Bradman takes final bow after a period on intense political manoeuvering

Ranil’s strength, according to the Constitution, came from his supremacy in Parliament. With great managerial skill he managed to keep at all times a sizable majority in place. The UNF never lost a vote in Parliament during those two years (Ranil was PM). The UNF itself was a coalition bringing together five parties which contested the election together. It must have brought much credit to his political acumen and management skills that in spite of severe stresses and strains, the UNF held together. It was also quite remarkable in a country where party political loyalties are notably fickle, that during the period of his government there was not a single resignation from party or office.

According to the Constitution, Parliament cannot be dissolved by presidential fiat until one year after its election. Thereafter though, the president is vested with the power to dissolve parliament at will and even though the government might have an absolute majority in the House. When Ranil’s second year began there was the opportunity for a sudden dissolution but although fears were raised from time to time, this did not happen. The peace process was well on track, the economy was beginning to pick up and investor confidence was rising. It needed an event of dramatic consequence to trigger any decision by the president to dissolve Parliament.

The opportunity finally came through a combination of circumstances. Firstly, the negotiation process itself had stalled in April 2003. Citing non-performance of undertakings given at the `talks’ as a primary reason, and the Washington donor review meeting to which they had not being invited as another, the LTTE refused to continue the schedule of talks as planned. Worse was to follow when they declined the invitation to participate at the June Tokyo Donor Conference. Initially the donor meeting had been planned for with both the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE being joint hosts.

There was a final issue which literally broke the camel’s back and impelled the line of action that resulted in the dissolution of Parliament.

The Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA)

ISGA was the response of the LTTE to the government’s proposals for an Interim Administration for the northeast. The government, after a great deal of thought by Ranil and G L, had sent in a proposal in June 2003 basically designed to provide for a mechanism which would handle effectively and speedily the donor funding anticipated for development. The decision-making authority was to consist of LTTE and government nominees (including representatives of the Muslims) with the LTTE having the majority.

The concept of an interim administration for the northeast was a cornerstone of the road map for a durable peace and had been one of Ranil’s undertakings in the election manifesto for the 2001 elections. Of course the details had not been determined and the government proposals at this stage were in the nature of a first offer open for discussions.

After a while, on October 31, 2003 the LTTE predictably, in view of their own thinking on the matter which was to obtain control of the administration of the northeast province, and not merely have a mechanism for the funding component, put forward their proposals for an Interim Self-Governing Authority (ISGA). This was clearly very far forward towards autonomy in the management of the northeast.

Ranil and G L responded immediately that the ISGA went further than they would think necessary at this stage of the negotiations but that the proposals could certainly constitute the basis for further discussion.

However considerable fear began to be expressed in the media, fuelled by elements opposed to the peace process and the political opposition to the government, that the ISGA represented the opening towards the creation of Eelam. The public debate and agitation put the UNF, already reeling from a sustained campaign carried out by the media, on the defensive. The media had a ready-made portfolio of apparent concessions made by the government to the LTTE through its ‘so-called’ peace process and supposed imminent danger to national security, especially the sea base at Trincomalee through the surreptitious establishment of 13 camps encircling the town.

Daily dispatches from intrepid news reporters filled the newspapers and the names of the ‘formidable’ LTTE camps, particularly Manirasakulam, were in everyone’s heads. Finally a brave attempt at taking the camp by a force of volunteers led by the leader of the Hela Urumaya was foiled in the nick of time – the army turning the force back before they could get within firing range. The government – defence ministry response – was lacklustre and the media had succeeded in preparing the grounds for a final denouement.

The president timed her move to perfection. On November 4, 2003 catching the ground-swell against the government at full tide and at a time when Ranil was out of the country in Washington, for a meeting with President Bush about the Free Trade Agreement with the US, President Chandrika launched her strike. She took over, under her constitutional powers, the ministry of defence on the grounds of the imminent threat to national security.

To make a clean sweep of things she also added the ministry of interior, which controlled the police, and the ministry of mass communication which ran the media institutions – two TV stations with all island coverage, the radio broadcasting service and Lake House with its complement of daily English, Sinhala and Tamil newspapers. This was a huge and an important capture of state power by the president which completely altered the balance of power in the cohabitation arrangement of December 2001. “A superbly timed and effectively executed constitutional coup,” as some commentators described it.

