CBK-Mahinda battle: D-day today
By Our Political Editor

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga meets with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at Zhongnanhai in Beijing.

President Chandrika Kumaratunga may have wished she did not have to undertake her state visit to China this week, but two things would have propelled her to do so under the circumstances. Afterall, she had planned her state visit with her former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, and now he was no more, felled by an LTTE sniper's bullet. And then, there was all this political turmoil within her party. The rats deserting the sinking ship of state and jumping on to the new vessel launched.

And yet the compulsion to go was there. China was a long-standing friend of Sri Lanka, whose friendship was written on stone during the time of her mother and Mao-Chou-en-Lai. More currently, arguably her closest business buddy, Harry Stassen Jayawardene was going to clinch yet another major contract when she signed the Norochcholai power project deal, among the other agreements she signed with the Chinese government.

On the eve of her departure to China last Saturday, President Kumaratunga was in no happy mood. The Supreme Court had stripped her of her wish to stay in office - to serve the people - for another year. She had attended a cultural show and a reception, and then began holding discussions with her political allies, or what rump is left with her. Some of them were already with one foot in the camp of the next presidential hopeful Mahinda Rajapakse, much to her displeasure.

Deputy Ministers Mahindanda Aluthgamage, Dilan Perera and Arjuna Ranatunga had dropped in, and quickly dropped out. The topic of discussion was the situation in the event the Prime Minister becomes the President.

That same day, Mahinda Rajapakse had summoned a meeting of state media bosses (referred to in our column last week), and the President, still the Media Minister, had sabotaged it by asking the bosses not to attend. Deputy Media Minister Dilan Perera said he was not attending, and Ministry Secretary W.B. Ganegala echoed the same stand.

SLFP Secretary Maithripala Sirisena was with the President, when Kumaratunga got hold of her former Media Minister and erstwhile absolute loyalist Mangala Samaraweera on his mobile phone. She started berating the poor chap. She said something like, "You said you won't give your support to Mahinda Rajapakse. Now your heading his list of backers. Can't you see the contradiction?", she went on.

The conversation then proceeded on something of these lines;
Samaraweera: But, you are the one who made him the Prime Minister. You are the one who made him our Presidential candidate.

Kumaratunga: You are the one who put it into Lakshman Kadirgamar's head that he can be the Prime Minister.
Samaraweera: No, no, but, Madame....

Kumaratunga: My dream was the P-TOMS. You supported the JVP. Otherwise, the JVP would not have left the government....
Taken aback by the President's remarks, Samaraweera was probably feeling miserable, accused virtually of being an unfaithful friend and companion. But at the President's House, the Aluthgamage-Perera-Ranatunga trio had turned up once again. They were in a merry mood and stayed on till 5 a.m. The issue at hand was how to stop the JVP returning to the now shattered UPFA coalition, and backing Mahinda Rajapakse's candidature.

On Monday this week, around 6 p.m., some misguided elements organized a grenade to be lobbed at the office of the Tamil language daily, Sudar Oli. Many suspected this to be the work of a one-time Tamil rebel group, engaged in a long drawn tit-for-tat under cover encounter with the LTTE.
Deputy Media Minister Dilan Perera was quick to react. He straightaway - within two hours - named the culprits. According to super sleuth Dilan Perera, it was the work of a southern political party. The innuendo was clear; it was the handiwork of the JVP. He pointed his accusing finger straight at them. This was aired over state television.

JVP's fiery propaganda secretary Wimal Weerawansa was then addressing a rally at Tangalle, in the electorate of Mahinda Rajapakse. Sirasa, a TV channel owned by the anti-JVP Maharajah Organisation, asked Weerawansa for a comment on the grenade attack, and the Dilan Perera accusation.

Weerawansa took the opportunity to berate the government, its media and all those who accused the JVP of such a criminal act. Quickly, Dilan Perera changed his tune. He said the attack was the work of pro-UNP conspirators, and those who are taking to communal politics by trying to isolate the minorities.

Not to be outdone, Mangala Samaraweera also issued a statement. He condemned the attack saying it was the work of pro-UNP factions and NGO cliques. The Police of course, are not as fast as these politicians. They have yet to say who was behind the attack, nor have they caught any culprits.

As the internal dispute within the SLFP rose to a crescendo, Kumaratunga's attention had not been diverted despite the fact that she was performing her state duties in China. She sent for Dilan Perera. He left for Beijing on August 30 where he was to discuss the domestic political situation. It is unlikely that the SLFP paid for the ticket, though.
Now briefed, Dilan Perera was to return and ensure that an urgent meeting of the SLFP's Executive Committee be summoned for today. This meeting was to be an un-scheduled precursor to the party's Tuesday convention, where Mahinda Rajapakse's candidature for the Presidency was to be formally endorsed.

Political speculators were quick to believe that Kumaratunga was to announce the dissolution of Parliament, and the holding of a general election to pre-empt a Mahinda Rajapakse victory. Party insiders call this speculation a canard spread by UNPers, and lacking in logic because for one thing, even if Parliament is dissolved now, an election will be held only after the Presidential election in accordance to the electoral time-table for nominations etc.

The more realistic position is that the party will discuss the future of the party vis-à-vis the JVP, now the bete-noir of Kumaratunga. What might be proposed by the pro-Kumaratunga faction is a resolution to be adopted opposing any future tie-up with the JVP. One can bet, the pro-Mahinda Rajapakse faction is not going to take that lying down, and unless the Kumaratunga faction wants egg on its face, the odds are that they might re-consider the move. For that reason, today's SLFP Executive Committee meeting will be worth a watch.

