A paradox in Sri Lanka's politics in the recent years has been the anger the public vent against the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration for its sheer incompetence, with the arguable exception of the military offensive against the LTTE. When their fury reaches a crescendo, ironic enough, they transform into greater anger against the main opposition UNP.
The reason is simple. If the government is bad, they complain, the opposition is worse. It is pithily articulated by the now commonly used Sinhala epithet first mooted by the JVP; "Unuth Ekai, Munuth Ekai" or both of them are the same. That is when it comes to burning issues like the gigantic scale of corruption, at all levels, abuse of power, mounting cost of living and cronyism. The anger against the government is for its overt obliviousness to even the basics of good governance. The fury towards the opposition is over its ineptitude and gross inability to put the government under any pressure.
In the recent months, however, many of the burning issues have been overshadowed by the ongoing separatist war. Here again, the UNP's response to issues arising out of them has been, to say the least, muted. Even if the guerrilla strongholds of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu are yet to be re-captured, the government has won an overwhelming electoral victory in the southern constituency by carefully managing the information from the battlefront to its advantage. It has effectively kept the media out of the battle front, and the bad news from being known to the public. Officially, it is called 'demoralising the troops', but it could also be called a 'carte blanche cheque' not to be questioned about any set-backs and the number of casualties. For well over four months now, it has been a case of going, going and going to Kilinochchi.
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| Return of the UNP's prodigal son: Karu and Ranil addressing a news conference on Wednesday at UNP headquarters. Pic by Sanka Vidanagama |
When pro-rebel web sites, both English and Tamil claim guerrilla gains, re-capture of more villages in the Wanni are announced by the military. In the process, named are villages seized weeks earlier and publicised before. The public is confused with names of these hitherto unknown, and largely unfamiliar villages and towns in the Wanni. The media campaign in this regard is heavily bolstered by SMS messages put out by a tv network. That truth becomes a casualty in war, is a known axiom. However, an exercise that is aimed at political expediency and erodes credibility in the public mind is the gravest injustice to those troops who are laying down their lives and losing limbs to keep the government's record of accomplishment high.
Suddenly this week, it appears that the fortunes of the UNP began to change. Whether it is just the fizz from the opening of a bottle of soda water remains to be seen. Nevertheless, there are clear signs that the grand old party is being swayed by the winds of change.
This week, it was home coming for Karunaratne Jayasuriya, better known as Karu Jayasuriya. He had crossed over from being the virtual number two in the opposition UNP to become a Cabinet Minister for 23 months. At his residence at Amarasekera Mawatha (former Dawson Road) in Colombo 5, the customary armed guards assigned to a minister were absent on Thursday. The wheeled-railings that protected the house on the roadside have been dismantled. A lonely police constable, given to an ordinary Member of Parliament, stands guard.
Seated in his drawing room, 68-year-old Jayasuriya reminisced over his brief sojourn in the Rajapaksa administration. He could barely complete a sentence. The mobile phone or the landline would ring. Most were calls congratulating him for returning to the UNP fold. Others spoke of welcome receptions when he leaves home next week to move into his new office at 'Siri Kotha', the UNP headquarters. It transpired that Jayasuriya, as deputy leader, would share a large room with leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, and the newly elected party Chairman Gamini Jayawickrema Perera. The party was busy ordering a desk for him on Thursday, and there were exchange of calls on where exactly, at what angle, and how closely, that desk was to be placed to the leader's desk.
"We found it difficult to push through party reforms. I left together with 16 parliamentary colleagues upon a written invitation from President Rajapaksa to join his government," Jayasuriya told The Sunday Times, shortly after he had quit the Rajapaksa Cabinet as Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs. When he quit the UNP, the party had by then abolished the post of Deputy Leader. But, last Monday, even whilst Jayasuriya remained a Cabinet Minister, the Working Committee, the party's main policy making body, in a hastily scheduled meeting, decided to appoint Jayasuriya as Deputy Leader. It is history indeed for a major political party to choose its number two when the person concerned is a key player on its rival side. But, the argument, like all arguments in politics, was that after-all, Jayasuriya remained a UNPer. It was Jayasuriya who said he was a UNPer. And Wickremesinghe had to announce at the Working Committee that all court proceedings against the 17 UNPers who left the party in January of 2007 would be withdrawn with immediate effect.
That is not to say all these were sudden and unexpected developments. Jayasuriya's cross over to the UNP has been the subject of intense behind-the-scenes discussions for about two months. There was a buzz as to whether he would rejoin the party he left saying there was no intra-democracy in it. It began with an intermediary shuttling between both Jayasuriya and Wickremesinghe. The next phase, a one-on-one discussion came, in a less suspicious backdrop. Jayasuriya was after surgery and was warded at the Asiri Hospital. Wickremesinghe went as a visitor to see how his former political comrade-in-arms was convalescing. A near two-hour discussion with Jayasuriya and his family ensued, but nothing of the prospect of his return to the UNP was then discussed.
