Mahinda Rajapaksa vs.

The Rest
Saturn has made its mischief and the January presidential contest now looks poised to become a
hard-fought battle

November 27, 2014

President Mahinda Rajapaksa smiles while attending the 18th SAARC
SummitIt all began with the stars. It was apt therefore that less than 24 hours after
President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared he would be seeking a third term in
office two years ahead of schedule, certain celestial bodies began to wreak
all manner of mischief inside his ruling party.
Believers in astrology put last weeks political dramas down to the influence
of the planet Saturn, the Great Malefic of the astrological firmament. There
was a major movement of the planet on 2 November 2014, which
astrologers say could result in sudden deaths, bad luck and punishing

circumstances. The planet is known to be the great obstructer, moving

slowly during transition, slowing momentum and making courage falter in
the physical realm. Saturn is the punishing father, the grim reaper and the
consummate mischief-maker, creator of controversy and abrupt change in
the mortal realm.
Mischief-managed
Those dwelling in the realms of reason may conclude that the Rajapaksa
administration is simply sowing what it has reaped for nine long years. He
sowed these seeds when he consistently sidelined and ill-treated senior
members of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party over two successive terms in
office. He set the stage for this political drama when he
repeatedly undermined them and never heeded their counsel.
And when he repeatedly and determinedly sought the support
of the more radical and fringe elements those with much
less electoral clout and a highly destructive influence within
his ruling alliance.
For years the disillusionment had been simmering and the
highest officials in the regime have known it. Over the years it
has used band-aids to cover the wound. But President
Rajapaksa, safely ensconced inside a bubble about his own
glorious rule, surrounded by sycophants that refuse to bore
him with political realities, had in fact been clueless about the
depths of the discontentment within his own party. There is no greater
indication of this than the fact that his administration, cautious to a fault
when it comes to maintaining its edge in political power games, took no
precautions to pacify ruling party members before proclaiming the election.
The stolen narrative
As a result, hours after he declared his intent to contest an unprecedented
third term in office, the wind went out of the sails of the Rajapaksa
campaign. News about the proclamation and the Presidents massive
incumbent advantage was lost in the noise of the common candidate, who
by Friday evening was revealed to be a member of his own Cabinet.
Hundreds of buses brought supporters in from the provinces to the capital
Colombo for a massive Divi Neguma rally in Campbell Park, a thinly-veiled

campaign event for the President soon after the declaration of elections.
But the defection of Government frontliner
Maithripala Sirisena and Fisheries Minister Rajitha
Senaratne celebrated with a media briefing at New
Town Hall completely eclipsed the Campbell Park
event. Suddenly, the election in which President
Rajapaksa was supposed to be a clear front-runner
had become all about opposition to his rule.
Reeling from the shock, the Government went fullsteam into panic mode, making elementary
mistakes along the way. President Rajapaksa is
reported to have been livid about the failure of his
intelligence forces to predict this Opposition move.
Forced to react to a fluid and unexpected situation,
members of the Government have been tripping
over themselves to formulate a coherent response.
After the Friday announcement of the Maithripala
Sirisena candidacy, the Satana political talkshow on
the Sirasa network was to host the SLFP General
Secretary and other key opposition figures the
following night. Mysteriously, cable TV viewers
began to report that from 6:30 p.m. on Saturday
(22) that the channel was not available on both the
Dialog and SLT-run PEO TV networks. The channel
was off air for several hours and resumed once
Satana ended. Both satellite networks have claimed
technical glitches that interrupted the Sirasa
broadcast, but the channel directors told the
Reuters news agency that their terrestrial signal
was working fine and that there were no
technical glitches on their end.
The channel was visible on its regular UHF band
and also on a third cable TV network servicing only
certain areas of Colombo, leading to suspicion of
political interference in the disruption. International
reporting on the incident, unceasing customer complaints and

