Presidential race and horse-trading
Tuesday 9th April, 2024
Former local government members of the SLPP have decided to back Ranil Wickremesinghe in the upcoming presidential election, according to media reports. These politicians have remained loyal to the Rajapaksa family through thick and thin, and their support is the be-all and end-all of the SLPP’s political survival. They would not have pledged their support for Wickremesinghe without Basil Rajapaksa’s blessings.
What one gathers from the decision of the ex-local councillors of the SLPP to throw in their lot with Wickremesinghe is that the SLPP will not field a presidential candidate. Some of these politicians are likely to join the UNP. The SLPP, which scored three stunning electoral victories consecutively in 2018, 2019 and 2020 has ruined things for itself in such a way that it cannot even contest an election at present!
The SLPP, which came into being as a party of the Rajapaksas by the Rajapaksas for the Rajapaksas, is now in total disarray. Basil, came back from the US last month in a bid to sort it out, but it is like ‘a bunch of areca nuts dashed on the ground’, as a local saying goes. About two dozen SLPP MPs, including dissidents, and countless SLPP supporters, have switched their allegiance to the UNP and the SJB. The Rajapaksas have lost control of a sizeable section of the remaining SLPP Parliamentary group. Otherwise, they would have caused a general election to precede the next presidential election, by having a parliamentary resolution passed to compel President Ranil Wickremesinghe to dissolve Parliament forthwith. The SLPP is desperate to face a general election first and try to retain as many parliamentary seats as possible before its electoral weakness is exposed in the next presidential election.
The former local councillors of the SLPP may be able to deliver some votes to the presidential candidate of their choice, but their support could prove counterproductive in that they are considered the shock troops of the Rajapaksas. They were the ones who carried out an unprovoked, savage attack on the Aragalaya protesters at Galle Face on 09 May, 2022, triggering a tsunami of retaliatory violence, which marked the beginning of the end of the Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s presidency. The public detests such corrupt, violent elements, and that is why the government has postponed local government polls. The support of such characters is likely to be the kiss of death for Wickremesinghe. But the UNP is still lying supine and most of its seniors are political liabilities and therefore Wickremesinghe, who is desperate for support in the presidential race, would not mind being ‘kissed’ by anyone.
There is said to be no such thing as a free lunch, and the SLPP’s local government politicians would not have offered to support Wickremesinghe in the presidential race for nothing. The Rajapaksas are notorious for demanding ‘something’ for doing anything. So, what will the SLPP expect in return for backing Wickremesinghe? Will it be a general election to be held on the same day as the next presidential contest, or the post of premiership for a member of the Rajapaska family in the event of Wickremesinghe securing the presidency and steering a coalition led by the UNP to victory at the next parliamentary election? Whatever the conditions for the SLPP’s support for Wickremesinghe may be, with the likes of SLPP leaders as allies, Wickremesinghe needs no enemies.
If the SLPP skips the next presidential election and backs Wickremesinghe, it will take many years to regain lost ground, much less groom a member of the Rajapaksa family for a presidential contest again. Its support base will also suffer a severe erosion. Some SLPP MPs loyal to the Rajapaksa family have embarked on a campaign to promote Namal Rajapaksa as the next leader of their party. But he will have to wait for years, if not decades, until the people have forgotten what the Rajapaksas have done to the country, to make a comeback like ‘Bongbong’ Marcos of the Philippines.