The intermediaries took over thereafter. Then party Chairman Rukman Senanayake was one of them. When finality was reached, Jayasuriya wanted to be doubly sure. The assurance to him came in two ways: Wickremesinghe extending an invitation at the UNP annual convention and its Working Committee, thereafter, deciding to appoint him deputy leader. As behind-the-scenes talks progressed, speculation that a larger group from the 17 MPs who crossed over would return to the UNP fold, worried government circles. They feared that the move was aimed at defeating the budget in Parliament.
The debate was then under way. Wickremesinghe was averse even to a suggestion to do so. He feared the ruling party would accuse the UNP of colluding with Tiger guerrillas to defeat the government as it was claiming to be on the verge of capturing Kilinochchi. Despite that, fears lingered with pro-government media expressing delight that the budget was passed without crossovers.
President Rajapaksa, no doubt, was somewhat rattled by Jayasuriya's return to UNP fold. This set-back came in the midst of some embarrassing judgments against the conduct of his government by the Supreme Court, which had gone to the extent of not just removing some of Rajapaksa's own appointees, but also advised him to remove one of his Cabinet Ministers - A.H.M. Fowzie. Then, his government had been given an ultimatum to invoke the provisions of the 17th Amendment, and get a move on in appointing the Constitutional Council. So, at the commissioning of a power plant at Wattala on Tuesday, Rajapaksa was to lament that the Executive Presidency had been reduced to that which had powers less than a Magistrate. The innuendo was clear.
Rajapaksa must have been referring to the common reference to the Office of the President of the United States of America, in the early American republic, as that of 'the Chief Magistrate". In 1793, George Washington described himself as the country's Chief Magistrate in his second inaugural address. Of course, that reference is hardly used now, and there is a strict separation of powers between the President and the Judiciary, something Rajapaksa, to his credit, said he respects in Sri Lanka too.
At the same event, Rajapaksa was also to say that he watched with amusement as the JVP and the UNP disintegrated due to in-fighting. The statement seemed to boomerang as soon as he made it -- that very same day, Jayasuriya sent in his resignation as a Cabinet Minister, and crossed back into the UNP fold. It was the ninth MP to leave him, after Mangala Samaraweera, Sripathy Sooriyarachchi, Rauff Hakeem, Hassan Ali, Basheer Cegu Dawood, Faisal Cassim, Wijeyadasa Rajapaksa and Anura Bandaranaike. This is without the JVP that left his government as a coalition partner.
On Wednesday, just a day after Jayasuriya had quit, Rajapaksa summoned the remaining 16 UNP 'pole-vaulters', to ask them to clarify their position. This, they did, by declaring at a news conference the next day saying that they would continue to support the Rajapaksa government. In reality, however, the position was different.
At least three more, including a current Cabinet Minister, are to return according to those close to the UNP hierarchy. On the other hand, the UNP hierarchy is not in favour of accepting the likes of Rajitha Senaratne, G.L. Peiris, Milinda Moragoda and Hemakumara Nanayakkara. Now that Jayasuriya is back, government leaders say there would be growing internal dissension in the UNP. They cite what might be justifiable comments by some of the UNP members who ask why those who remain loyal to the party are not recognised, and a place is given to those who keep crossing-over; but Jayasuriya's return seems to be widely accepted by the party's wider membership, and the government's comments no doubt, underscore its embarrassment over what happened this week..
"When news was out that I was leaving, at least 35 MPs including ministers in the government came to my room in Parliament. They wanted me to change my mind," said Jayasuriya. That list had included Basil Rajapaksa, senior Advisor and the key strategist of the Rajapaksa hierarchy. Jayasuriya has made no formal statement as to why he quit the government after 23 months as a Cabinet Minister. He had introduced a Citizen's Charter and enforced easy procedures to facilitate services to the public at District Secretariats (the former Kachcheri). He won some plaudits from the public for these measures.
Jayasuriya carefully avoided any criticism of the government or to detail the reasons for quitting. However, The Sunday Times learnt one instance was the selection of Grama Sevakas. More than double the required number had applied when posts were advertised. The Department of Examinations was asked to conduct written examinations to ascertain their eligibility. Thereafter, through what was described as a transparent process, those considered most suitable were selected. Ruling party members had charged that he had favoured UNPers.