bombardment on social media against the private company forced a

response. Yesterday, Dialog Axiata CEO Hans Wijesuriya apologised to the
Sirasa network for the disruption and pledged to investigate the issue.
Wijesuriya also maintained in a separate communication with constitutional
lawyer Saliya Peiris, that the Satana program had been aired without glitch
on the Dialog network the following morning (23).
Over the weekend, President Rajapaksa made a massive gaffe that is set to
haunt him throughout his campaign for re-election. At a public meeting,
President Rajapaksa alluded to the fact that he had files on the defectors,
but hastened to add that he would not use them.
The threat of blackmail and the notion that the President was hiding files on
his ministers and protecting information about their misdeeds became
serious fodder for the Opposition. Opposition parties, especially the
firebrand JVP are demanding the files President Rajapaksa is hiding also
about ministers who still remain with the Government and members of the
ruling family.
On Tuesday Disaster Management Minister Mahinda Ratnaweera came up
with the most atrocious argument yet for why the UPFA Government should
remain in power, saying ministers in office had plundered enough while
the advent of a UNP Government would mean fresh faces that would have
to start all over again and make a killing.
In a civilised society, in an honest Government, such a statement would not
only result in the immediate sacking of the minister but also an immediate
investigation into his own finances and those of all his colleagues.
And then yesterday when Maithripala Sirisena launched the UNP campaign
at Sirikotha in Pita Kotte, the area suffered a mysterious power outage.
These moves only serve to expose President Rajapaksa as being caught
unawares and jittery about his challenger.
Opposition coup
The fact remains that defying all odds and thwarting the growing
surveillance power of the State, the Opposition had pulled off a coup barely
24 hours after President Rajapaksas election declaration. The strategy to
keep the entire country guessing about the common candidate and limiting
the field to Ranil Wickremesinghe, Karu Jayasuriya and Chandrika
Kumaratunga was a stroke of genius.

It was only in the four or five days before the election declaration that the
advent of a fourth, surprise candidate entered the discourse, in hushed
whispers in the tightest circles. Meetings had been held outstation for
weeks to hammer out agreement and convince the main actors to play their
role without giving the game away. Instrumental in the exercise was the
team surrounding Kotte Naga Vihara Chief Incumbent Sobitha Thero, whose
campaign for the abolition of the executive presidency is reaching fruition
with the announcement of the common candidacy and the 100-day
constitutional reform plan. As Sobitha Theros movement promised,
Sirisenas manifesto for the January poll will include the draft of the
constitutional amendment abolishing the presidency and setting up a
different governance model.
The two campaigns, between incumbent and surprise challenger will be a
strange contrast.
Against the populist appeal of the Rajapaksa candidacy, with its
concentration of power in a single family and the desire to prolong and
consolidate executive control of the state for a further eight years, will
stand the farmers son from the North Central Province, promising to end
this oppressive control in less than six months. And this is no trouser-clad,
Tiger-labelled Ranil Wickremesinghe promising re-democratisation but a
man who much more closely resembles the Rajapaksa ideal of the dyed in
the wool Lankan politician.
In other words Sirisena has all the popular, common man appeal of Mahinda
Rajapaksa without the baggage of corruption, nepotism and autocratic rule.
He poses therefore, a fundamental challenge to the Rajapaksa re-election
campaign.
Rajapaksa vs. The Rest
This election has become, in the week since it was declared, a race that will
be fundamentally between Rajapaksa values and the desires of the
democracy-seeking Rest. Maithripala Sirisena, with his humble beginnings
and common man touch, will advocate democracy, good governance and
an end to oppression in Sri Lanka.
He is the perfect bridge between the intelligentsia whose crying need is for
constitutional reform and a check on executive power and the common
man, whose greatest needs have nothing to do with constitution making or

breaking, but who is nevertheless a victim of a broken and corrupt system.

