So, what if the government’s voter-base has dwindled…
By N Sathiya Moorthy
Why blame the politicos alone when almost all independent institutions under the Constitution are confused and are confusing the rest? Though claimed not to be linked to the decision to hold nation-wide Local Government (LG) elections, now notified for 9 March, the resignation of one of the commissioners, Mrs P S M Charles, without assigning any reason, did cause eyebrows to rise. Now comes an even more ‘wittier’ (!) development, wherein two different benches of the supreme court have passed different orders, though not yet contradictory, on the conduct of elections. And one of those benches is headed by chief justice Jayantha Jayasuriya – and one judge, Justice S Thurairaja, was common on both benches. Both orders were passed on the same day, Friday, 10 February 2023.
Thus, in the first case, filed by political-heavyweights, including constitutional experts like G L Peiris and M A Sumanthiran, a bench comprising Justices S. Thurairaja, A.H.M.D. Nawaz and Shiran Goonaratne ‘dismissed’ the peitions for directing the poll panel to conduct the local government elections as they have become due now. The bench noted that the petitions were infructuous as the election commission had already committed to the court and elsewhere too that it was all for holding the polls and had proceeded to do so.
Incidentally, on the EC’s communication, the government has also gazetted the poll-related decisions and notifications of the former, beginning with opening of nominations, and later the polling date. Incidentally, the nominations have closed since, all across the country. The SC was also seized of a petition from the TNA/ITAK, over the rejection of a bunch of party nominations in a particular pradeshiya sabha in the North. The court, instead, rejected the petition.
The other petition, this one calling for suspending all activities pertaining to the local government polls, was filed by retired Army Colonel Wijesundara. Among other reasons, the petitioner cited the high cost of the elections, which the nation could ill-afford at this critical juncture in the economic crisis. A bench comprising chief justice Jayasuriya, justices Thurairaja and Janak de Silva posted the case for hearing on 23 February.
Interestingly, counsel for the election commission submitted that the petitioner should prove that he was a registered voter – implying that the army veteran was possibly not one. He also said that the petition did not clearly make out the respondents. For his part, counsel for the treasury secretary informed the court that the cabinet had already decided to clear the required funds for the EC to conduct the election as scheduled. Hence, he said that the petition should be dismissed.
Ironical impossibility
The irony of the Sri Lankan political situation, rather the political class, will be exposed if one took a closer look at these two sets of petitions, though not the two cases. In the previous LG of 2018, Prof Peiris was the chairman of the victorious SLPP, identified with the Rajapaksas, otherwise in the Opposition in Parliament. He and his party had demanded not only the local elections but also the much-postponed polls to the nine Provincial Councils.
Today, Prof Peiris is a part of the anti-Rajapaksa splinter group of the SLPP combine. It suits him to cry foul against the government of President Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose real strength, both inside and outside Parliament (the latter, if any and if at all) comes from the Rajapaksas and their SLPP, increasingly getting identified with two-term President Mahinda Rajapaksa and for good reasons.
That’s not the case viz ITAK’s Sumanthiran. He did not move the court when the previous government, of which his party/alliance was the ‘outside under-writer’ kept delaying the LG polls. He has not spoken about the much-delayed Tamil-majority Northern provincial council elections or those for the other eight PCs. The why of it does not require any great thinking, to find an answer.
It is likewise in the case of Ranjith Madduma Bandara, Dayasiri Jayasekera, two other petitioners in the supreme court. They are respectively general secretary of the Opposition SJB, and the not-so-sure SLFP, which was an electoral partner of the breakaway SLPP but not any more.
The SJB, in its parent UNP avatar, and the SLFP, were partners in government, 2015-19. Both these gentlemen won’t know where to hide their faces if asked what were they doing when the so-called government of national unity (GNU) of president Maithripala Sirisena (SLFP) and prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (now president) kept finding ways (more than reasons) to delay the civic polls, which they all were convinced they would lose, very badly.
The two some and their ilk had given up defending the inexplicable delay in holding the provincial council elections. These elections are yet to be held after a series of term-ending under the previous regime, but the EC, too, does not seem as much concerned about it as wiith the LGE. So are the politicos, Tamils and Muslims, included.
Cost of elections
The reverse is true of the government-side SLPP parliamentarians and other politicians. They have come up with specious reasoning for delaying/avoiding the LGE as their predecessors had done in their time. Unfortunately for them, president Wickremesinghe was at the centre of the controversy earlier, and is so, at present. But all the noises for a delayed LGE is coming not from his truncated UNP, but from the even more frigthened SLPP combine.
The fear is justified in political terms. Their justification for delaying the polls is also not unjustified as much as being campaigned against. That the cost of elections, both for the government and individual candidates, would shoot up inflation, more importantly, impact on fuel and food consumption, hence imports and forex reserves that are stiill scarce in relative terms, etc. But there is a larger issue about which they are not talking.
Any election just now is more than likely to unsettle political stability, of whatever kind it may prevail now. Already, there are under-currents as the SLPP is said to be disinclined to face the electorate. According to some reports, the SLPP is also said to have set up a methodology to ensure that party candidates contesting the local government elections actually spent the poll funds at their disposal.
The reasons for doing so is not far to seek. The party seems to anticipate that party candidates not hopeful of wiinning in the post-Aragalaya public mood may end up not spending the funds. If so, it implies that the party’s chances in the parliamentary polls and also the provincial council elections might not be too bright for the leadership to be able to flex muscles against errant cadres.
Should the governmentg part/parties lose – even if not as substantially as they did in the local government polls of February 2018 – there definitely is going to be a massiive demand and huge protests for early elections to Parliament, if not for the presidency. They are due respectively in 2025 and 2024. A lot of floor-crossing from the government camp too should be expected.
Political instability
In such a scenario, political instability would become the order of the day, the kind of political instability that the nation has witnessed from time to time, through the past decades. But this one time, it would be different, and could be worse. If there is no political stability, the government leadership may not be able to spare enough time to addressing the economic crisis and investments, as it has been attempting through the past months.
Even if there is no economic recovery just now, there is no sense of economic desperation that was real all across the country through much of last year. The IMF may be forced to reconsider its aid-offer (not that the nation is anywhere near obtaining it just now, as there seems to be inadequate signals as yet from bilateral creditors). That then is a bad scene that the nation is looking at….
That way,the SJB’s charge that the government wanted to delay the polls owing to ‘dwindling voter-base’ may not be far from the truth. But then, such statements and constant criticisms of the government leadership, especially president Wickremesinghe, who was their leader until the other day, cannot resolve any problem.
At least, Ranil has rolled out some policy initiatives, though the likes of Prof Peiris keep saying that policies are not enough, performance alone counts. They have a point, but none of them has come out with any alternative proposal for the nation to consider. Nor did their criticisms of the government policy and budget for the year or of any other economic measure go beyond street-politics, have anything to be credited as substantial improvements or alternatives.
The fact is that the Opposition too does not seem to have any alternative in their hands. Be it the centre-right SJB, centrist SLFP or centre-left JVP, not to forget the FSP, which has once again withdrawn into a seeming shell.
And that may be one, and possibly the only advantage that this government and leadership, and by reverse extension, even the much-criticised SLPP may have just now. Though that need not be a surefire guarantee for their electoral success, after all.
(The writer is a policy analyst & political commentator, based in Chennai, India. Email: sathiyam54@nsathiyamoorthy.com)