The UNPers in turn said he had sided with government supporters. When the same procedure was used for selections in the North, he was accused of selecting Tiger guerrilla sympathisers. Like the proverbial last straw that broke the camel's back, the turning point came when the issue of Grama Sevaka appointments came at a discussion at 'Temple Trees'. At the meeting chaired by President Rajapaksa, ruling party parliamentarians and government officials were present. Rajapaksa had used some "harsh and strong" words aimed directly at Jayasuriya at the discussion. Unable to take the harsh and strong words, Jayasuriya rose from his seat and walked out of that meeting.
The conference continued without Minister Jayasuriya. Very unlike Rajapaksa, he doesn't seem to have gone through any pains to woo Jayasuriya back to the fold. He has a comfortable majority in Parliament, so why should he bother, asked a cynic. Before this episode, there had also been friction on a number of previous occasions over appointment of Government Agents and other related issues. "There was no transparency, and political interference was the order of the day," said one Jayasuriya aide later. Yet, the aide argued, "the 17 UNPers kept the government in power. They would have lost, if this group voted against the Budget in 2007. They were treated like very poor cousins at a grand uncle's wedding."
The return of Jayasuriya is not the mere return of a UNP stalwart to his party fold after savouring good times with the government. He left at a time when the post of deputy leader was suppressed in the UNP, and the call for party reforms was denied. There is now a major change. By accepting him, with open arms, so to say, UNP leader Wickremesinghe has acknowledged, though perhaps late, the need for party reform and the need for a deputy leader. Even more, the duo have already chalked out areas where immediate action to challenge the government is necessary. Wickremesinghe has gone that extra mile to have his party's decision-making body to appoint Jayasuriya even before he resigned his ministerial post. That move, together with views expressed by Jayasuriya, reflects the new growing mood in the UNP for change, and swift action before a snap election next year.
On Wednesday, shortly after the introduction of Jayasuriya to the media seated alongside Wickremesinghe, and the party machinery was busy getting Jayasuriya's desk readied, Wickremasinghe left for Singapore to attend an IDU (International Democratic Union) conference of which he is senior office-bearer. Members of the IDU itself are not faring too well in their respective countries. A meeting of right-wing politicians that include the recently defeated Australian Prime Minister John Howard and the Republicans in America, Wickremesinghe may seek some consolation from the fact that the British Conservatives are members of the IDU, and seems to be the only party making headway in electoral politics at the moment.
Jayasuriya's entre' took many within the UNP by surprise as well. At the Working Committee meeting, several contenders were vying for the slot Wickremesinghe had now opened for Jayasuriya. One of the contenders was Galle MP and one-time Public Administration Minister Vajira Abeywardene, He had got Earl Gunasekera, the businessman-MP to propose his name for the deputy leader post. There were moves in some quarters to promote Sajith Premadasa, from Hambantota and more famous as the son of the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa.
The young Premadasa seems to have unwittingly fallen into a trap when a newspaper was to ask him if he would support the re-entry of Jayasuriya, to which he said he would not only welcome it, but would support Jayasuriya's appointment as deputy leader. In the Working Committee, Dr. Ranjit Atapattu, the man credited for defeating Rajapaksa for the Beliatte seat in 1977, and a former Minister of Health congratulated Premadasa for making that statement. Premadasa may have meant well, but it put paid to his backers wanting him in that senior slot.
Premadasa came in for some criticism from the party hierarchy for not speaking in Parliament. There was a suggestion that he leads the UNP during the Budget debate. Eventually, they had to get the reluctant prince to make one speech, which he did, in English. Then, before the debate was over, he decided to fly to Hong Kong to attend some conference organised by the ex-US President Bill Clinton, to which he went after thanking former President Chandrika Kumaratunga profusely for nominating his name.
The party's joint National Organiser S.B. Dissanayake's name was also in the running, according to some reports - and himself. According to the grapevine, he had only one foot in the party. The other was firmly entrenched in the government. In other words, through their 'bilateral relations' with top government leaders, they were not only getting their favours done but also obtaining 'insurance' to climb to the top in the UNP. The fact that Jayasuriya is not that crafty a politician, and fits more into the UNP mould than S.B. Dissanayake does, was a relief to party faithful.
To some extent, the party hierarchy has also been unfair to the able politician in S.B. Dissanayake. It was he, with some others, who caused the downfall of the Kumaratunga government in 2001, and enabled the UNP to return to office after seven years, and Wickremesinghe to be the Prime Minister. He has had to fight a term in prison, and is now fighting for him to be re-enrolled on the voters register.
The UNP has however announced that he would be the party's nominee for the Chief Ministership should provincial elections be held in the Central Province, which is aimed at sending a message that the party wishes to still have him in a major role. His initial challenge seemed to be when Mangala Samaraweera left the government, and held hands with the UNP. He was seething with rage at the time. Now, Jayasuriya has come and taken the seat he was eyeing. Dissanayake was a conspicuous absentee at the Working Committee meeting.
