The Political Column

7th February 1999

Wayamba PC to be dissolved?

By our Political Correspondent

In the face of an unprecedented controversy over the "non-election" or "non-victory" in Wayamba a clearly beleaguered President Kumaratunga on Wednesday appointed a committee to probe the high incidence of violence and polls rigging at the elections.

The President's decision came after a meeting with senior ministers, during which she launched a severe onslaught on several key ministers for their conduct in Wayamba.

She stressed they should take steps to dissolve the council and hold fresh elections in a bid to restore the credibility and reputation of the party. "Our image has been shattered by these unscrupulous riggings of polls," she lamented.

The President told the ministers that opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, helped by his relatives who own newspapers and TV channels, was carrying out a vigorous personal campaign against her. "During the past four years, not a single SLFPer could produce a national newspaper to support the government's cause. My uncle who is having a newspaper is also supporting Ranil Wickremesinghe," she said.

The President was critical of a government-owned newspaper. She implied that it had little public appeal. Referring to a state-controlled media institution, she said it was full of domestic servants and cronies of some ministers. Mangala is doing a good job to revive this. But he also feels he cannot do much to improve this institution," she added.

Some ministers who saw that the President was deeply disturbed by the body blow to the government's image, proposed the appointment of a commission to probe the polls rigging at Wayamba. One minister said it need not necessarily be a Presidential Commission, while another proposed a "committee comprising ministers". Some names were proposed by ministers, but the President was not happy with them.

She said she would ponder over it more and appoint suitable people.

Some ministers apparently tried to whitewash the scandal at Wayamba by passing much of the blame to the UNP.

One minister spoke of the massive vote rigging by the UNP in the past and said that compared to it what happened at Wayamba was insignificant.

At the weekly Cabinet meeting, the President announced the decision of the Election Commissioner to hold elections to five other provincial councils on one and the same day. It is likely the government would also decide to move for the dissolution of the Southern Provincial Council so that all six would then come up for elections.

When the President entered the Cabinet room on Wednesday, her face was grim. Many ministers feared she would explode over Wayamba. "It was a shameless exercise. My name has been tarnished," she charged. "I am being blamed for all that the others have done by stuffing the ballot boxes. I am taking a decision to dissolve the provincial councils," the President threatened. "Some people advise me to dissolve the provincial councils while some others tell me to remove ministers who are found to have indulged in poll malpractices. Yet some others wanted me to go to London. I am fed up with this situation," the President told the Cabinet.

Minister D.M. Jayaratne who is also the PA General Secretary argued with the President. "Your argument is wrong. Think of what happened during the UNP regime. They were the worst kind of poll violators. They were the worst kind of people who rigged elections. Even at this election, the UNP blatantly violated the election laws".

"The poll monitors and the newspapers turned a blind eye on the UNP violations. In the circumstances, it is unfair to blame us," he said.

The President said that though some ministers came up with various stories, it was her name that was being tarnished and newspapers were carrying out a smear campaign against her. "In the campaign I can appreciate only Ratnasiri Wickremanayake who conducted himself in a gentlemanly manner," the President said.

When one minister said that people did not come for their meetings because Ratnasiri Wickremanayake was carrying out a different kind of campaign distributing coconut plants, the President told him that she knew what was going on.

Acting Minister Shanthi Premaratne told the President the people did not blame her personally, but Minister Mahinda Rajapakse contradicted this position saying he felt public opinion was building up against the government for the manner in which it held the elections. "People are blaming the President and she should be allowed to make a decision on the matter," Mr. Rajapakse said.

Minister Bertie Premalal Dissanayake said the President should dissolve the council if she felt that was necessary to settle the crisis. But the minister said the President did not have the power to do so unless the chief minister agreed and advised the governor accordingly. The President remained silent.

At this stage, Minister Mangala Samaraweera told the Cabinet ministers should be concerned as to their collective responsibility. They should not shoot their mouths off, he said, aiming his criticism at Minister Jeyaraj Fernandopulle for talking to the Lankadeepa over the Wayamba elections.

Mr. Fernandopulle told our sister newspaper that he would make a request to President Kumaratunga to annul the Wayamba elections. He said that to erase the stigma of the controversy-ridden Wayamba elections, the only option available to the government now was to cancel the polls and hold fresh elections. Mr. Samaraweera said Mr. Fernandopulle should not make statements which would embarrass the government. Though he directed his criticism at Mr. Fernandopulle, other ministers thought he was aiming at Minister Ashraff who had openly condemned the elections.

Most analysts feel Minister Fernandopulle's proposal for an annulment of the Wayamba polls has no legal basis, since nobody other than a court of law could do that through petitions. The government also cannot dissolve the provincial councils without the consent of the chief minister.

Mr. Fernandopulle contacted the Lankadeepa from Bangladesh to make his bombshell statement. Political analysts believe that Mr. Fernandopulle is reacting to a strong appeal by the Catholic Bishop of Chilaw and from the church to cancel the elections. It is known that the Catholic vote is an important factor for Mr. Fernandopulle for his political future.

