Marriage of Blues on the rocks?

Wednesday 6th January, 2021

Speculation is rife in political circles that the relationship between the SLFP and the SLPP has turned sour, and their bickering could lead to a breakup. This has come about following a discordant note SLFP leader and former President Maithripala Sirisena struck in a recent interview with The Hindu newspaper; he hinted at the possibility of the SLFP going it alone at the next Provincial Council (PC) elections. Coalition partners usually issue such veiled threats to up the ante in negotiations over nominations, etc., but the SLFP seniors are said to be upset that the SLPP has shortchanged them. Some of them have even complained, in public, of what they call stepmotherly treatment at the hands of the SLPP.

There is no love lost between the SLPP leaders and their SLFP counterparts; theirs is an alliance of strange bedfellows; they are acting out of expediency rather than principle, as is public knowledge. The SLFP is aware that if it stays in the ruling coalition indefinitely, it will run the risk of going the same way as the traditional left. It will have to break ranks with the SLPP and shore up its support base if it is to prevent itself being dissolved in the SLPP-led coalition. However, such a course of action is not without high political risks. If it contests the next PC polls separately but fails to improve its electoral performance significantly, it will find itself in the same predicament as the UNP, which is now lying supine. A breakaway in a huff will also lead to a division in its parliamentary group with some of its MPs switching their allegiance to the SLPP. (Eight Opposition MPs have already voted with the government for the 20th Amendment.)

Founder and chief strategist of the SLPP Basil Rajapaksa issued a veiled warning to the SLFP, in an interview with Hiru TV, on Monday night. Denying the allegation that the SLPP had shortchanged the SLFP, he dwelt on the fate that had befallen the JVP, following its breakaway from the SLFP-led UPFA coalition in protest against the then President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s decision to share tsunami relief with the LTTE, in 2005. It backed Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential race in that year, but did not return to the government’s fold.

The JVP, which had 39 MPs in the UPFA administration, had never recovered, since its hasty breakaway, Basil said by way of a warning to the SLFP. He got it right; the JVP did not make that risky political parachute jump at the right altitude. Kumaratunga’s tsunami relief sharing mechanism was stillborn, and the JVP should have stayed in that government, made the best use of the key ministerial positions it had received to serve the public and muster enough popular support. Its exit from the UPFA caused it to suffer a debilitating split with a group of its MPs led by Wimal Weerawansa crossing over to the UPFA government, in 2007.

Prevarication is Sirisena’s forte. When he was asked by a journalist, at a recent SLFP function, whether his party had decided to go it alone at the next PC polls, he said the PC elections had been postponed, and, therefore, he did not want to field that query. He may have failed as a President, but he is blessed with an abundance of political acumen. He has outfoxed the foxes in Sri Lankan politics. He left the UPFA government in 2014 and closed ranks with Ranil Wickremesinghe to beat his former boss, Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential contest and became the President, the following year. He harassed the Rajapaksas to his heart’s content. Thereafter, he ditched Wickremesinghe and sided with the Rajapaksas to remain relevant in national politics after the expiration of his presidential term.

Sirisena cannot be unaware that it is too early for the SLFP to pull out of the SLPP coalition and go it alone at an election. He is likely to wait until the writing appears on the wall for the ruling coalition to vote with his feet. Sri Lankan governments with two-thirds majorities have had short lifespans. The United Front government, formed in 1970, had a two-thirds majority, collapsed in 1977. The JRJ government had to resort to a heavily-rigged referendum (1982) to secure a second term and retain its five-sixths majority in Parliament. The Mahinda Rajapaksa administration, which was formed in 2010, crashed in 2015 even before completing its first term although it had mustered a two-thirds majority. It looks as though the present regime with a steamroller majority were also busy ruining things for itself. Sirisena is adept at playing the waiting game that is politics, and, most of all, springing surprises for others.