Monday 8th July, 2024

President Ranil Wickremesinghe has put his finger on some factors that have rendered the task of ridding the country of the scourge of narcotics frustratingly difficult. Addressing a group of community police members in Wellawaya, on Saturday, he expressed serious concern about the practice of human rights activists and lawyers rising in defence of drug lords taken into custody. Opinion may be divided on this score, but the President’s concern undoubtedly resonates with the public, given the increasing severity of the drug menace, which has engulfed even schools; the victims of the drug Mafia are without anyone to fight for their human rights!

President Wickremesinghe also highlighted the inadequacies of the existing anti-drug laws, and stressed the need for new ones to fight the drug Mafia effectively. He pointed out that countries like Singapore had adopted extreme measures such as the death penalty to tackle the drug problem. One cannot but agree that there is a pressing need for strong laws in this country to protect the public against drug dealers. However, even such laws, unless enforced strictly, will serve little purpose.

The police embarked on a much-hyped campaign to neutralise the crime syndicates involved in drug trafficking, etc., amidst claims in some quarters that it caused human rights violations. But we believe that the anti-drug operations must go on, as they have yielded huge amounts of narcotics and helped weaken the distribution network to a considerable extent. Care must be taken to leave no room for excesses.

However, the drug problem is best tackled at source. The ongoing efforts to thwart drug smuggling via sea routes have to be redoubled; a watchful eye must be kept on the country’s ports, where huge consignments of drugs have been detected. A large number of fishing craft used for drug trafficking have been taken into custody with their crew members. Increasing naval patrol to hold drug smugglers at bay, we believe, will be half the battle in breaking the back of the narcotic problem. The Navy and the Coastguard must be provided with more vessels, personnel and technology to intensify their effective anti-drug operations.

Drug barons use a fraction of their ill-gotten wealth to retain the best lawyers in the country, bribe corrupt politicians and rogues in uniform and thereby put paid to efforts to make them pay for their crimes. The integrity of the drug testing process is also in doubt, and allegations abound that narcotic samples are tampered with.

A notorious drug dealer, known as Kanjipani Imran, fled the country after being enlarged on bail. Many criminals like him are running their drug cartels here from overseas, and the need for new laws to prevent them being bailed out cannot be overstated. Imran is believed to have used various fronts to launder his drug money here and abroad. These dangerous characters, operating from faraway countries, are capable of having anyone physically eliminated here, as evident from the numerous killings committed at their behest. They have emerged so powerful that, a few months ago, they planned a commando-type operation with inside help to remove two drug kingpins from the CID headquarters, where they were being detained at the time. Thankfully, their plan went awry. This shows that while the issue of inadequacies and paucity of anti-drug laws are addressed urgently, much more remains to be done to eliminate the narcotic trade, which serves as a wellspring for numerous crimes and poses a threat to national security as well.

Meanwhile, drug dealers are known to use their slush funds to bankroll election campaigns of some influential politicians. The rise of the narcotic Mafia is attributable to the nexus between drug kingpins and politicians. Hence the need to ensure transparency and accountability in respect of campaign funding while new anti-drug laws with more teeth are made and action is taken to weed out the rogues in uniform in the pay of the drug barons.

President Ranil Wickremesinghe was quick to dissociate himself from the Fundamental Rights action on the forthcoming election filed in the Supreme Court last week by an unknown private citizen whose name, Chamindra Dayan Lenawa, was published in all the newspapers and electronic media bulletins that ran the story. No doubt the president was well aware of a suspicion in the public mind that he was behind the court action which sought a SC order that no election be held until the correct constitutional position regrading such an election was determined by the court.

Hence the alacrity with which the Presidential Media Division (PMD) sought to rubbish the story. The first message said neither the president nor his lawyers had been consulted by the litigant. The second stressed that Wickremesinghe was firmly of the view that the presidential term was for five years. It is on that basis that the Elections Commission is preparing to hold the poll later this year.

It was reported on Friday that the chief justice had appointed a fuller five-judge bench chaired by himself to hear the case which will be taken up on Monday. Doubtlessly there will be public interest on the arguments urged in favour of not holding an election until the constitutional position is properly determined. These, of course, were set out in the petition itself. People’s Action for Free and Fair Election (PAFREL) has already said it will be an intervenient petitioner. Also the Attorney General has been cited as the seventh respondent in the matter and it is unlikely that his stance will be any different from the president’s.

The chances are that an early determination will be made to clear whatever uncertainty there may be. Both Opposition/SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa and NPP/JVP Leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake, declared candidates for the forthcoming election, as well as other political activists have alleged that Wickremesinghe is behind the FR action. The president has not yet formally declared his own candidacy although his intimates are on public record that he will run.

Also posters are up and advertising time bought to proclaim “Ranil is the man for now.” The wide perception is that he’s a runner, but that is not a certainty. Relevantly, business tycoon Dhammika Perera who has expressed an interest in running as the SLPP candidate also appears to be keeping the ball in play by projecting his DP Education endeavour giving free distance education in Information Technology (IT) to young people. It has been claimed that the project has attracted over a million participants. Though the president and Perera not so long ago appeared to be adversaries, Wickremesinghe was recently chief guestat a DP Education function at Nelun Pokuna.