Anticipating Kumaratunga to move in this fashion, the Mahinda Rajapakse camp was equal to the task. They moved swiftly to strike a deal with the JVP. The JVP, on the other hand, were willing partners. Unlike the Kumaratunga-JVP marriage, which was essentially brokered and a marriage of convenience, this was a love match.

Though indeed it was not the case when the UPFA was formed back in the latter part of 2002. At that time, and when the first signs of a rocky relationship emerged with the JVP calling her all types of names, Mahinda Rajapakse had told Kumaratunga "ihtin mama epa kiyanokota, egollo ekka magul kewa ne" - or so much as to say that despite his advise not to form a coalition with the JVP, until the SLFP became a strong grassroots organisation once again, she proceeded to do so.

In the past fortnight or so, the JVP and Rajapakse have been having three rounds of talks on future co-operation. Rajapakse desparately needs the JVP's grassroots organisation and mass mobilisation capabilities. The SLFP's organisational machinery has just about collapsed over the years. And the JVP, is quite desperate to ensure that the UNP does not return to office.

The two sides engaged in some cosmetic 'you write to us; we will respond' kind of approach. The JVP said that they had some demands to make. The UNP, watching this from the sidelines, issued a statement calling all this a "teledrama".

But at 10.30 pm on August 31, while Dilan Perera and President Kumaratunga were mapping out a strategy to frustrate a JVP- Rajapakse marriage, in far away Beijing, at 'Temple Trees ' in Colombo, the JVP- Rajapakse marriage took place.

The two sides reached agreement after Rajapakse had returned from attending the weekly cabinet meeting and the wedding of the son of a lawyer colleague. In attendance were the SLFP front-liners, secretary Maithripala Sirisena, Ministers Susil Premajanth, Mangala Samaraweera and Nimal Siripala de Silva together with the Prime Minister. The JVP was also in full force with Secretary Tilvin Silva, Wimal Weerawansa, Nandana Gunathillake and Anura Kumar Dissanayake.

During these discussions, the JVP had given the PM a memorandum with some tough asks. There were 12 demands in all. The Premier had flatly told them that he could not accede to some of these demands. On the other crucial issues like the CFA (Ceasefire Agreement), the P-TOMS ( Post-Tsunami Operations Management Structure ) and ISGA (Interim Self-Governing Authority), all connected with the northern insurgency, the PM had yielded some concessions to the JVP's demands. So far, neither side has made the agreement known, publicly.

During the discussions that night, Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva had urged that whatever the now engaged to be married couple did, they should not offend Kumaratunga. At which point, Tilvin Silva responded by saying that when Kumaratunga took over from her mother, Sirimavo Bandaranaike in 1994, the SLFP was a different party to what it had become now.

He pointed out that it was Kumaratunga who changed the SLFP's long-time approach to national politics by promoting federalism, and issues like that. Equally, he said, Kumaratunga must now give a free hand to her successor Rajapakse to take his party in the direction that he so wished.
The date for signing on the dotted line was to follow, but the two sides were happy that they could now focus on defeating the otherwise formidable challenge for the Presidency by the UNP.

In the meantime, Kumaratunga was coming under a lot of flak for her messy handling of the Norwegians in the peace process. Her ex-Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar had also been deeply disappointed by the Norwegian role, and also of his President dealing with them with kid-gloves.

Kadirgamar's assassination saw veiled accusations being made at Kumaratunga for sidelining him in the latter months, and then the state media under herself and Deputy Minister Dilan Perera clumsily handling the news of his murder by airing programmes that glorified the peace process.
Anti-Kumaratunga elements were even saying that her closest officials, Harim Peiris, Eric Fernando, Tara de Mel and the like, even her son Vimukthi did not attend Kadirgamar's funeral.

Kumaratunga seems to have reacted to this criticism. She has decided to take a much tougher stance towards Norway all-of-a-sudden. So much so, that Norwegian Ambassador in Colombo Hans Bratskaar seemed a troubled man these past few days. He so much as made that quite clear during the course of conversation with Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva this week.

He asked the minister why the government was having the Foreign Ministry lobby France and Germany, and through them the European Union (EU) to get the LTTE banned in Europe. The issue of child-soldiers of the LTTE and the transfer of funds had been issues the government had raised with these countries. (And Norway wonders why the people of the south consider them biased!). He had asked why the peace process was on the back-burner now.

Minister de Siva had explained the pressure on Kumaratunga in the aftermath of the Kadirgamar assassination, which explained the government's insistence that the resumption of peace talks must be in Colombo, and not in either Oslo or Kilinochchi. And this may give an insight into the context in which the government has now asked the UN to get more engaged in the Sri Lanka peace process.

In the meantime, all eyes will be on today's SLFP Executive Committee meeting. The UNP will be comfortably watching from the ring-side as the Kumaratunga-Rajapakse contest takes place and quite upbeat by the fact that the President is keener on fighting the JVP than the UNP.

But out on the streets at least, every lamp-post and every parapet wall has gone to Rajapakse banners and posters. In the south, the JVP has plastered public places with a new set of Lakshman Kadirgamar posters. The new Kumaratunga initiative to oust the Norwegians, at least sideways, is going to cause some concern in the LTTE camp, and the UNP will need to weigh the options as both parties go into the heat of political battle.

Back to Top

Back to Columns

Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.