Sirisena-Ranil-JHU coalition – the disastrous road to instability Part III
Posted on December 16th, 2014
H.L.D.Mahindapala
In the main, coalitions of diverse parties have been recipes for political instability and economic stagnation. Down every step of the way they will be obsessed with politics – meaning fighting for the advantages each party could extract at the expense of the others to consolidate their political bargaining and electoral chances – brushing aside economics of growth, or the day-to-day issues that plague the people. Their internal bickering will dominate the headlines.
In fact, all coalitions are like Hollywood marriages: gilded, glamorous and grand today and divisive and deadly leading to divorces tomorrow. The two best known examples that went the Hollywoodian way are those of UNP-FP and SLFP-Marxists. They were marriages of convenience that were destined to break-up.
The most notable was the Marxist-SLFP coalition. Marxists who rushed to prop up Mrs. Bandaranaike discovered, rather late in the day, that they were not wanted either by Mrs. B or the people. When they went to the polls after their bitter divorce the people’s verdict on the Marxists was ruthless : the biggest and the most formidable opposition in the post-independent era was wiped out.
By joining Mrs. B. the Marxists lost their identity, their support base in the electorate, their image as a dynamic alternative in the opposition and, above all, their integrity as intellectuals (golden brains”) offering solutions to national problems. Like all incompatible coalitions it was doomed from the beginning. The irreconcilable contradictions within the Marxist-SLFP Coalition, their unworkable pursuit of diametrically opposed goals, the Marxists compromising with the ruling Right-wing SLFP elite abandoning their traditional left-wing ideologies, the never ending internal squabbles with both sides jockeying for power, the personality clashes with arrogant Felix Dias Bandaranaike usurping Mrs. B’s powers and dictating take-it-or-leave terms to the Marxists contributed to eventual collapse of the Coalition and, worst of all, the burial of the Marxists.
This example is a warning to the UNPers who have now gone to bed with the Sirisena-CBK-Mangala My-3” of the SLFP. If this Coalition ever takes place, both parties will be locked in a stalemate of their antithetical politics with neither party having the capacity to even achieve the minimum goals promised in their MOUs. Besides, the diverse extremists in the coalition – JHU- UNP-TNA (the covert partner) – will never see eye-to-eye on key national issues. What kind of soup can they make when there are so many cooks, most of whom are like Wickremesinghe and Champika Ranawaka, qualified only to cook their own goose?
Sirisena so far has been playing the role of being all things to all men, women and hermaphrodites. He can play this game only as long as he is a candidate of the opposition where he floats merrily on airy-fairy promises that are not likely to see the light of day. His capacity to fulfill/appease the diverse parties in the Coalition will evaporate once he sits down in the seats of power to hammer out the details and determine policies. It is at this point that the cracks will open up. The intractable complexities of holding the heterogeneous forces within the Coalition will be beyond the limited capabilities of Sirisena. He neither has the skill to hold them together to keep the Coalition going for some time, nor the power to build consensus on the vexed issues facing the nation.
The way the forces are aligned in the Coalition it is clear that the SLFP is now divided into (1) the modernizing, development-oriented, forward-looking engine of growth headed by Mahinda Rajapakse and (2) the rickety old cart headed by asinine CBK-Mangala duo that left the worst legacy of corruption and inefficiency since independence (1948), according to the Editor of RAVAYA, Victor Ivan, who was an insider in Kumaratunga’s political campaigns.
This old, corrupt gang offers only vindictive politics. Besides, the regime change they promise is not going to change the political culture one bit – not with their vindictive politics led by corrupt has-beens. The legal, institutional and political impediments standing in their way for constitutional changes are intertwined in near insuperable complexities that it doubtful whether they can change the constitution in the foreseeable future, let alone the 100 days. So it will back to square one, with the same old same old. They will fail like they did when they were in power last. And when they fail they will try to cover-up their failure to create their promised land by blaming the Mahinda Rajapakse regime. Blaming the other is the normal game played by failed politicians. They will not take responsibility for their own incompetence, mismanagement, corruption and CBK-Ranil-made disasters.