It is yet not clear what the President has decided to do to restore the credibility of both the government and her Presidency. Will she take some extraordinary steps to dissolve the provincial council or stop at the committee level, perhaps hoping she could ride the storm given the Sri Lankan tendency to forget things? By indulging in acts of violence and massive-scale poll rigging, the PA has only helped the UNP to erase some of its political scars of the past.

In the Cabinet, the President also considered the paper presented by Industries Minister C.V. Gooneratne to build a new office complex. The President was obviously sarcastic when she said that she knew the objective behind it. She rejected Mr. Gooneratne's proposals. Minister Rajapakse moved to defend Mr. Gooneratne's position saying it would create hundreds of construction jobs for two years. He said that was the way the UNP provided jobs. But the President's 'no' was 'no'.

The ministers also considered a proposal by Minister M.H.M. Ashraff to allow Peace Air to operate seven charter flights from Colombo to Mecca to transport Haj pilgrims. Mr. Ashraff has proposed that while AirLanka could operate four charter flights to Mecca, Peace Air be allowed to operate seven. Peace Air is owned by Sri Lankan businessman Gamini Wettasinghe based in London and Singapore. Mr. Wettasinghe has close links with the Ratwatte family through Anushka Mediwaka, a grand-daughter of the late President William Gopallawa.

The ministers received a note from the Presidential Secretariat requesting this proposal be allowed as it was an important one. However, Minister A.H.M. Fowzie known to be at odds with Mr. Ashraff expressed his concern over the position. He said, "When we put forward something, all talk about transparency, but what about this? All his Cabinet papers are approved without a murmur."

But Mr. Ashraff did not utter a word. He left for Ampara early the next day, Independence Day, while other ministers participated in the national celebrations at Independence Square. Minister Ashraff who was scheduled to be at the Ampara Kachcheri to attend the Independence celebrations there, was two hours behind schedule.

Amidst all this confusion several Cabinet Ministers headed by Mangala Samaraweera had a special meeting to discuss the role of the private media in this whole episode. They identified some journalists of the independent media as those who were carrying out a well-orchestrated anti-government campaign. They felt the private media had been able to effectively mould public opinion and put the blame on the government for election malpractices.

The ministers decided they should devise a method to counter the move in a very subtle manner.

Later on Wednesday, Minister Samaraweera met heads of the state media including SLBC chief Janadasa Peiris. They discussed as to what action should be taken against the journalists and electronic mediamen who, in their view, were carrying out a smear campaign against the government. It was pointed out that the state media were not doing enough to defend the government in this crisis. It was decided to target journalists who were carrying out this alleged smear campaign. One way would be to invite them for TV interviews and ask embarrassing questions to expose their bias.

They also asked a senior journalist to work out other aspects of this counter-move.

It is clearly a case where politicians are judging journalists by standards prevalent to some of their own ranks. There may be the bad eggs as in any profession. But on the whole, independent journalists have demonstrated they are committed to higher values than most politicians.

Not only the journalists, even foreign diplomats were found fault with by the government for having expressed their views on the Wayamba polls. But observers recalled how the PA backed the then British envoy David Gladstone when the Premadasa regime asked him to leave the country for allegedly interferring in the local elections.

Last Tuesday the government in an urgent note to the diplomatic community has said in very specific terms that no diplomat or diplomatic mission is in a position to make an objective assessment of the facts surrounding the conduct of an election before the completion of democratic procedures. The statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the diplomatic mission is as follows:

"The Ministry wishes to express its concern over reports it has received after the recently concluded Wayamba Provincial Council election that some members of the diplomatic corps have expressed publicly their views on the conduct of the election. The Ministry has noted that other members of the diplomatic corps have refrained from doing so.

"The ministry wishes to take this opportunity to emphasise to the members of the diplomatic corps, United Nations office and specialized agencies that the making of such public statements, whether solicited or otherwise, is contrary to the well established norms of diplomatic conduct. The government of Sri Lanka accordingly regards any such public statements as may have been made as an interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.

"In any event, no diplomat or diplomatic mission accredited to Sri Lanka is in a position to make an objective assessment of the facts surrounding the conduct of an election before the completion of domestic procedures. Such procedures are judicial in nature. The Constitution of Sri Lanka and its well tried judicial system and the prevailing laws of the country provide ample scope for such inquiries to be held and for lawful orders to be made by the duly constituted authorities.

"If any diplomat or diplomatic mission wishes to make any representation on a matter which is within the recognized functions of a diplomatic mission, such representations should be made through the recognized channels available to them, namely, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka. "In this regard, the attention of all diplomatic missions, the United Nations office and Specialised Agencies accredited to Sri Lanka is drawn to the relevant provisions of the Vienna Convention relating to diplomatic relations".

The Foreign Ministry note to the diplomats is believed to have come in the wake of a US Embassy statement concerning the violence in Wayamba. It is significant that these two statements coincide with the visit of a US Assistant Secretary of State, Karl Inderfurth, to Sri Lanka this week. Mr. Inderfurth will meet senior government officials and others to discuss a range of issues including trade and investment matters.

