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No one party will dominate our new alliance: Weerawansa
View(s):By Sandun Jayawardana
A group of former coalition partners of the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) will launch a new seven party alliance today (4). The alliance will pose a formidable challenge to other parties as it will be “different from traditional politics and is centred on policies and visions rather than individuals,” former minister Wimal Weerawansa told the Sunday Times in an interview.
National Freedom Front (NFF) leader, Mr Weerawansa has already been revealed as the leader of the new alliance, whose name will be announced at today’s launch. 
The alliance will initially comprise the NFF, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya, Democratic Left Front, Communist Party of Sri Lanka, Lanka Sama Samaja Party, Yuthukama National Organisation and the Vijaya Dharani Jathika Sabhawa.
“We believe a sizable section of the population has not picked a political camp yet. These alliances are usually formed closer to elections, but we chose to break that tradition by forming this alliance now and build our network from the village level,” he explained.
No party will dominate the new alliance as each party will have equal representation, from its Executive Council down to village level branches. No one will take decisions arbitrarily and each decision will be discussed and will be taken unanimously or with the consent of the majority, the MP said.
Mr Weerawansa does not believe there will be a snap general election soon as it would require a resolution to dissolve Parliament to be approved with a 2/3 majority or for the President to dissolve Parliament in March next year at the end of 2 ½ years of its term. “An election will only come if a conflict develops between the SLPP and the President. The SLPP is the party that currently fears an election the most, so I highly doubt they will adopt a confrontational attitude that would push the President to take such a decision.”
Mr Weerawansa and his coalition partners left the government in April this year not long after former President Gotabaya Rajapaksa sacked him and former Minister Udaya Gammanpila after the duo severely criticised then Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa in public.
“Gotabaya Rajapaksa became a prisoner of his family,” Mr Weerawansa said when asked where he thought the former President went wrong. Gotabaya had no experience in politics so he became increasingly reliant on Basil Rajapaksa when taking decisions. The President was also “taken hostage” by his Secretary Dr P.B. Jayasundara, which prevented him from seeing the economic disaster that was about to befall the nation, the NFF
leader claimed.
Mr Rajapaksa was also hoping to spend his retirement peacefully in the US with his children and grandchildren, and his decision-making was clouded by his reluctance to take any action that he feared would open him up to criticism from them. “This was why he allowed protesters to keep occupying the main gate of the Presidential Secretariat. As far as I’m concerned, this was a spineless decision. I’m not saying to remove them from Galle Face, but he should have certainly cleared the gate and allowed the President’s office to function as normal.”
Mr Weerawansa and his coalition partners chose to abstain from voting at Friday’s vote on the second reading of President and Finance Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s interim budget. “Ideally, the crisis should be treated as an opportunity to improve our industries and devise ways to attract foreign exchange here and prevent foreign exchange from unnecessarily going out. But I don’t see that reflected in this interim budget.”
Regarding Sri Lanka approaching the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Mr Weerawansa said whether Sri Lanka receives the USD 2.9 billion as per the staff level agreement would depend heavily on whether China agrees to restructure the country’s debt.
The Yahapalana government is the main culprit behind the economic crisis as it was responsible for taking out 80% of commercial loans that the country now has to repay, the MP insisted. The Gotabaya Rajapaksa administration though, is culpable in that it failed to foresee that a crisis was coming.
“Whenever we tried to bring this situation up, they shut us down saying there was no crisis. P.B. Jayasundara would say there was no problem and the President would believe him. I remember Basil Rajapaksa once telling the Cabinet that there was no foreign exchange crisis and that it was only a small matter created by some money changers. He claimed he would resolve it in a week. We knew he was lying but many others in the Cabinet believed him since they worshiped him as their saviour,” he recounted.
“If they had acted earlier, the effects would not have been as severe as they have been.”
Though it ultimately cost some of them their Cabinet posts, Mr Weerawansa said the coalition partners often acted against actions which they felt were against the national interests, citing their opposition to sections of the 20th Amendment, the East Container Terminal (ECT) agreement and the New Fortress Energy agreement as examples.
“We did our duty. We certainly have no regrets,” he stressed.
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