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In ordinary times, local government elections elicit about as much excitement as a donkey race would rouse at Royal Ascot. This year’s scheduled polls would have been held and the elected declared councillors with the general public only taking a passing interest in its outcome as in years past. It is the lowest level of government and in terms of public interest comes way down the line as evidenced by its low voter turnout.

MAHINDA RAJAPAKSA: He couldn't have done this 13 months ago. Or dared to do so. Not whilst wearing the crown for fear of losing it. But now, having lost it even whilst standing up, people deposed former president Rajapaksa has taken to adopting the topsy-turvy yogic posture to reflect upon an animus horrible or horrible year that turned his whole world upside down and his life inside out. The former strongman, photographed by his son and carried in his Facebook, is seen here with his personal yoga trainer going through the daily exercise routine to gain Mens sana in corpore sano, a healthy mind in a healthy body.

But with the Government’s decision to abolish the 38-year-old constitution without there being a public clamour to do away with it totally; and to bring in a new constitution attendant as it will be with controversial Articles, the forthcoming local government polls to elect members to the municipality, urban councils and pradeshiya sabhas have suddenly leap frogged from being a drab parochial exercise to one on par with a general election.

Pedestrian polls of this nature are barometers of general public opinion which help the government to assess its performance. But this one comes amidst gales of controversies involving emotive issues such as race relations and unitary nature of sovereign Lanka and its results will have far reaching consequences that may adversely impact the continuance of the national government itself.

The scheduled local government polls have provided a timely contest for the Rajapaksa rebels to issue threats to split the SLFP and go alone as a separate party. The proposed constitution has provided a timely contentious topic of national importance that will commandeer the interest of the masses. Public support will transcend partisan politics and will be largely based on national interest. And all have arisen together to further strengthen the power broking hand of Mahinda Rajapaksa who suddenly finds himself in the limelight, again at the centre of attention and elevated in importance, as if the nation’s future fate depended on his sole decision.

The question is whether the foray to impose a new constitution in the midst of a election that will now be contested at fever pitch level, will serve as a catalyst to rip the SLFP apart; and whether the ghosts of the recent past will rise from their sepulchres to haunt the public domain and create pandemonium in the land again?

Instead of pastoral discussion as to the performance of the present members responsible for roads, drains and sewage, public toilets, public libraries and public parks in urban and rural Lanka taking place at small halls, fiery arguments will soon explode on political platforms concentrating on volatile national issues and place the government on a hot tin roof not even six months of coming to power.

Almost as if inexorably drawn by the yoke of fate to keep its tryst with a terrible calamity, the Government has chosen to open Pandora’s Box at the present hour; and, at the risk of its own credible existence, release many political pestilences, including internecine war within its own ranks, highly charged reactions to the proposed new constitution’s fare, chauvinistic and racist babble concerning minority rights and the havoc that federalism’s brooding phantom can inflict when raised by trouble making goblins lurking in the shadows. If that was not bad enough to threaten the newly bloomed yahapalanaya with blight and nip the aspirations of millions in the bud, the dicey act also set free the bottled hopes of Mahinda Rajapaksa to muddy the field and swagger upon it as the uncrowned king of the land.

Suddenly the lull that prevailed in the aftermath of the August general elections when the realisation dawned that Mahinda Rajapaksa had played his last trump and lost, that the audacious gamble had reduced him to being just another member out of the 225 in Parliament forced to play second fiddle out of tune to Maithripala’s conductor baton, seems to have ended.
The monsoon has set in long before its seasonal time and the self brewed storm is about to break upon the land just as the government is still sowing the seeds of yahapalanaya on its furrowed broad acres. And the newly elected MP from the Kurunegala District will thank providence for giving him another chance to shoot the moon and resume a powerful role that befits his erstwhile status as a twice elected president of Lanka.

Already his crony army of sycophants and opportunists are out in full force touting the formation of a new party under his leadership. Already the word in the street is that a large number of SLFP MPs are poised to break away from the SLFP and join this new outfit if their Patron Saint Mahinda accepts the leadership proffered to him on bended knees. Already the faithful are saying their Hail Mahindas from the Rajapaksa rosary and are prophesying the SLFP will be doomed unless the savant makes his third advent.

Some 100 out of the total 137 former local government members belonging to the SLFP in the Anuradhapura district meet in Anuradhapura on Wednesday and announce their decision to contest the forthcoming Local Government election from a new political front led by him. But in Colombo on the same day, UPFA Colombo District MP Bandula Gunawardena tells reporters at a media briefing that the Joint Opposition in Parliament has still not made a final decision on forming a new political party to contest the 2016 LG polls.

Social Welfare Minister S. B. Dissanayake, batting for both sides, adds his own titbits to the speculation whether the man would split or stay by affirming his conviction that President Sirisena will lead the campaign as the Chairman of the SLFP-led UPFA and that former Presidents Rajapaksa and Kumaratunga have expressed their backing for the campaign.

And to further perpetuate the myth of the Mahinda mystique, a group of Rajapaksa acolytes predict the apocalypse of the SLFP on that ‘coming great and awesome day’ of the local government elections and warn that only those members who call on the name of their former lord saviour will be saved.

And what does the man in question, the saviour of the blood sucking parasitic mites whose fulsome flattery gave him his mange, have to say? What happens when the secret suitor becomes publicly wooed? This time round, too, will he do what he did last time when saying he ‘will never consent to contest, consented and contested’?

Of course, he will not be contesting in the local government polls. This time the whole exercise is to show that he is indispensable to the party’s success and survival. The aim is to convey the message that Rajapaksa in exile is as potent as Rajapaksa in power. The mission is to manoeuvre himself to a position where, akin to the manner he arrogated sole credit for defeating the Tigers; he can seize all the kudos for defeating the UNP and deny Maithripala even an iota of it. See how it’s done.