As the government staggered on a bad wicket at Wayamba, the UNP working committee met on Monday with party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe in the chair. He said the magnitude of the PA violence and thuggery at Wayamba was now clear and effective steps must be taken to prevent polls rigging in the future.

He outlined several measures. Firstly, Mr. Wickremesinghe said it would be possible to seek redress through the legal process by filing election petitions and fundamental rights applications in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court, respectively. Secondly, he called for public agitation by way of a movement for democracy to rekindle civic consciousness among the people.

He told the decision-making committee to decide whether the party should contest future elections under the present circumstances. Gamini Lokuge said the UNP should contest elections since the party believed in the democratic process. Kurunegala campaign manager Rohita Bogollagama analysed journal entries made by senior presiding officers at the Wayamba elections. He said the UNP could have registered a clear victory if there had been a free and fair election. He also was of the view that the party should take part in every election in the future. He thanked the media for highlighting the election malpractices while the party leader said they should also thank religious prelates and polls monitors for speaking out powerfully against rigging and intimidation.

A different view was expressed by Stanley Kalpage who said the UNP should take stock of its own capabilities and improve on them. While acknowledging that the Wayamba polls were one of the most disgraceful in Sri Lanka's history, Dr. Kalpage said, "we should now review our organisation and propaganda capabilities if we want to win elections."

At this point, chief ministerial candidate Gamini Jayawickrema Perera and former Minister John Amaratunga interrupted Dr. Kalpage and hit out at him. But Mr. Wickremesinghe intervening asked that Dr. Kalpage be allowed to talk. An angry Dr. Kalpage refused to talk prompting Mr. Wickremesinghe to say that members should have faith in the leader.

"This is my Cabinet and this is the forum where we take decisions. The leader of the UNP appoints the working committee which is similar to a Cabinet. I have faith in my working committee and they should have faith in me," Mr. Wickremesinghe said. Later Dr. Kalpage who spoke to our sister newspaper Midweek Mirror said, "I spoke my mind, but I do not let down my party. It is because I have faith in my leader and I wanted to ensure that the majority of the people have faith in him, too."

A similar view was expressed by one time UNP General Secretary Sirisena Cooray. He said the UNP could not take steps to counter the government's polls rigging and intimidations when it well knew what was going to happen.

With the elections marred and scandal driving the PA and the UNP further apart, prolonged efforts to bring about a consensus between the two main parties on the ethnic conflict are on shaky grounds.

This was discussed at a lunch hosted by the US Ambassador for some politicians and others. Among those present were Tyronne Fernando and Mahinda Samarasinghe of the UNP, the SLMC's Rauf Hakeem and M.M. Zuhair, TULF's, R. Sambandan and EPDP's Douglas Devananda. The other invitees included Dr. Gamini Keerawella from the Government National Integration Unit, Dr. Jehan Perera from the National Peace Council and businessman Patrick Amerasinghe.

Mr. Fernando reiterated the charge of the mass-scale rigging by the PA but said that in Bingiriya he had a close relationship with PA MP and organiser Munidasa Premachandra who played fair. He said the Bingiriya results where the UNP lost by 2000 votes compared to 10,000 in others - reflected a proper picture of the feelings of the Wayamba people. Mr. Hakeem was also critical of the government and called the election a fraud. The SLMC's distress is understandable because it could not get a single seat in the council. But UNP sources alleged that the SLMC also indulged in ballot stuffing, especially in the Puttalam District. They say that some PA organisers on seeing the alleged SLMC stuffing burnt the ballot boxes in the presence of a top Muslim politico from the East. Despite Wayamba, SLMC and the TULF still consider President Kumaratunga as the best bet to tackle the Tamil problem in a reasonable manner.

A TULF member accused the UNP of backsliding in efforts to solve the ethnic issue. But Mr. Fernando defended the UNP line claiming that it was the UNP which gave the Tamils a better deal and better status by introducing provincial councils and making Tamil a national language.

It now appears that because of the Wayamba disaster, the gap between the PA and the UNP has become a gaping wound. Thus the chances of reaching consensus on the ethnic crisis are highly improbable now. This leaves the initiative by the business community also at a standstill.

In addition to the widening differences between the UNP and the PA, the business community is having problems within, the latest problem was when Mano Selvanathan was dropped from the delegation which accompanied the President for a world business conference in Switzerland. Co-ordinating Chairman Lalith Kotelawala and Ken Balendra were in the delegation.

Another news-making event was last Tuesday's Hyde Park rally organised by the UNP to protest against the Wayamba fraud.

Before the rally, Colombo Mayor and UNP Chairman Karu Jayasuriya said he caught some police officers while they were involved in removing white flags put up by the UNP to mourn the death of Democracy.

An angry Mr. Jayasuriya immediately telephoned Police Chief Lucky Kodituwakku to vehemently protest.

The mayor quoted the policemen as saying, they were removing white flags on orders from the top.

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