Sirisena will come a cropper in the three main areas that he has promised to change : 1 the constitution; 2. corruption and 3. cost of living. As pointed out earlier, he already has, as his key strategist/partner, the most corrupt woman in post-independent history. If he is to make an impact on corruption he must begin by investigating the corrupt, ill-gotten accumulations of Chandrika Kumaratunga. Simultaneously, he must investigate, as a matter of urgency, the Ravi-Rajaratnam deal with links to the LTTE. Of all corrupt deals the Ravi-Rajaratnam deal is a direct threat to the nation’s security and territorial integrity. Sirisena so far has not uttered one word about cleaning up his own stables before cleaning the backyard of others. Exonerating corruption in his camp and poking his fingers only in his opponents camp is vindictive politics. Nor can he clean one part and leave the other part immersed in total corruption. So can the nation trust Sirisena to be honest, or even clean up corruption?
Wickremesinghe too will soon discover that the man whom he promotes to be the next president will be the first to let him down. A victory for Sirisena is a defeat for Wickremesinghe and, of course, Sajith Premadasa and other UNPers who are refusing to surrender to the failed and corrupt forces of the SLFP. If Mahinda Rajapakse loses the UNPers will have to play second fiddle to the CBK-Mangala-Sirisena trio. With a weak leader like Wickremesinghe he will follow CBK-Mangala-Sirisena politics selling the UNP and the nation to the divisive/separatist forces. Their under-the-table agreement with the TNA will compel them to reverse the gains made by the self-sacrificing forces.
CBK-Ranil-Mangala are all birds of a feather ever ready to justify their failed past by reviving the P-TOMS and Ranil-Prabhakaran agreements in revised versions. They are not averse to dismantling the Security Forces, withdraw forces from the Northern bases still under threat from LTTE’s under-cover agents, in order to win pats on their back from the anti-Sri Lankan west. The proposed Coalition, in short, is another way of going on the reverse gear to the failed past when Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe surrendered to Prabhakaran.
As for Wickremesinghe his future was sealed the day he signed the MOU: he will neither have his way in the Coalition nor will he get the powers promised in the constitutional change. Since he hasn’t the guts to stand up for his end of the deal signed in the MOU – he has already lost the Ministry of Defence — he will have to run after the CBK-Mangala-Sirisena trio to survive in the Coalition. He can threaten to pull out of the MOU and break up the Coalition. But that would only confirm the fragility of the tenuous Coalition. It would also means that he and his Coalition can only go down the path to nowhere.
Of all the known coalitions this, no doubt, will be the worst. The very composition of its members, drawn from opposite extremes, will paralyze it. Only a pompous prima donna like Champika Ranawake, will assume that everything is going to be hunky-dory in the Coalition. He can’t even keep his principled and committed colleague, Udaya Gamampillai, within his fold. So how does he propose to keep the donkeys, asses and mules in the Coalition – not mention his own self — together?
This Coalition, consisting of incompatible partners and antithetical political mantras, will be a disaster for the nation. It is a recipe for chaos and instability. Whatever the infirmities of the Mahinda Rajapakse regime may have been he never allowed the nation to slide down the greasy pole to unmanageable instability. Mahinda Rajapakse had a firm grip on politics at all levels. His methodology may not have appealed to his detractors. But he delivered to the nation all that was lost in the 33 years of divisive politics and never allowed the gains to decline.
His politics of growth and development to lift the nation from the depths of disasters, caused primarily by the selling the nation to the Tamil Pol Pot, Prabhakaran, is a remarkable achievement by any international or national standards. No one in post-independent history has reached such monumental heights. He has planted the Sri Lankan flag at the peak of Sri Lankan history. When can pigmies like Wickremesinghe, Kumaratunga, Samaraweera and Sirisena ever get within even smelling distance of the new nation built from scratch, as it were?
The leadership qualities of politicians can be measured essentially by their achievements just as much as Kumar Sangakkara has been measured by the runs he put on the board. So what is the score put up by CBK, Mangala, Siirisena and Wickremesinghe? Why is it that they pose as smart asses only when they are in the opposition pavilion waiting to bat and fail miserably when they go to the crease? When did they ever score a century for the nation? Why are they promising to deliver always in the never-never future and never in the present? Who can trust them when they don’t trust each other either?
This temporary coalition made for their convenience is not going to be the answer to the nation’s future. Their main offer to the nation is simple : change the regime. They claim that power in their hands will solve all the problems of the nation. But the very nature of their Coalition, consisting of parties that have never got along in the past, will militate against all of them coming together in the future for the good of the people.
