By Dr. Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu
With the unanimous decision of the Working Committee (WC) of the United National Party (UNP) that its Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa, son former President late Ranasinghe Premadasa, will be the party’s candidate in the 2019 Sri Lankan presidential election, the election campaign has commenced in earnest.
The UNP WC decision ended weeks of speculation as to whether the Prime Minister and Party Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would agree to a Premadasa candidacy or hold onto it himself, despite opposition in the party and the country at large.
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Whatever the result of the presidential election, Wickremesinghe will remain Prime Minister until the next general election at least. Under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution passed by the current Government, the most powerful position in Government is that of the prime minster and not the president. This is as a consequence of popular support to abolish the executive presidency – the understanding under which the Premadasa candidacy is going ahead is that Wickremesinghe will remain Prime Minister if Premadasa is elected president.
Parliament can be dissolved by the President four-and-a-half years after being elected and this will fall in March 2020, unless Parliament votes by a two-thirds majority to dissolve itself before that. It is entirely conceivable that were Premadasa to be elected president, he would want to pass popular legislation before going to the polls – the full term of Parliament is till August 2020.
Premadasa’s popularity in the party and to some extent in the country at large was demonstrated in a number of public meetings he and his followers set up, to in effect force the hand of Wickremesinghe to agree to a Premadasa candidacy.
The success of a Premadasa candidacy is based on the calculation that the UNP vote base of 40% of the electorate that has not come out with Wickremesinghe as Leader, will if Premadasa were the candidate. The rest of the required vote is to come from the ethnic and religious minorities who have traditionally voted UNP, by and large.
The issue for Premadasa though is to bring out the minority vote in sufficiently large numbers behind his candidacy – them staying at home will deliver a Rajapaksa victory as would them spoiling their ballot. The disappointment and disenchantment of the minorities with the failure of the current Government to fulfil the promises made in the heady days of 2015 has to be reversed, even if fear of the Rajapaksas and the “white van” reputation is the only way of doing this.
As far as can be discerned of the substantive policy content of the two main candidates – manifestos are yet to be released – there isn’t too much of a difference between them. On past record of course, there is little to match the “white van” record and the reputation of Rajapaksa on the part of Sajith Premadasa.
Given his tenure as Defence Secretary and reputation as the architect of the war against the LTTE, Rajapaksa answers firmly to the desire for strong and decisive leadership. This has been considerably reinforced by the Easter Sunday atrocities and indeed by the general international trend towards right-wing populism.
Rajapaksa has said on more than one occasion that the talk of rights is irrelevant. Poverty is the key issue and discipline is needed to combat it. Moreover, his overtures to the Muslim community and even to a section of the Tamil community, on this theme, have not been entirely unsuccessful.
Rajapaksa’s candidacy however is hindered by legal action against him for violation of the electoral law – voting for his brother in 2005 when he was a US citizen. This is something he cannot deny knowledge of and the issue remains in the hands of the Election Commission and the courts.
Premadasa is running very much as his father’s son and, accordingly, his record as the Minister of Housing and Construction in building houses for the poor and marginalised. His focus is therefore on development – to the extent that rights feature in his world view, they are social and economic rights rather than the civil and political.
Whilst he has made reference to full devolution under the unitary state to woo the minorities, his message to them too will lie more strongly in the field of livelihoods and economic development to overcome the ravages of war rather than transitional justice and accountability.
Optics and expectations
One key difference between the two is the UNP and hence Premadasa’s commitment to abolish the executive presidency. As to whether he will succeed in doing so – one needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament and a simple majority in a referendum of the entire country – remains to be seen.
Moreover, in such circumstances, will Premadasa continue as the non-executive Head of State of Sri Lanka or resign the presidency and become prime minister?
The power dynamics of victory will be foreshadowed in the campaign and its organisation. Premadasa has to be wary of coming across to the media as too complacent and arrogant and talking in too many generalities.
His main opponent Rajapaksa, on the other hand, is being kept away from media interviews to address the mass rallies, on account of his inexperience in politics and politicking. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s relationship with the media however is strong on social media where the Rajapaksas have developed a presence far greater than anyone in the UNP.
Here again though, the issue is as to how much Gotabaya will concede space to his brothers to run the campaign and his administration in the event of his victory. Whilst he has been nominated, there is no clearly discernible enthusiasm for his candidacy from his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former President, who arguably is the most popular politician in the country and who has declared that he will be prime minister if his brother wins the election.
The 19th Amendment restored term limits on the presidency – Rajapaksa has served the legally entitled two terms. Tensions between the two brothers cannot be ruled out in the event of victory.
It would seem that the election would be determined more by optics and expectations, rather than substantive policies and reform. In this respect, both main candidates represent a politics of the past – the development versus democracy debate, poverty alleviation, and the defence of national sovereignty. The latter has been made more acute by the pending agreements with the US – the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact and the Status of Forces Agreement. Both candidates have made heavy weather of the defence of sovereignty without an explicit statement on whether they will sign these agreements or not.
Neither has talked about what they would do to raise the $ 3 billion that Sri Lanka has to pay in debt repayments every year for the next three years or the longer term issues of a bloated public service, an ageing population, and the overarching question of what it means to be a Sri Lankan in the 21st Century.
Will the idea uniting us be a civic nationalism where everyone is equal before the law or unity in diversity where the special characteristics of the peoples who make up the island are preserved and protected as long as they are not in violation of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution?
It will be an interesting election with the result not easy to predict. Either way, whoever wins, the challenge is greater still.
