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Is the honeymoon over, or is this the sign of a coming estrangement? Who can really tell in this whirligig of Sri Lankan politics, especially when our own Ides of March is only a few months away?

That is, of course, if the presidential election is held as the Constitution stipulates and Ranil Wickremesinghe has managed to keep the Rajapaksa ‘chinaman’ from rattling his stumps with a parliamentary election first.

Last week, the SLPP or pohottuwa’s leading light, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, took a frontal shot at President Ranil Wickremesinghe and his globe-trotting cabal, who seem to have the assent to see the world at public expense before the sun sets on this neoliberal oligarchy.

“The government’s plans to sell off certain national assets and state-owned enterprises have given rise to discontent among trade unions, political parties, and the public. The present divestiture drive is ostensibly aimed at minimising government expenditure on loss-making state-owned enterprises and meeting certain IMF conditions in that regard,” said the former president.

With the presidential elections not too far away—if all goes well that is—the SLPP leader fired the warning salvo, knowing only too well that the man whom he helped install in power when brother Gotabaya fell and fled, still needs the pohottuwa’s parliamentary support to pass several pieces of legislation in the next couple of months.

He drove the knife straight into the over-eager UNP rib cage, saying that they must remember that Wickremesinghe is only holding on to the drawbridge temporarily to complete Gotabaya’s unfinished term, and Wickremesinghe is not an elected president with a mandate to do as he wishes, as many experts and observers have been saying for a couple of years.

But that was not all. When Rajapaksa spoke of public discontent at the Wickremesinghe administration’s hurried moves to dispense with some state-owned enterprises, including a few profit-making ventures, he was warning that Wickremesinghe as a presidential candidate might not secure the pohottuwa votes—whatever there is left of it—unless he puts the brakes on his salesmanship.

As though Rajapaksa’s warning that this must await the next government duly elected by the people was not a sufficient admonition, there was some vicious bowling on a turning wicket from the other end as the SJB-led opposition tore into Wickremesinghe’s brittle batting.

Even SJB MP Harsha de Silva, who is more inclined to join hands with his one-time leader Ranil W when it comes to economic thinking, was quickly undoing ‘Alas Alles’ with a wrong ‘un over the visa contract fiasco.

Not that Harsha de Silva has not directed harsh criticisms at the manner in which the government has handled post-IMF bailout negotiations, particularly with regard to debt restructuring with international lenders, the Central Bank’s messing up of the EPF after promising the EPF would not be touched, and other domestic repercussions that have seriously affected millions of Sri Lankans struggling to survive.

But what has obviously aroused his ire in recent days is the audacity and arrogance of two public officials—the secretary to the Ministry of Public Security and the Controller-General of Immigration and  Emigration—who ignored the summons to them to appear before the parliamentary Committee on Public Finance (COPF) chaired by him in connection with the unsolicited agreement entered into with a private contractor to take over the responsibility of clearing visas for visiting tourists and others at a cost far in excess of what the Sri Lanka government was already charging them.

When this issue burst into the limelight one evening at the BIA with loud protests from a Sri Lankan traveller, Minister Tiran Alles, who was apparently away in Singapore, rose to the defence of the deal, claiming that the contract had been agreed to by the Cabinet and Parliament.

Given the quality—never mind the quantity—of those who make up the Cabinet and Parliament, that is hardly a justification for what has transpired as a dubious deal.

Naturally, it caused more digging into the background of this curious affair with Harsha de Silva quite rightly asking what happened to the $200m the contractor IVS-GBS was said to have invested to get the project off the ground.

It was to examine the details of this contract that the secretary to the Ministry of Public Security and the Controller-General of Immigration and Emigration were summoned to the CoPF meeting, which they dodged either because they thought they were beyond questioning or on the instructions of their political masters.

At least one of these officials, the Controller-General of Immigration, I.S.H.J. Ilukpitiya’s unsavoury conduct as a public official, has already been critically commented on by the Supreme Court bench that unseated Diana Gamage from parliament.

Perhaps the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, which has unearthed so many sordid deals by rulers of countries, other politicians, public officials, and crooked business persons, will be able to tell us—if there is anything to be told—in the next issue of the Pandora Papers.

While this visa deal, which curiously bypassed even Tourism Minister Harin Fernando, whose parish it was and should have been consulted but was seemingly not, will remain quite a blot on the Wickremesinghe government escutcheon, as the two-pronged pincer movement from within the governing alliance and without, continues to draw blood.

That is not all. All eyes—political and civil society—are peeled at the activities of the government aimed at using state resources to try and strengthen its position with the voters, which could be considered a misuse and abuse of state power.

It was not too long ago that the government decided to distribute 10 kilos of rice per family in the hope that such generosity would turn millions of disgusted people in its favour.

Those who have followed the history of parliamentary politics in Ceylon/Sri Lanka would well remember that such tricks have been tried before. It might have had partial success then, with some grateful voters succumbing.

But today politicians are confronted with a much more astute and alert populace, more conscious of political gimmickry and the dirty tricks of politicians they would like ousted, hopefully forever.

Last week, Transport and Mass Media Minister Bandula Gunawardena, whose current political party could be anything, was at Maharagama doing what he does best—talking rubbish and trying to convert some CTB employees into convinced supporters of this part-time government.

And what was he doing with months to go for the elections? Handing out letters that converted some 1600 temporary employees first appointed in 2018 into permanent employees. Not only that, he boasts that this is the first time in the history of the CTB that it has happened. So what was he doing all this time until elections seemed to be around the corner?

Some weeks earlier, President Wickremesinghe was handing over certificates of employment to 2100 Grama Sevake officers and still earlier land ownership deeds to many more residents in the Mahaweli region.

That is not to mention the vehicle permits to be issued to former public servants and judicial officers.

It is surely interesting that this largesse at the expense of the state is being provided by a government due to face elections in a couple of months while state enterprises are up for sale, blaming the IMF, which never proposed the sale of these ventures but only restructuring them with competent management and strategic planning, not divesting them.

Meanwhile, President Wickremesinghe is once again on his global travels, this time once more in Bali, Indonesia, where he is probably enjoying nasi goreng and rendang. Somebody told me he was looking for an international placement.

I doubt it. He must surely want to see Sri Lanka rise from the ashes after all the burning that went on in those Junius Richard years which I was witness to from the very first day on 25th July 1982.

(Neville de Silva is a veteran Sri Lankan journalist who was Assistant Editor of the Hong Kong Standard and worked for Gemini News Service in London. Later, he was Deputy Chief-of-Mission in Bangkok and Deputy High Commissioner in London.)