For instance, the yellow-bellied humbug, Champikaya, has campaigned to keep the anti-Sinhala-Buddhist UNPers out of power as long as I can remember. Now he is campaigning as if Wickremesinghe is his ever-loving, long lost brother-in-law. Can you trust hypocrites like Champikaya to save the nation when he joins CBK-Mangala-Ranil-Sirisena forces knowing that they have always ganged up – and will continue to gang up — to sell the nation down the river?
Champikaya has jumped with both feet into the anti-national camp not to save the nation from sliding into another P-TOM or a Ranil-Prabhakaran deal but to bargain for a ministerial position for himself. His attempt to cover himself with a yellow robe to wangle a ministerial post in the Sirisena-Chandrika-Mangala-Wickremesinghe regime is a disgrace to Buddha, dhamma and sangha. His ministerial post will only strengthen and encourage Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe to go for another Ranil-Prabhakaran deal with TNA. There isn’t a bigger fool than the fool who thinks that he/she can save his cause by selling him/herself to the enemy.
In any case he is joining a Coalition consisting primarily of the anti-national forces. Furthermore, the chances of this bizarre Coalition surviving for long is very much in doubt. Without any ability to hang together as a solid political force they can never deliver good governance. Nor can they deliver their other promises. The change they are promising is change for chaos not for stability and growth.
The past record of coalitions has proved that a confused conglomeration of corrupt coalitionists can never give stability for peace, reconciliation and growth. Most of all, it is the business community that will have to face the consequences of the inevitable failures of CBK-Mangala-Ranil-Sirisena Coalition. The instability that will arise out of their higgledy-piggeldy politics will drive investors away and ruin the progress made by them so far. The nation will end up like their Coalition: in utter chaos putting the clock back once again by another fifty ears.
Can the business community afford this disaster?
December 16th, 2014 at 4:29 pm
The common candidate Maithripala Sirisena had said that Buckingham palace is in America and Queen lives there.Please refer the Sinhala edition for the video.
http://lankacnews.com/sinhala/news/126128/
December 16th, 2014 at 4:37 pm
This has nothing to do with politics.
Its about giving – the Christmas spirit.
Watch and cry!
“http://www.adaderana.lk/entertainment/29049/people-receive-unexpected-amount-of-money-how-they-responded-was-amazing”
December 16th, 2014 at 5:27 pm
From Indian-s Banks to Chandrika’s purse and then to Sirisena lead cohorts pockets. Win or loose they will not be out of pocket like the Sinhala politicians after 1951 the year of SWRD.
December 16th, 2014 at 10:39 pm
It is very interesting to see that Cyber news website of Wimal Weerawansa provides the moral decline of the Rajapaksa campaign.
The headlines used, the contents of the news all show a pathetic degeneration of human quality. This is not the way to win an election. If one goes by LanakCnews MR is in big trouble. This is not SarathF in 2005 kind of fight.
December 17th, 2014 at 12:26 am
President should have STOPPED Wimal Weerawansa and others from mudslinging at My3’s family members including brother and son.
Now BOTH camps have fallen to a VERY LOW LEVEL of throwing utter filth at each others’ families.
Photos circulating in internet and facebook are DISGUSTING. Clearly one group is winning over the other in this disgusting game of throwing mud at each family. Now it is too late to reset it.
SHAMEFUL!
December 17th, 2014 at 12:34 am
There are a few surveys in the internet – one in Facebook UPFA page.
Remarkably all surveys that go into PROVINCE LEVEL says the SAME outcome (percentages vastly differ though).
According to these, SOUTHERN, NORTH WESTERN AND SABARAGAMUWA will be the only provinces where MR will win.
My3 has to concentrate more on SOUTHERN and NORTH WESTERN provinces.
December 17th, 2014 at 1:32 am
The proposed Coalition, in short, is another way of going on the reverse gear to the failed past when Kumaratunga and Wickremesinghe surrendered to Prabhakaran
This is the problem Maithripala is having with the village voter – NO ONE wants Sri Lanka to go in reverse. And everyone knows Ranil and Chandrika – Maithripala’s sponsors – are relics of the past.
3 weeks before the election is WAY too late to start a grassroots door-to-door campaign that Maithripala claims he has now decided to do. 90% of Sri Lanka ‘voters’ are NOT on Facebook, and do not even have an Internet connection in their homes. Trying to knock on 10 million doors in three weeks is physically impossible, and even one million doors would be too ambitious even if you have a staff of 10,000, which Maithripala does not. But just like Maithripala lacks the CAPACITY to govern the country, he lacks the capacity to mount an effective presidential campaign, and now is grasping at straws, lurching here and lurching there, in search of something he thinks will resonate with the actual voters who will decide this election.
