to Sirisena on 8 January 2015 if he wins the election. And Sirisena will not reject them either. He will embrace them partly because of loyalty to them (after all blue blood is thicker than green blood) and partly because he needs their political backing to survive. He already has the UNP and other minor parties, including the TNA though covertly, in his bag. What he needs now is the backing of those in the Mahinda Rajapaksa wing.

The hard reality

Right now Sirisena lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the SLFPers because he is seen as the puppet of Ranil Wickremesinghe. SLFPers are worried that the upper hand they have now will be diluted or lost with Maithripala Sirisena going into an unholy alliance with Wickremesinghe and other sundry parties. It is also true that – at the moment – Sirisena has no option but to lean more towards the UNP because he is dependent on Wickremesinghe to deliver UNP votes for him to beat his other SLFP rival. But this is bound to be a temporary affair. Both need each other and both are using each other for their political convenience. After that they go their own way. That is also written in the agreement. The MOU says that it is only for two years. But there is no guarantee that it will last that long either. This then is the hard reality. So whoever wins on 8 January 2015, it is the SLFP that will rule the roost. The UNPers will have a nominal place designated as prime minister. The earlier promise of virtually making Wickremesinghe the prime minister with presidential powers in Parliament has slowly but surely evaporated. After promising to transfer the executive powers of the president within 24 hours, Sirisena has reneged on it saying that only some powers will be handed over to Wickremesinghe, leaving the latter to take it or lump it. For the voters, however, it’s a choice between electing Tweedle-dum or Tweedle-dee of the SLFP. Either way the winners will be the SLFPers and the losers will be the UNPers. The emerging turn of events indicates that the eternal hopes of Wickremesinghe getting his hands on the levers of powers will remain, as always, an illusion. He, in his usual deluded way, believes that he is paving the way for the UNP to get into the seats of power by piggy-backing on Sirisena’s posterior. But in reality he is digging his own grave. After all, Sirisena has been a life-long SLFPer and he swears, even now, to restore the Bandaranaike legacy. In pursuit of this Sirisena has vowed to appoint Chandrika Kumaratunga as his official/unofficial No. 2. He calls it, giving her a deserving place”. Well, the “deserving place” is not to sit on a stool at Sirisena’s feet, is it? She will want a chair next to him as his equal, preferably as the power behind the throne.

Other possible scenarios

The emerging contours of this inevitable political power play are becoming clearer by the day. The way it is shaping up undoubtedly will be a serious threat to Wickremesinghe power-sharing arrangement with the Sirisena wing of the SLFP. There are also other possible scenarios that will emerge in case Sirisena wins. First, there is no guarantee that Sirisena will implement his commitment to hand over “executive powers” to Wickremesinghe the way it was envisaged in the MOU. Already he has withdrawn a key element of his promise by stating that he will not hand over the Security Forces to Wickremesinghe. Obviously, this decision must have come from CBK who was obsessed with retaining the power of the forces in her hands when she was president. She fell out with Wickremesinghe, her prime minster, mainly on this issue. So under Sirisena too Wickremesinghe will have to be a lame-duck prime minister, loaded only with the messy and the intractable issues of cost of living, debt servicing, adverse effects of the world market forces etc. He will have to face the brunt of keeping the hard part of fulfilling the economic promises and he will come out with his nose buried in the dust. Second, nor will he get the chance of playing the big role in the international theatre because Mangala Samaraweera will hog the limelight in that department. Samaraweera will also lean more towards Chandrika and Sirisena leaving Wickremesinghe to stew in his own juices. After all, the chances of the frustrated SLFPers getting together is greater than all of them backing their traditional opponents in the UNP. In any case, Samaraweera feels aggrieved that Sajith Premadasa has been given the No. 2 spot in the UNP which means that his chances are with the Sirisena-Chandrika wing of the SLFP. Third, according to Tissa Attanayake, the UNP is now run by Chandrika Kumaratunga who issues orders from her residence near the Parliament. At this late stage in the middle of an election, Wickremesinghe has to either take it or lump it. He too is tied to the Sirisena-wing of the SLFP and he can’t get out of it now because he has conceded from the start that he is not a winning candidate. So he has resigned to play the role assigned to him by CBK-Sirisena combo. CBK in particular is playing the role of the organ grinder, with great relish, for the performing monkeys to dance according to her tune. The chances of the SLFPers ganging up against Wickremesinghe in post-election phase is greater than following him as the prime minister. They will know that he is the prime minister courtesy of the SLFP. Sirisena-CBK can pull the rug under him any time they wish. The UNPers will be reduced to the pathetic plight of singing the praises of Sirisena and CBK and not Wickremesinghe. UNPers singing halleluiah will be a common occurrence. Wickremesinghe will be given the karapincha treatment though nominally he will be given the glorified position of the PM. Furthermore, with the rush of SLFPers to join Sirisena, in case he wins, the UNPers will be marginalised in the power hierarchy. Once Sirisena is installed as president the bargaining power of Wickremesinghe will be reduced to almost nothing as the new president will have the backing of most of the SLFPers. He will have to be satisfied with whatever crumbs that will be thrown his way because Sirisena will be calling the shots. Sirisena is still playing his cards close to the chest. He has yet to decide what powers he will devolve to Wickremesinghe.

Last will

Men in power are not so humble and flexible as when they are out of power. The upshot of all this is that by aligning himself with one wing of the SLFP Wickremesinghe has written his last will – and, perhaps, that of the UNP too. While the SLFPers will flock to join Sirisena-CBK combo, reducing the importance of UNP support, Wickremesinghe will have to twiddle his thumbs with hardly anything left for the UNPers to pick up after waiting for decades to get their share of power and perks. His alliance with the Sirisena wing of the SLFP is an abject admission of his failure as a leader. For the second time he has passed a vote of no confidence on himself and has asked the UNPers to vote for a non-UNPer. Sajith Premadasa was absolutely right when he said that the UNP must field a candidate of their own and that candidate should be Wickremesinghe. If Wickremesinghe stood his ground the other opposition parties – at least most of them including the TNA – would have had no option but to come round to back him since they were for a change of regime. The JVP, for instance, would have adopted the same stance it is adopting now. It would not have backed any particular candidate since they believe that the election is illegal but would have given their silent nod to Wickremesinghe as they would consider him to be the lesser evil. Wickremesinghe who was hoping to come out on top with his MOU in which he was promised the executive powers of the president is now left with only the dregs of power. His MOU with Sirisena is no better than his vaunted agreement with Prabhakaran. As usual he is chasing mirages. All this proves, if proof is necessary, that Wickremesinghe is the biggest loser in Sri Lankan politics. He is nothing but a born loser. So do the UNPers have any obligation to follow Wickremesinghe and vote for Sirisena? Do they want to commit hara-kiri, singing the praises of Sirisena? So far Wickremesinghe has achieved his usual in signing the MOU: fragmented the UNP once more. It is another MOU that will leave the UNPers in the cold. So should they vote for a nominee of Wickremesinghe which will drag them more and more into frustration, disillusionment and despair. The MOU is a sell-out. It is no better than the greatest betrayal of the nation he signed with Prabhakaran. That was the first step on his way to his political grave. This MOU will bury him for good. UNP – RIP!