Power-hunger and greed are often distasteful to the voter, particularly when
it comes on the back of nine years of corruption, extravagance and
mismanagement.
In the January poll, President Rajapaksa will stand election as the only
incumbent Head of State to have amended the Constitution to allow himself
to win power, over and over again. Sirisena is pledging that he will be Sri
Lankas last executive president.
In a perfect world, in a healthy democracy, this election should be the
Oppositions to lose.
But Sri Lankan democracy and its electoral process are far from perfect.
Under the terms of the 18th Amendment, weeks ahead of nomination day,
the blood-letting has already begun.
Police transfers have commenced. The regimes fifth column will begin its
work with new targets in its cross-hairs. Against the might of the state
machinery that will be mobilised against them with increasing brutality, the
Opposition will have only the power of the people. It will therefore have to
focus all its energy on psychological warfare and getting voters to the
polling booths if it is to get any traction against the Rajapaksa campaign,
which will outspend and outmaneuver the Opposition in any way it can.
Plugging the leaks
After its initial shock, the regime went into heavy-duty damage control
mode. It began its weekend mop-up operation by first plugging the leaks.
The Opposition anticipated that at least 20-30 SLFP members may have
been on the fence, ready to defect from the ruling coalition if the Opposition
seemed to be putting up credible resistance.
By Tuesday, ruling party members had stopped taking calls from the
Opposition activists. It remains unclear how many will still be willing to quit
the Government in the days ahead.
Integral cogs in the Opposition wheel, especially in terms of reinforcing the
confidence of SLFP members willing to join the Sirisena campaign, have
been former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mangala Samaraweera.
Athuraliye Rathana Thero has also been instrumental in steering the
negotiations in this direction, but in the end game, this first chapter of the
2015 presidential poll will be about the SLFP revolt.

Initially, Sirisena was not in the mix as a potential Opposition candidate

supported by the common platform. The universal choice was in fact Karu
Jayasuriya, even though Wickremesinghe was also a strong contender for
the position.
Jayasuriya was seen to be the option with the most amount of appeal for a
wide section of Opposition movements and his credentials with regard to
the fight against LTTE terrorism was also seen to be a major factor in his
favour.
But with what was perhaps valid reason, Wickremesinghe opposed a
Jayasuriya ticket on the basis that if the candidate was to be a UNP
member, it had to be the leader of the party. This is not an illogical
argument and it was strongly backed by the Sajith Premadasa faction of the
UNP. Since the Opposition alliance could not get consensus on a
Wickremesinghe candidacy, the next best hope was to steal a rebel from
under President Rajapaksas nose. Rather than sulk about his missed
opportunity, Jayasuriya has completely backed the Maithripala candidacy
and played a role in convincing his fellow parliamentarians to back his
nomination.
Enter Maithripala
Kumaratunga and Samaraweera became key to the process from that point
on. Other interlocutors would liaise quietly with Sirisena but it was
Kumaratunga and Samaraweera who had major roles to play to keep the
other players in line. President Kumaratungas residence at Independence
Avenue became a hive of activity, but it was closely watched, therefore the
major negotiations and crucial meetings took place in other undisclosed
locations.
Once the negotiation was complete with Sirisena, the next task at hand was
to pacify the UNP and especially Wickremesinghe, about the fact that for
the second time in seven years the party would not be fielding its own
candidate.
Opposition activists with knowledge about the negotiation process insist
that Kumaratunga was instrumental in convincing Wickremesinghe, a
former playmate, to agree to the Sirisena formula.
She has 100 times the energy and skill of the entire UNP put together,
one activist noted last weekend. Her own candidacy would have been tricky

because she had failed to abolish the presidency in two terms and would
therefore be seen to lack credibility.
But on President Kumaratunga, this new role as patron and liaison had
begun to sit a lot better. Until recently, Kumaratunga was only a side player
in the process to forge a common platform but sources said she was
spurred into action when Samaraweera threatened to rejoin the
Government, after the Sajith Premadasa faction began to wield significant
influence within the UNP once again and threatened to derail his future in
the party.
For the UNP, the main architects and negotiators of the move were Party
Chairman Kabir Hashim, Assistant Leader Ravi Karunanayake, former Party
Chairman Malik Samarawickrema and of course, Samaraweera.
The powerful horoscope
The Rajapaksa administration has always feared Mangala Samaraweera.
And it was never his political acumen or shrewd campaigning skills that
caused them discomfort all these things could be bought for the right
price. Ruled by the stars and slaves to astrology, the regime feared
Samaraweera because of the power of his horoscope.
Some politicians are not made to be king. On the political stage, kingmakers can be more powerful than the rulers they install. President
Rajapaksa desperately wanted Samaraweera back in his fold, where he and
his allegedly powerful horoscope would be under the regimes watchful eye.
Perhaps with Samaraweera in the bag, President Rajapaksa had hoped for a
return to the energy and tactics that won him the presidency in 2005.
Perhaps he hoped that Samaraweeras departure would be a blow from
which the main Opposition UNP would not recover in time to put up a real
contest in January.
Election tactician
With the Samaraweera crisis averted the Opposition inherited two key
political strategists in him and the former President both more determined
than ever to find a way to challenge the Rajapaksa juggernaut.
Samaraweera is a veteran of electioneering. Not only did he and S.B.
Dissanayake band together in 1994 to bring Kumaratunga into power,
Samaraweera also supervised the formation of the United Peoples Freedom