Two Working Committee members, Dayasiri Jayasekera and Ravi Samaraweera, were strongly opposed to senior posts being given to those who left the party. There were some, who were grumbling in the corridors. But it was long time UNP member, and former Education Minister Karunasena Kodituwakku who finally wrapped up the general consensus by saying that the leader (Wickremesinghe) is not going to do anything to harm the party, and cited the example of Gamini Dissanayake who left the party, and returned eventually to even lead the party. With that, the Working Committee adopted the new appointees, Rukman Senanayake who has publicly offered his post to the party, to be the assistant leader, which makes him into the third senior-most post of the party, followed by Jayawickrama Perera as Chairman.
Asked what his priorities would be, Jayasuriya told The Sunday Times, "we have to do all we can to take away a blackmark that has been forced on us. Though we do not carry labels, medals or boast that we are Deshapremis or Jathi Hitaishis, we love our country, nonetheless. Hence, it is wrong to brand us as LTTE sympathisers. This was a cunning ploy to muddy our image". He said there has been a large volume of adverse propaganda against the UNP, and this needed to be rectified.
No doubt, the stigma of the government campaign of UNP's reported leanings towards the LTTE has hurt its psyche. So much so, its members are leaning one over the other to correct it, sometimes taking up contradictory positions. One issue that is still reverberating is the purported move by the government to stop the ongoing military campaign and announce a ceasefire.
It was just a week ago, some UNP parliamentarians, misguided by their lack of knowledge in current affairs, screamed that a ceasefire is to come into effect under an Indian guarantee. An Indian guarantee that the LTTE would honour a ceasefire would never be forthcoming. However, this week Wickremesinghe told a news conference his party was not opposed to a ceasefire and that a settlement to the ethnic issue would have to be a political one. It is exactly this approach that the government is able to translate into that of being LTTE sympathisers. At the convention, the party then tried to make the on-going fight with the LTTE a non-issue. That is like saying' what you don't see is not happening'. You just cannot make the elimination of the LTTE a non-issue and win the votes of the majority Sinhala constituency.
Jayasuriya said there would soon be a membership drive at the grassroots level. "We will go from village to village, town to town, explaining our position to the people". He said the UNP would also educate the public on the worsening economic situation that could be further aggravated by the global economic meltdown.
The re-instated UNP deputy leader praised the government's military campaign against Tiger guerrillas. "There is massive support for the government throughout the country for this," he said, but added, "the mounting cost of living has become a major issue too." Jayasuriya warned that "all our efforts will have to be prioritised bearing in mind that there would be a snap election. There will only be short notice of this."
Though Jayasuriya's exit from the government may have rattled Rajapaksa to some extent, its impact will not be felt so much as it has correspondingly made to the UNP. One can say that Jayasuriya is a big fish in a small opposition pond, but was a small fish in a big government pond. Jayasuriya's assertions to this newspaper, about the 'war', the popularity of the government because of its stance on the fight against the LTTE, the soaring cost-of-living becoming an issue, and the warning to be prepared for a snap election at short notice should be considered as some 'inside information' from the government, even though it is not exactly startling revelations. But it seem to underscore at least some of the realities confronting the UNP. Quite clearly these issues will find a place in the UNP as it too gears for a snap election in the coming year.
In the meantime, Rajapaksa met Wickremesinghe to discuss the 17th Amendment to the Constitution, upon an ultimatum given by Chief Justice Sarath N. Silva to re-activate this dormant piece of constitutional legislation. The meeting was cordial, but Rajapaksa was clearly like the lamb taken to slaughter on the matter. He is quite clearly unhappy with having to give up what he thinks are 'his' powers which his predecessor in office 'gave away'. This is not quite the position, because the 17th Amendment was a historic piece of bi-partisanship in Parliament which approved the law unanimously, with Rajapaksa being a legislator in that very Parliament.
The two of them, Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe, flanked by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake agreed to set in motion the preliminary work in having the Constitutional Council reactivated, which in turn would appoint the different independent Commissions, as well as the next batch of appellate court judges, which has already become a bone of contention in the judiciary. It was soon after meeting with Rajapaksa, that Wickremasinghe met Jayasuriya at 'Siri Kotha'.
Jayasuriya's trusted private secretary Ranjan Bandara however remained with the government, and was kept as private secretary to the next Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs, which Ministry Rajapaksa took over immediately after Jayasuriya's resignation. Bandara, a popular public relations specialist was Jayasuriya's right-hand man say those who are in the know. That was the consolation prize that went to Rajapaksa in a week where the UNP won a rare victory.
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