Pohottuwa in trouble

Tuesday 16th February, 2021

Some SLPP heavyweights, embroiled in a political brawl, are doing their laundry in public; they seem to have got it down to a fine art. Hardly a day passes without SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam and National Freedom Front leader and Minister Wimal Weerawansa trading insults. The former says the latter is meddling with the affairs of the SLPP. Their war of words has become a form of public entertainment.

Some political observers have sought to dismiss what is unfolding in the ruling coalition as a political phantasmagoria and Weerawansa’s ‘revolt’ as a mere exercise in smoke and mirrors to divert public attention away from the incumbent administration’s blunders which are legion. Governments use such ruses to pull the wool over the eyes of the public when they experience difficulties, but one has good reason to believe that the SLPP is actually experiencing a conflict, which, unless tackled urgently, is likely to spin out of control.

Before the last presidential election, we discussed, in this column, the possibility of three competing power centres emerging in the SLPP to the detriment of the party’s unity. The realignment of forces in the government camp, following the general election, has led to a situation, where those who control the SLPP have also become a power centre besides the ones represented by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. In the yahapalana government, there were only two rival power centres, and the present dispensation has three! President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe clashed openly from 2015 to 2019. There are no such clashes at present, only the PM’s orders do not get carried out!

It is being argued in some quarters that Weerawansa is tilting at windmills, but we reckon that his fight is real, and he is not alone in having taken on the SLPP headquarters. Usually, a ginger group in a ruling party or coalition consists of disgruntled backbenchers, but the one in the SLPP has some ministers as well, we are told. There’s the rub. A similar situation occurred during the latter part of President Rajapaksa’s second term (2010-2015), which was characterised by bitter dissension in the UPFA coalition and the disgruntlement of some SLFP seniors, who finally voted with their feet, led by the then Minister Sirisena. Those who were responsible for causing Sirisena and others to decamp in late 2014 are now in the SLPP; they have apparently reverted to their old ways. The UPFA never expected a breakaway, in 2014, given President Rajapaksa’s popularity and the debilitation of the UNP-led Opposition, but nothing is so certain as the unexpected in politics.

The stability of the SLPP hinges on Prime Minister Rajapaksa’s leadership and guidance. There has been a discernible change in the PM’s way of politicking, and this could be considered proof that he has learnt from his mistakes from 2010 to 2015. He is temperate in exercising power and handling dissenters, and acts as a centripetal force in the SLPP. What basically made the SLPP’s electoral victories possible was the Mahinda factor. It was the ‘Mahinda Sulanga’ campaign, which enabled the oppositional forces to make an early comeback.

Some SLPPers who are full of themselves and think they can take over the party and ensure that it will continue to be a winning streak are only cherishing a delusion. They may be capable, but they cannot do without Mahinda’s leadership. These ambitious characters and their chicanery remind us of the proverbial cobra that became overconfident, left its charmer and danced in a public place only to get badly beaten and thrown into a wayside drain. The same fate is likely to befall the cocky SLPP grandees at the next election if they try to steer the party under their own steam.

Impressive electoral gains can be as problematic as defeats unless they are properly managed; they can even become the undoing of a powerful regime, as evident from the fate of the UPFA government (2010-2015). Are the three consecutive electoral victories of the SLPP having the same effect on the incumbent government?