Leaps, rumours and speculations

Tuesday 5th March, 2024

Three months into an election year, Sri Lankan politics is taking on the appearance of an animated forest canopy, where arboreal creatures display their leaping prowess. Perhaps, they cannot match the extraordinary vaulting skills of the two-legged leapers in kapati suits, who have got jumping down to a fine art. The coming months are bound to see the leaping bipeds’ ranks swell.

Chief Government Whip and Minister Prasanna Ranatunga is apparently preparing the ground for hitching his wagon to UNP presidential candidate, President Ranil Wickremesinghe. He has said he will be compelled to switch his allegiance to Wickremesinghe unless the SLPP fields a presidential candidate who is capable of giving Wickremesinghe a run for his money. Is it that Ranatunga has already decided to leave the SLPP and is trying to justify his planned exit? But what if a general election happens to be held before the next presidential contest?

The SLPP, which is a family concern of the Rajapaksas to all intents and purposes, is not likely to field any outsider as its presidential candidate. None of the Rajapaksas is likely to run for President, given public antipathy towards them. If they claim that they can find someone who is capable of outshining and outperforming Wickremesinghe, as their presidential candidate, they will have to explain why they did not make that person President when they had to head for the hills at the height of Aragalaya in 2022.

Even the staunch supporters of the Rajapaksa family, such as Nimal Lanza, seem to think the SLPP cannot find a formidable presidential candidate. Some of them have already switched their allegiance to Wickremesinghe. Thus, there is reason to believe that Minister Ranatunga’s loyalty shift is only a matter of time, and many other SLPP stalwarts are likely to follow suit, and this is a disquieting proposition for the SLPP. Not that all these characters are popular and can deliver block votes to the presidential candidates of their choice, but the SLPP does not want to lose its MPs ahead of a crucial election.

What is of greater political significance than the number of lifeboats being launched from the sinking SLPP is how the Rajapaksas will seek to prevent crossovers from their ranks and wriggle out of the political mire of their own making. They are said to have run out of tricks, and it is being argued in some quarters that the SLPP is facing a political smothered mate, and cannot make any move. But the possibility of the Rajapaksas flipping the board, as it were, cannot be ruled out. At the rate government MPs are voting with their feet in view of the coming presidential election, the SLPP, out of sheer desperation, may consider causing parliamentary polls to precede the presidential contest if it cannot find a presidential candidate who, in its opinion, can square up to other contenders confidently.

It is doubtful whether the SLPP will be able to avoid a crushing defeat at the coming presidential election if it fields its own candidate, and such an eventuality will ruin its prospects of retaining at least some of its parliamentary seats at a subsequent general election. The situation will be equally disastrous for the SLPP in the event of opting out of the presidential race and backing someone else.

Some Rajapaksa loyalists, such as Udayanga Weeratunga, are floating the story that there will be a general election before the presidential polls. Critics of the SLPP have dismissed his claim as an attempt to confuse the Opposition, but there could be some truth in it. Anything is possible in Sri Lankan politics, which is full of dramatic twists and turns.

The SLPP, which still has a simple majority in the House, may be able to have Parliament dissolved under its own steam if it so desires. Other political parties, which insist that the government is without a popular mandate to rule the country and therefore has to go for a general election will not be able to oppose a move to dissolve Parliament.

The ruling party always pursues actions which, it thinks, will help compass its political ends, and the SLPP is said to be weighing the pros and cons of holding a general election first. Basil is scheduled to return from the US shortly, and what’s up his sleeve is anybody’s guess. However, one thing remains certain; the government will not be able to postpone the presidential election.