With the unanimous decision of the Working Committee (WC) of the United National Party (UNP) that its Deputy Leader Sajith Premadasa, son former President late Ranasinghe Premadasa, will be the party’s candidate in the 2019 Sri Lankan presidential election, the election campaign has commenced in earnest.
The UNP WC decision ended weeks of speculation as to whether the Prime Minister and Party Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would agree to a Premadasa candidacy or hold onto it himself, despite opposition in the party and the country at large.
'
Whatever the result of the presidential election, Wickremesinghe will remain Prime Minister until the next general election at least. Under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution passed by the current Government, the most powerful position in Government is that of the prime minster and not the president. This is as a consequence of popular support to abolish the executive presidency – the understanding under which the Premadasa candidacy is going ahead is that Wickremesinghe will remain Prime Minister if Premadasa is elected president.
Parliament can be dissolved by the President four-and-a-half years after being elected and this will fall in March 2020, unless Parliament votes by a two-thirds majority to dissolve itself before that. It is entirely conceivable that were Premadasa to be elected president, he would want to pass popular legislation before going to the polls – the full term of Parliament is till August 2020.
Premadasa’s popularity in the party and to some extent in the country at large was demonstrated in a number of public meetings he and his followers set up, to in effect force the hand of Wickremesinghe to agree to a Premadasa candidacy.
The success of a Premadasa candidacy is based on the calculation that the UNP vote base of 40% of the electorate that has not come out with Wickremesinghe as Leader, will if Premadasa were the candidate. The rest of the required vote is to come from the ethnic and religious minorities who have traditionally voted UNP, by and large.
The issue for Premadasa though is to bring out the minority vote in sufficiently large numbers behind his candidacy – them staying at home will deliver a Rajapaksa victory as would them spoiling their ballot. The disappointment and disenchantment of the minorities with the failure of the current Government to fulfil the promises made in the heady days of 2015 has to be reversed, even if fear of the Rajapaksas and the “white van” reputation is the only way of doing this.
As far as can be discerned of the substantive policy content of the two main candidates – manifestos are yet to be released – there isn’t too much of a difference between them. On past record of course, there is little to match the “white van” record and the reputation of Rajapaksa on the part of Sajith Premadasa.
Given his tenure as Defence Secretary and reputation as the architect of the war against the LTTE, Rajapaksa answers firmly to the desire for strong and decisive leadership. This has been considerably reinforced by the Easter Sunday atrocities and indeed by the general international trend towards right-wing populism.
Rajapaksa has said on more than one occasion that the talk of rights is irrelevant. Poverty is the key issue and discipline is needed to combat it. Moreover, his overtures to the Muslim community and even to a section of the Tamil community, on this theme, have not been entirely unsuccessful.
Rajapaksa’s candidacy however is hindered by legal action against him for violation of the electoral law – voting for his brother in 2005 when he was a US citizen. This is something he cannot deny knowledge of and the issue remains in the hands of the Election Commission and the courts.
Premadasa is running very much as his father’s son and, accordingly, his record as the Minister of Housing and Construction in building houses for the poor and marginalised. His focus is therefore on development – to the extent that rights feature in his world view, they are social and economic rights rather than the civil and political.
Whilst he has made reference to full devolution under the unitary state to woo the minorities, his message to them too will lie more strongly in the field of livelihoods and economic development to overcome the ravages of war rather than transitional justice and accountability.
Optics and expectations
One key difference between the two is the UNP and hence Premadasa’s commitment to abolish the executive presidency. As to whether he will succeed in doing so – one needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament and a simple majority in a referendum of the entire country – remains to be seen.
Moreover, in such circumstances, will Premadasa continue as the non-executive Head of State of Sri Lanka or resign the presidency and become prime minister?
The power dynamics of victory will be foreshadowed in the campaign and its organisation. Premadasa has to be wary of coming across to the media as too complacent and arrogant and talking in too many generalities.
His main opponent Rajapaksa, on the other hand, is being kept away from media interviews to address the mass rallies, on account of his inexperience in politics and politicking. Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s relationship with the media however is strong on social media where the Rajapaksas have developed a presence far greater than anyone in the UNP.
Here again though, the issue is as to how much Gotabaya will concede space to his brothers to run the campaign and his administration in the event of his victory. Whilst he has been nominated, there is no clearly discernible enthusiasm for his candidacy from his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, the former President, who arguably is the most popular politician in the country and who has declared that he will be prime minister if his brother wins the election.
The 19th Amendment restored term limits on the presidency – Rajapaksa has served the legally entitled two terms. Tensions between the two brothers cannot be ruled out in the event of victory.
It would seem that the election would be determined more by optics and expectations, rather than substantive policies and reform. In this respect, both main candidates represent a politics of the past – the development versus democracy debate, poverty alleviation, and the defence of national sovereignty. The latter has been made more acute by the pending agreements with the US – the Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact and the Status of Forces Agreement. Both candidates have made heavy weather of the defence of sovereignty without an explicit statement on whether they will sign these agreements or not.
Neither has talked about what they would do to raise the $ 3 billion that Sri Lanka has to pay in debt repayments every year for the next three years or the longer term issues of a bloated public service, an ageing population, and the overarching question of what it means to be a Sri Lankan in the 21st Century.
Will the idea uniting us be a civic nationalism where everyone is equal before the law or unity in diversity where the special characteristics of the peoples who make up the island are preserved and protected as long as they are not in violation of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution?
It will be an interesting election with the result not easy to predict. Either way, whoever wins, the challenge is greater still.