Alliance in 2004 that wrested control of the Government from under the
UNP with its memorable Rata Perata and Kawda mewata waga kiyanne
advertising campaigns and set the stage for the Rajapaksa candidacy in
2005.
In 2005, the Chandrika Kumaratunga-led SLFP gave Mahinda Rajapaksa the
ticket to contest as their partys presidential candidate. Samaraweera,
President Kumaratungas main political confidant took over as Rajapaksas
campaign manager. Together, they were the architects in a sense, of the
Rajapaksa presidency. The question now remains whether the duo, united
on a single political platform again, can use their considerable political skill,
party faithful and broad opposition support to end his grip on power.
Within the UNP, Samaraweera has weathered every challenge posed by the
pro-Premadasa camp. He was taunted by Premadasa and his loyalists for
failing to bring more SLFPers into the Opposition. They tried to brow-beat
him with scurrilous media campaigns. They tried to have him arrested for
his lifestyle choices. In pulling off this coup together with Kumaratunga and
the rest of the Opposition, Samaraweera outplayed his critics within the
UNP and left the Premadasa faction high and dry. Premadasa, who was
breathing fire and brimstone regarding the UNP candidacy only weeks
ago, meekly acknowledged that he had bowed to the will of his party to
field a common candidate last week. Their well-laid plans to defeat
Wickremesinghe at the presidential election and wrest the party leadership
from him now laid to dust, the Premadasa camp will continue to plot its next
moves. Right now, to go against what is a wave of public support for the
Maithripala defection and candidacy could be suicidal for the Hambantota
MP.
Samaraweeras triumph over the Premadasa faction is the UNPs ultimate
gain. He had insisted the UNP back the common opposition platform.
Overnight, the opposition party went from being a non-entity in this
presidential race, to being the main political machinery that will breathe fire
and life into the common opposition candidacy. Less than a week after
President Rajapaksa declared elections, the ruling coalition has lost 10
Parliamentarians.
Striking back
But this is a regime unaccustomed to losing a battle. Humiliated and

wounded, they will strike back hard. Top officials in the administration have
already engaged in hectic lobbying over the weekend to hold back at least
15 more SLFP members that had pledged their support in secret to Sirisena
and the Opposition alliance.
The Rajapaksa Government won a small victory on Monday when the
Budget vote passed without incident, despite intense speculation about
more defections from the ruling party. President Rajapaksas damage
control measures also ensured that he continues to hold on to his two-thirds
majority in the legislature, albeit by only two seats now following ACMC MP
Hunais Farooks defection yesterday.
The Maithripala Sirisena candidacy is by no means a foregone conclusion
nor a certain recipe for success. He remains untested. Other candidates
have gone into these races swearing to do away with the presidential
system. Once in office, the presidency suddenly becomes a much harder
thing to give up. The campaign will also have to find ways to infuse
confidence among the UNP rank and file, by standing by the commitment to
form a national government in the event of a victory. It will be a terrible
travesty if the UNP puts its full force into installing a fundamentally SLFP
regime, therefore it will be incumbent on Sirisena to make the UNP major
stakeholders in this journey from the beginning, irrespective of the outcome
of the election. What the common candidacy and the series of defections
that followed the announcement has done, is infuse hope and excitement
into what was until one week ago, a one-horse race. It has stripped the
Rajapaksa regime of invincibility, just like the Uva Provincial election did a
few months ago.
If one is to go by the incumbent administrations own beliefs, Saturn has
managed its mischief. Sudden changes plague the political firmament and it
appears Mahinda Rajapaksas bid to win a third term as executive president
of Sri Lanka, will actually come down to a real fight.