Mahinda Rajapaksa’s influence may be waning but the Sri Lankan Opposition is not yet a force to reckon with. Glued together by its common dislike for the President, it has no collective vision for the future and is hardly a credible political alternative
Given that even the wise men who study the stars and the planets cannot seem to agree on who will win the Sri Lankan presidential poll, it is best that ordinary mortals like this writer keep away from the business of predicting who Sri Lankans will elect to lead their country, as they head to the polling stations today. On the one hand, they have President Mahinda Rajapaksa who is seeking re-election for a third term, and on the other, they have Mr Mithripala Sirisena, the Opposition’s ‘common candidate’, who until recently was a Minister in the United People’s Freedom Alliance Government. Technically, there are 17 other ‘minor’ candidates to choose from but for all practical purposes, Thursday’s vote is a contest between Mr Rajapaksa and Mr Sirisena.
When the election was announced on November 20, 2014, it was not expected to be much of a contest at all as there was no real Opposition in sight. Calculating that getting re-elected a third time after more than a decade in power would be difficult for him, Mr Rajapaksa had called for the election two years before the expiry of his Government’s six year term, hoping to maximise his time at the helm while he riding the popularity wave.
However, what he had possibly not foreseen was an internal revolt. A day after he announced the election, Mr Sirisena jumped ship. A close colleague of the President, he was serving as the Health Minister at the time and was also the general secretary of Mr Rajapaksa’s own Sri Lanka Freedom Party.
Mr Sirisena’s split from the ruling coalition also opened the floodgates for several other disgruntled UPFA leaders to move to the Opposition camp. Within weeks, Mr Rajapaksa lost the support of more than two dozen leaders, including some high profile Ministers and important allies. The January 8 election quickly went from being a cakewalk for the President to, what some pundits are now dubbing, as one of the biggest challenges in Mr Rajapaksa’s political career.
Even within Sri Lanka’s deeply polarised political milieu, there is now a consensus that Mr Sirisena will put up a tough fight of the sort that Mr Rajapaksa had not expected; and that even if the latter manages to return to power, his mandate will be relatively smaller. Poll pundits say that the election will be a close call and may even lead to a second round of counting wherein the preferential votes are taken into consideration.
For now, let’s take a quick look at how the frontrunners stack up against each other. Mr Rajapaksa’s biggest plus point is that he is a more popular, grassroots leader than Mr Sirisena especially among the country’s Sinhala Buddhist majority. Though Mr Sirisena is also a veteran politician with reasonably strong Sinhala Buddhist credentials, he has a relatively low profile and is not exactly a match for Mr Rajapaksa who towers over the Sri Lankan political scene.
Moreover, since Mr Rajapaksa decisively defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009 and ended a three decades long bloody insurgency, he has been regarded as a war hero in Sri Lanka. His overwhelming mandate in 2010 is proof of this. Sure, four years later, some of that public adulation has ebbed but it has not been extinguished. As for Mr Sirisena, even though he was acting Defence Minister in the final weeks of the war, he has not been able to spin any of the credit for himself. All that he has been able to do on this count is ask: Has Mr Rajapaksa equitably delivered the peace dividends that came from the end of war?
Mr Sirisena’s critics have also been quick to point out that that he is backed by two prominent leaders — Mr Ranil Wickremasinghe and Ms Chandrika Kumaratunga — who had failed to defeat the LTTE when they were in power. In fact, Mr Wickremasinghe, when he was Prime Minister (a position he expects to return to, if Mr Sirisena wins) had signed a controversial ceasefire with the LTTE which the Tamil Tigers used to hit back with a vengeance.
Another factor that will play mostly in Mr Rajapaksa’s favour is governance record. Under his rule, the Sri Lankan economy has grown at a healthy pace, unemployment is low and there has been a visible growth in infrastructure. On this count, again, Mr Sirisena has little to show. In fact, one of the Opposition’s weakest points is that it does not have a roadmap for economic development. And because of this, it will probably not be able to capitalise on whatever anti-Rajapaksa sentiment there is, as effectively as it could have.
For example, in recent years, the President’s economic model, which is heavy on foreign-funded, infrastructure projects, has come in for much criticism. The President, his family members (who hold several important portfolios) and his small coterie are believed to have primarily gained from foreign investments while the benefits have not quite trickled down to the people. Also, the rising cost of living has become a major issue but the Opposition has no real solution.
Instead, Mr Sirisena’s campaign has put the debate over the executive presidency system at the centre of the poll agenda. Through the 18th constitutional amendment, made possible because the ruling coalition has a two thirds majority in Parliament, Mr Rajapaksa had given to the President’s office additional powers (including the power to appoint the Chief Justice and the election commissioner) that has weakened other democratic institutions and given rise to fears of a soft dictatorship. Now, Mr Sirisena has promised to either amend or repeal that amendment but it’s difficult to believe him because it means he will be using his powerful position to make it less powerful. Moreover, this is an abstract issue that doesn’t have as much traction as bread-and-butter matters.
The other big drawback for Mr Sirisena is, ironically, also his primary source of strength: The large section of Sri Lankan polity which has rallied around him. Thirty six parties make up the Opposition coalition and, while they might just able to pull together their votebanks and collectively push Mr Sirisena to victory, they definitely send out mixed signals. The parties have disparate, if not conflicting, ideologies, interests and agendas and come across as opportunistic. The dynamics of the minority votebank is a good example of this.
With the support of the Tamil National Alliance and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (a former UPFA member), the Opposition hopes to capture the minority votebank which is supposedly alienated from the Rajapaksa camp that has been accused of Sinhala majoritarianism. However, since the Sinhala ultra-nationalist Jathika Hela Urumaya (another former UPFA member) is also a member of the Opposition coalition, it is unclear how many of the minority votes will actually come through. The JHU is the parent organisation of the Bodu Bala Sena which has been held responsible for last year’s anti-Muslim riots, and the party is also not in favour of greater Tamil autonomy. In fact, with regard to the latter, Mr Sirisena’s positions are almost identical to that of Mr Rajapaksa, thereby giving the Tamils no reason to see him as an alternative political force.
Also, though Mr Sirisena is the face of the opposition, he isn’t always viewed as its driving force. Ms Kumaratunga and Mr Wickremasinghe are seen as the real power centres. This is bound to hurt the Opposition as both leaders are considered to be past their political prime. Mr Sirisena’s only real advantage over Mr Rajapaksa is that he is viewed as a clean politician, as opposed to the incumbent who is perceived as corrupt and dictatorial. Finally, despite the hype around the Sirisena campaign, the fact that apart from opposing Mr Rajapaksa, it has no positive agenda of its own. This is a problem that is sure to blow up if the Opposition actually comes to power.
This article was published in the op-ed section of The Pioneer on January 8, 2015
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