UNP Regroups after November 4

I had not gone to Washington with the PM because the trip was to be of very short duration. It was a long journey and I decided to stay back. As soon as the news broke, Karu Jayasuriya who was deputising for Ranil and Malik Samarawickrama, the very active chairman of the party, got together and called the rest of the Cabinet and MPs for an urgent meeting at Temple Trees. The mood was ugly. Some were for taking to the streets and creating a public agitation which would engulf the president’s house. Finally someone got through to Ranil – it was 3.00 am in the morning in Washington – but he was soon wide awake and giving instructions on how the crisis was to be met.

There was to be no panic reaction and no thought of violence. We were to be in constant consultation with him as the matter progressed. Tilak Marapana, minister of defence, John Amaratunga, minister of the interior and (media minister) Imtiaz Bakeer Markar should go about their work as if nothing had happened. The UNF parliamentary majority should be preserved at all costs. Ranil displayed great maturity in the way he dealt with this crisis. Nothing should be done to disturb the peace; the government should act with care; law and order should be preserved at all times and we should wait until he returned as scheduled. He would come back not a day earlier not a day later.

Ranil’s return to Colombo by air that morning, the November 7, was unprecedented. I have never seen a display of public support as that which he received from the hundreds of thousands who converged on the Katunayake-Colombo highway that day. The crowd was hysterical and would not let the convoy of cars pass on. One could, and some did, walk the 22 kilometres to Colombo faster than the cavalcade of cars. The triumphal procession (it had now taken on the character of a victory parade with papara music bands in open trucks providing the sound) took over nine hours. He should have been at Temple Trees at 10.00 am. He arrived at 5.30 pm flushed and hoarse with the number of speeches he had made on route but exultant in the outpouring of public support he had seen and felt that day.

The National Government of Reconciliation and Reconstruction

Ranil awaited the next move from the president. It came in the form of an invitation to talk. Ranil asked me to join him and I accepted with alacrity because it was always a pleasure to meet Chandrika. She would immediately remember the old days when I was her father’s and mother’s secretary and I felt very much at home with her. She had Karunaratne, her secretary and Mano Tittawella, who had come in as senior advisor at the presidential secretariat on her side.

The little communique we issued later said it was a cordial meeting which lasted almost two hours. But it was much more exciting than that. It began with the tension we officials feared. Ranil’s opening ball was a bumper. “Why did you have to do this when I was away?” he started off with. President Chandrika went into a very interesting, very long explanation of all that the UNP had done to her in the past two years. She had suffered all this in silence. But she had to act now since the government’s inaction had placed the nation in jeopardy. So she had to take over defence.

However she wanted Ranil to continue with the peace process. She did not want to touch it. Ranil countered that it was impossible to handle the peace process without control of the ministry of defence. If she could not give him back the ministry of defence then he had no objection at all to her handling the peace process. As the ‘ping-pong’ match was looking like ending in a draw the president made it known that she was suggesting this in the context of her overall design of a national government which could be termed one for “reconciliation and reconstruction”.

All parties would be represented in it; they could draw up a common, agreed-upon, program of action covering the national issues peace process, constitutional reform, economic development and governance questions; the Cabinet could be expanded from 50 upwards if necessary and there would be a definite period of time for the national government. At the end of the one or two-year period the need for the national government would not be there and the parties could go their individual ways.

President Chandrika also hinted that if this did not find acceptance she had other options to proceed with on her own. She indicated that there was a strong movement from within the PA for an alliance – a sandhanaya – with the JVP. That particular agreement was almost ready for signature. So the idea of a national government was now beginning to sound politically interesting and doable, albeit with a lot of goodwill on all sides. The small print had however to be worked out.

For that, both the president and Ranil agreed, one needed persons who were not politicians. Finally it was decided that the respective secretaries, that is Karu (Jayasuriya) and myself and Malik Samarawickrem and Mano Tittawella would be the four-man team who would work out the details. The president liked and got on well with Malik and she suggested he come in as Ranil’s representative while she would have Mano Tittawella as her person on the team.

Thus was born the ‘Mano-Malik Talks’ – an adequate sobriquet manufactured by the media for the seven rounds of a fascinating, extended conversation between the four of us in the months of November and December 2003 and January 2004. It was valid too, since it was the two of them who did most of the talking. Karu and I did the writing.