Now just when you thought it was safe to return to the village temples and attend to your religious practices in peace and quiet and experiences the blissful serenity of its Bo tree adorned environment, news comes that Mahinda has resumed his pre-general-elections ritual observed last year of visiting Buddhist temples and giving political speeches to his assembled supporters garbed in temple clothing for the benefit of the media’s TV cameras to capture the charade and beam the ‘reality show’ to millions of homes at prime time.

The latest temple he visited to re-enact the familiar scene was Sudharshanaramaya in Bandaragama. There, in the manner that Buddhist devotees worship and pay homage to the Twenty Eight Buddha statues lined in a row, Mahinda Rajapaksa and his retinue first filed past a long table draped in red satin, paying homage to the framed photographs of SLFP leaders and stalwarts that were placed on it, beginning with SLFP’s first founder leader SWRD Bandaranaike followed by Mrs Bandaranaike. Then after attending the alms giving, he meets the media and in response to a question as to whether he will be the leader of the new party or whether Gotabhaya Rajapaksa will lead it, he replies, “Who is saying it. It’s the media creating these stories,” and deftly dodges the question.

It’s the same feign-to-hide and let-others-pretend-to-seek-him ploy he played before the general elections to create the impression of one reluctant to accede to the party’s demand to lead them once again but compelled to bow down in the end to the people’s wishes and become their saviour and protector in the nation’s interest. It may have been a novelty then but isn’t the well worn act thinning out now?

Being the shrewd politician he is, 70-year-old Mahinda is no fool to think that even his own much hyped charisma would spell success to a vagabond breakaway group of the SLFP joining the ragamuffin joint opposition under his corruption besmirched leadership. That would be to leave his stronghold, the SLFP, and plunge over the precipice.

But for a man who has no more cards to play to ward off judgement day, only the threat to commit hara-kiri by splitting the SLFP belly, and leaving its entrails on the polling field free for the UNP to walkover, remains in his spent pack of Jacks.

The short-term return for his support to back the SLFP along with his coterie still on his long golden leash, and his position as the new power broker may, at best, secure a ruling from the AG’s department that there is insufficient evidence to prove his and his family’s alleged mega corruption in court and thus ensure a permanent halt to the investigations. At worst it may clinch a deal to delay the probes until the next general elections scheduled to be held five years hence.

In that regard his expressed purpose of re-entering the political fray to save his family as revealed by him in an interview with India’s Hindu newspaper in March last year when he said that he had been angered by the actions taken by President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and that “If they didn’t, I would have just supported this government. But now they want to probe, put us in jail, take our passports without any evidence. How can I retire like this?” would have been fulfilled. He would then be free to retire to his ancestral Medamulana and enjoy his presidential pension with that heavenly peace of mind no billions of dollars can buy for any man.

But such a road of roses is for the indolent. Not for Mahinda. For him, nothing but the Calvary. Politics is the lifeblood of his master spirit. The upshot he craves most is all or nothing. Perhaps it is due to a congenital defect in his mindset but the former President Mahinda Rajapaksa still seems unable to see anything beyond power; and, more importantly, his own return to its purple seat.

It is when he speaks of the proposed new constitution that his dedication to seek the Grail of power becomes patently clear. He sees in the proposed constitution not what is good or bad in it for the nation but how its speedy promulgation can be put to good use to further his own ambition to have another crack of the whip, be it fair or be it foul.

President Sirisena promised last week to have the new constitution in force within a year. The executive presidency will be thrown overboard along with the old constitution and executive power will be vested in the office of the prime minister. Mahinda Rajapaksa who is disqualified to contest for the executive presidency will be overjoyed to see it abolished. He will then be free to contest for the post of executive prime minister and thus assume de facto executive presidency powers. Of course there will be checks and balances to contain the exercise of prime ministerial powers. But then no rule book has still been formulated that will restrain a past master from pursuing his own agenda. For Mahinda Rajapaksa plays the player, not the game. But he will have to wait till the next general elections scheduled to be held only in 2020. Then he will be 75. Can he wait that long?

Apart from issuing his academically prepared opinion of the new constitution which indeed contains some noteworthy recommendations, Rajapaksa urged last Sunday that once the constitution is promulgated, a general election should be held immediately to elect a new government. Why?

If it is to seek the people’s approval of the new constitution, it would have already been sought and obtained through the mandatory referendum. Neither Mrs. Bandaranaike’s 1972 constitution nor J. R. Jayewardene’s 1978 constitution was followed by another general election. The mandate to change the existing one was obtained earlier with Mrs. B coming to power with a two thirds majority and JR coming to a power with a five sixth majority in Parliament. A constitution once ratified with a referendum prior to its promulgation doesn’t need to be ratified by a general election. For a twice elected president to babble such absurdities, reveals his impatience in seizing the reins of power and this should put Maithripala on his guard.

Maithripala Sirisena should call the joint opposition bluff for it is unlikely that Rajapaksa will ever carry out his self defeating threat to split the party. Though it is well known that Maithripala does not wish to be remembered as the SLFP party chairman who presided over the liquidation of the party by causing it to split, he should also not forget the sacrifices made by those in the civil rights movements who braved the Rajapaksa bayonets with Venerable Sobitha Thera at its helm to answer the call to boot out the corrupt Rajapaksa regime and instead dawn a maithree era of ‘real change’ based on the yahapalana pillars of democracy. Neither should he ignore the millions who, despite the threats, despite the inducements offered, despite the propaganda blitzkrieg still stayed committed and cast their ballots to realise the aspirations they held in their hearts.

Far better for him to go down in the annals of the SLFP as the man who ruined his party, rather than go down in history as the man who ruined his country.