Although the SLPP, the Rajapaksa party which elected Wickremesinghe president, have been waffling for the past several weeks, neither saying whether they are, nor they are not backing Wickremesinghe’s candidature, there was a further development last week. That was when when SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam went public with the assertion that Ranil “will be considered for SLPP nomination” if he quits the UNP and joins their party. The SLPP, of course, cannot be happy that many of their members are appearing on Wickremesinghe platforms. Our stablemate, The Island, last Thursday ran a lead story on its front page saying the “SLPP – UNP alliance on the verge of collapse.” This alliance, as everybody knows, is what is ruling the country right now.

That report quoted UNP Chairman, Wajiira Abeywardene, MP, responding to a question on his party’s stance on Kariyawasam’s statement saying that they would await a comment from from former president Mahinda Rajapaksa on this matter. He, after all, is leader of the SLPP. But it is generally perceived that Kariyawasam is the mouthpiece for Basil Rajapaksa, the founder/strategist of that party and onetime national organizer. Indications at present is that Wickremesinghe, unless he pulls out before nomination day, will run as an independent candidate with backing from various sections of the polity rather than under the UNP and its elephant symbol. He’s been recently courting such support with a degree of success. Several SLPPers, both cabinet ministers and backbenchers, have gone public that they are backing Wickremesinghe. They credit him for pulling the country out of the post Aragalaya doldrums an achieving a degree of normalcy and stress that his steady hand is required on the tiller for a further term.

The law provides for defectors elected on one party ticket joining another being expelled from their original party endangering their parliamentary seats. But parties have not resorted to this possibility in recent times. There is a due process, justiciable by the courts, that must precede expulsion. However, that sleeping dog has been allowed to lie by most political parties in recent times despite numerous defections.

Saturday 6th July, 2024

Time was when the SLFP and the UNP dominated Sri Lankan politics, and captured power almost alternately so much so that we had a two-party system to all intents and purposes. But today they have become shadows of their former selves and are struggling for survival. Worse, their offshoots have not only overtaken them but also rendered them almost irrelevant in national politics.

The UNP is lucky that the elevation of its leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, to the presidency, albeit fortuitously, has enabled it to recover some lost ground on the political front. But the SLFP continues to sink in a political mire of its own making apparently with no prospect of recovery anytime soon.

In what can be considered a dramatic turn of events, MP Dayasiri Jayasekera, who obtained an interim order from the Colombo District Court against the SLFP’s decision to strip him of party membership and the post of General Secretary, assumed duties in front of the SLFP Headquarters at Darley Road, Colombo 10, yesterday. The police did not allow him to enter the party office.

No sooner had the interim order in question been issued than Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, whom the Chandrika faction of the SLFP appointed as the party Chairman, sacked Jayasekera. Now, there are two persons staking claims to the SLFP chairmanship—Minister de Silva and Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapaksha. There are three persons who claim to be the SLFP General Secretary—Jayasekera, Dushmantha Mitrapala and Duminda Dissanayake. The party’s rank and file are confused and frustrated; many of them have already voted with their feet. Most of the SLFP MPs, elected on the SLPP ticket, have switched their allegiance to President Wickremesinghe.

Former President Maithripala Sirisena, who resigned as the SLFP Chairman, is pulling the strings. Ex-President Kumaratunga is doing likewise. Their proxies are at war. The unfolding Darley Road drama is like an Ambalangoda rookada (puppet) show.

The police are all out to ensure that the rivals of the Chandrika faction do not gain access to the SLFP party office. It is obvious that they are doing so at the behest of the powers that be. The anti-Sirisena faction of the SLFP supports President Wickremesinghe. Sirisena and his loyalists were planning to field Minister Rajapaksha as the SLFP’s presidential candidate. Their attempt has been in vain; their rivals have gained the upper hand with the help of the police, and others.

The SLFP is no stranger to internecine legal battles among its ambitious leaders. Even some members of the Bandaranaike family failed to be different, and as a result the SLFP remained in the political wilderness for 17 years, after its humiliating defeat at the 1977 general election.

The SLFP has had two of its General Secretaries decamping—S. B. Dissanayake in 2001 and Sirisena in late 2014. In 2005, the then President Kumaratunga sought to queer the pitch for the SLFP’s presidential candidate, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who had ruffled her feathers. She failed in her endeavour. Ten years later, President Sirisena ruined the SLFP-led UPFA’s chances of winning a general election, as he had an axe to grind with Mahinda, who was the party’s prime ministerial candidate at the time. The SLFP has not recovered from the crippling split it suffered due to clashes between the then Sirisena-Kumaratunga faction, which sided with the UNP, and the Rajapaksa loyalists.

The SLFP is in the current predicament because its leaders never hesitate to subjugate its interests to their personal agendas. Whichever faction emerges victorious in the intraparty war at Darley Road, the SLFP will lose, for at this rate it is likely to end up being a mere nameboard, having lost significance, influence and following.