December 17th, 2014 at 1:49 am
>>>Lorenzo Says:
December 17th, 2014 at 12:34 am<<<
Lorenzo, I know you haven't worked on professional campaigns before where there are REAL pollsters on staff that use MODERN statistics and probability models, but trust me on this one – Facebook is NOT a representative sample of Sri Lanka VOTERS.
Computer and Internet usage in particular are skewed in favor of the wealthy in Sri Lanka, and wealthy voters tend to be pro-Western, identify with Western culture, and really 'think' they would rather live in America, the UK, or Australia if they had the chance rather than live here in Sri Lanka. Any professional pollster will tell you that is NOT the kind of sample to get an accurate read on actual voter sentiment.
Even in America where Internet usage is one of the highest, the professional pollsters use old-fashioned phone surveys to cancel out the bias associated with the views of those who can afford computers and Internet.
The reason why Chandrika is depressed these days requiring psychiatric attention is she knows the actual professional polling shows Maithripala losing badly, doing MUCH worse than Fonseka in 2010. Village folks don't even know who this guy is (other than his name), do not know of anything he has done to help Sri Lanka, and have no reason to believe he will be better than the current president.
December 17th, 2014 at 2:26 am
Lorenzo,
Just to entertain myself, I went to the Facebook pages of both candidates and found MR has 461,875 likes versus 187,082 likes for MS, out of total possible likes of 648,957. And remember there are only about 1,000,000 active users on Facebook in Sri Lanka and many of them are non-voting age teens. Nonetheless, in voting terms this would translate into a MR win with 71% of the vote to 29% for Maithripala.
“https://www.facebook.com/PresidentRajapaksa”
“https://www.facebook.com/maithripalas”
So even among wealthier Sri Lankans who can afford a computer and Internet connection (which is not MR’s strength), he is beating Maithripala by a WIDE margin!
Again, there is a REASON Chandrika is currently being treated by psychiatrists for depression these days, and it has nothing to do with MR ‘skullduggery’.
December 17th, 2014 at 5:17 am
Vimutti,
I don’t rely on FB as the ONLY source. But it reflects the CHANGE (nothing else). Village level activists print out certain stuff from FB and turn them into posters, leaflets and banners. Only the printing cost.
Fans of MR and My3 cannot be compared because the MR page was active for the past 6 years, My3 page started a few months ago.
I decline to comment on CBK and SB and their threats to one another. DISGUSTING. SLFP women’s group was in a fix trying to damage control the situation.
December 17th, 2014 at 7:45 am
>>>Village level activists print out certain stuff from FB and turn them into posters, leaflets and banners. Only the printing cost.<<<
I have worked on a successful presidential grass-roots campaign in America, and know for certain that distributing leaflets is not going to sway many voters – you have to knock on EACH voter's door, talk to them directly about your candidate, and keep a database of voter sentiment for each voter in each neighborhood (for, against, leaning for, leaning against, and undecided) to see who you have to visit again if they are persuadable (undecided). This database can also be used to decide which areas to target to reach undecided voters with your television advertising dollars (you DON'T waste time and resources targeting voters who have already made up their mind to vote against your candidate like you stated above concerning the South and North West).
3 weeks until election is not enough time to even get to stage 1 in a grassroots campaign, and you can forget about developing a meaningful database to assist you in voter targeting. So Maithripala is spinning his wheels in a losing effort and will no doubt blame the president when he loses when he should be blaming himself for being such a poor manager and decision maker. You can't run a successful presidential campaign from the seat of your pants, it requires careful planning and execution, and Maithripala is coming up short in both of these areas.
Maithripala's presidential campaign reminds me of his ill-conceived and poorly executed cigarette package warning labels initiative, when he should have known that most Sri Lankans buy single cigarettes from small neighborhood stores (not Food City, Arpico or Keels) and therefore would never read a label on a cigarette package. He should have known that most voters are not going to change governments just because he wants them to – they need to be persuaded that he has 'greater' ability and capacity than the current president to 'improve' upon what the current president has already achieved in Sri Lanka.
December 17th, 2014 at 10:20 am
Note that My3 still owns and maintains the Facebook slupfa page.
SL tops Google’s sex search with people in Homagama, Colombo & Nugegoda topping the list