We had two basic terms of reference. The first which was easy was to formulate a consensual plan of action outlining the detailed measures to be taken on which all could agree. This covered steps to be taken to resume the negotiations with the LTTE, areas of governance like the appointment of the anti-bribery commission, electoral reform – the Report of the Select Committee of Parliament was to be expedited, clearing the impasse regarding the setting up of the elections commission, and a listing of urgent infrastructural projects awaiting development – roads, power plants, port facilities, etc.

The second which was extremely complex and on which no agreement could be reached, was the issue of the defence ministry. The critical question being as to whether there was any formula by which Ranil would be able to assume authority over the defence apparatus which would enable him to pursue the peace process, while the defence ministry portfolio would continue to be handled by the president. Try as we could, and we had some suggestions from a friendly neighbour too, there was no way something acceptable to both chief actors could be devised all through November and December.

Time was running out when we resumed our talks after the long X’mas and New Year break. We managed to cobble together a not-so-satisfactory arrangement which would have needed great patience and forbearance by both the president and prime minister to work through at our final meeting at the end of January. Malik and I were promised a final decision by the other side at a scheduled meeting on February 9 after the Independence Day festivities were completed. The presidential message of February 4 too seemed promising. But then inexplicably, on the night of February 7, Parliament was dissolved and elections fixed for April 2, 2004. Mano-Malik disappeared into thin air (if that were possible as far as Mano was concerned) and once again the battle lines were being drawn for the now-almost annual parliamentary elections.

Ranil took the field with his old team – all his allies from the UNF, the CWC and Rauf Hakeems S1MC, especially by his side. President Chandrika’s PA now had the powerful support of the JVP in a new political formation: the UPFA the United Peoples Freedom Alliance – retaining traces of the People in JVP and the Freedom in SLFP -. It proved to be a winning combination roaring in with massive majorities in several electoral districts.

Ranil stuck to his track record of credible achievement in the two and a quarter years he had run the government. He had promised an end to the war and peace so that people could lead a normal life. He had fulfilled that promise. He had promised the restoration of a run-down economy and the laying of a foundation for sustainable growth. He felt he had achieved this with modest growth ‘the fundamental macro-economic indicators of inflation, budgetary deficits, etc, in order, and renewed investor interest in the economy. He had promised no ‘goodies’ and he had none to hand out yet. That would come later, after the sweat and tears but no blood.

The UPFA campaign too addressed the two chief issues; the peace process and the economy. But directly in contravention of the UNF’s perception of how things had gone in two years the UPFA insisted that the peace process was flawed; it had only been a craven knuckling-down by the government to the unreasonable demands of the LTTE, endangering national security. The UPFA would keep the peace and negotiate with the LTTE but without sacrificing national security and dignity. On the economy, the UPFA maintained that the rich had got richer but the poor had got poorer. The government’s policy prescriptions, dictated by the World Bank and IMF, only favoured the rich – the cost of living had risen and unemployment was rampant.

The electorates choice was decisive as the results of the April 2 election showed:

UPFA

105 seats 45.60%

UNF

82 seats 37.83%

ITAK

22 seats 6.84%

JHU

9 seats 5.97%

SLMC

5 seats 2.02%

No party or coalition had secured the necessary 113 seats for an absolute majority in the 225 member Parliament. No more sustainable alliances appeared possible. Two new political formations with profound significance for the future too had arrived on the scene.

ITAK – the old (1956) Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi – alias Federal Party had emerged after a clean sweep of the north and east and were now virtually the political representatives of the LTTE.

Jatika Hela Urumaya (JHU), the national Sinhala heritage party with only Buddhist monks as its parliamentary representatives had sprung up virtually from nowhere as a protest constituency. It appeared to be a heady mix of middle class professionals, Buddhist devotees. and intellectuals dissatisfied with both mainline parties – the PA and the UNP – and their inability to protect the Sinhala Buddhist identity against the “insidious forces ofTamil separatism, unethical conversions to Christianity, and the sweeping tide of western neo-colonialism under the garb of globalisation.”‘

The polarization of political, economic and social forces had never been seen in such clarity before. The divisive impulses of class – rich against the poor; race Tamil against the Sinhalese (or the Tiger against the Lion); and religion – Buddhists against the Christians – had come back cloaked and garbed, 50 years on to challenge our leaders for the next 50 years. As Ranil, perhaps a trifle wearily, settled down to take stock and address the future, I decided it was time to make my final bow.

(Excerpted from ‘Rendering Unto Caesar’
by Bradman Weerakoon) ✍️