{"id":41534,"date":"2015-02-14T21:22:46","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T03:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=41534"},"modified":"2015-02-14T14:19:01","modified_gmt":"2015-02-14T21:19:01","slug":"the-inevitable-slfp-counter-coup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/02\/14\/the-inevitable-slfp-counter-coup\/","title":{"rendered":"The inevitable SLFP counter-coup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political Watch Courtesy Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

February 14, 2015, 8:29 pm<\/span>
\nHad the SLFP executive committee meeting held yesterday been mishandled, it could have resulted in a seismic shift in the political landscape of Sri Lanka. But President Maithripala Sirisena steered clear of making any contentious changes. He remains the party chairman, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa the general secretary, Susil Premajayantha has been appointed national organiser and S.B.Nawinna the treasurer. An Advisory Council made up of former presidents and prime ministers has also been set up. The SLFP has been retained in one piece. There was little room really, to make any contentious appointments as MPs like Vidura Wickramanayake were openly saying that if any \u2018unsuitable\u2019 persons who had not been in the SLFP for a long time were recommended for high positions in the party, he would contest such positions himself. Wickramanayake even said that Maithripala Sirisena was a \u2018prisoner\u2019 of the UNP.<\/p>\n

Indeed any contentious recommendation for a top party slot may have motivated a flood of contenders to come forward for the various positions and Sirisena would not have been able to control the situation. The main contentious appointment in question was making Rajitha Senaratne the national organiser as was reported on some websites. It was reported on some websites that Chamipka Ranawaka was to be made national organizer while Rajitha would be made the general secretary. It was clear that the old guard of the SLFP was girding their loins to prevent such appointments. As it turns out, Rajitha Senaratne has been given the less contentious position of Vice President while Ranawaka has not been accommodated. Nobody will really oppose Rajitha being made a Vice President of the party as he had started his political career in the SLFP and had he remained with the party throughout, he would have been one of the most senior party members today. What blasted his prospects were the years he spent in the SLMP, BNP and the UNP before rejoining the SLFP in 2007.<\/p>\n

\"\"In the view of the present writer, clipping the wings of the State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardene was an integral part of this strategy to keep the SLFP in one piece. It was both an insult to the UNP and a warning. Ruwan has been left with four marginal institutions, the Rana Viru Seva Authority, the Defence Services College, Defence Services Command and Staff College and the National Cadet Corp. Just days ago Ruwan was touring the north and pledging not to remove army camps and to give the three forces the opportunity to function with dignity. Yet with one stroke of the pen, the armed forces have been taken away from his purview. This is no less a coup than what happened in November 2003.<\/p>\n

\"article_image\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that the UNP did not provoke such an action. The flippant attitude that the UNP leadership adopted towards the allegation that John Amaratunga\u2019s goons had assaulted the Wattala PS Chairman was spreading so much dissension within the SLFP that President Sirisena obviously had to fire a warning shot over the UNP to stop the situation from getting out of control. When the SLFP took one step backwards on the no-confidence issue, Lakshman Kiriella went so far as to direct jibes at the SLFP saying that the opposition was now \u2018dumbstruck\u2019. These jibes were taking their toll on the party and Sirisena obviously had to do something to calm the SLFP down. Clipping Ruwan\u2019s wings appears to have been the strategy adopted by Sirisena to keep the SLFP happy. This is also a warning to the UNP that the president can take the police department as well away from the UNP\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

If he was to retain control over the SLFP, Sirisena would have had to take a step like this. He will have to continue to dangle the carrot of state power in front of the SLFP in order to keep them at heel. It goes without saying that if the SLFPers began to feel that Sirisena was doing the bidding of the UNP by keeping the SLFP on a leash, he would have gradually lost control of the party. Now, having clipped the wings of Ruwan Wijewardene and refrained from making any controversial changes in the office bearers of the party, Sirisena has moved to counter the disillusionment that was spreading throughout the party. There was some urgency in this as Dinesh Gunawardena, Vasudeva Nanayakkara, Wimal Weerawansa and Udaya Gammampila had announced a meeting in Nugegoda with the sole aim of making Mahinda Rajapaksa the prime ministerial candidate of the UPFA at the next parliamentary election. Sirisena had to do something fast to prevent mass defections from the SLFP to this new platform. For the time being, he seems to have succeeded in keeping the SLFP together.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to yesterday\u2019s SLFP executive committee (Samastha Lanka Karaka Sabhawa) meeting, a list of over 60 politicians who served in the Rajapaksa regime who collectively had over 2,000 complaints filed against them with the Bribery Commission was published. \u00a0Among those whose names were mentioned were Basil Rajapaksa, Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Rohitha Abeygunawardene, Dullas Alahapperuma, Namal Rajapaksa,\u00a0 Wimal Weerawansa, Pavithra Wanniarachchi, Lakshman Yapa Abeywardene,\u00a0 Sanath Jayasuriya, Nimal Siripala de Silva, Dilan Perera, Lakshman Seneviratne, Kumara Welgama, Arumugam Thondaman, Johnston Fernando, Sarana Gunawardene, Felix Perera, A.L.M.Athaulla, Susil Premajayantha, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa, D.M. Jayaratne, Vijithamuni de Soysa, Jagath Pushpakumara, Sumedha Jayasena, Susantha Punchinilame, John Seneviratne, Udith Lokubandara, Dayasritha Tissera, Sajin Vaas Gunawardene, Nishantha Muthuhettigama, Mahinda Amaraweera, Lakshman Wasantha Perera, Bandula Gunawardene, Gamini Lokuge, Keheliya Rambukwella, Duminda Silva, S.M.Chandrasena, Lalith Dissanayake, Mervyn Silva, Gunaratne Weerakoon, S.B.Dissanayake and Nirmala Kotelawala.<\/p>\n

In addition to this, complaints were also said to have been received against key officials of the past regime including ex-CJ Mohan Peiris, Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, P.B.Jayasundera, Ajith Nivaard Cabraal, Gamini Senarath and Anura Siriwardena. In short, virtually everybody who was anybody in the Rajapaksa regime is on the list. The director general of the Bribery Commission was transferred and a new official appointed by the Justice Minister of the new UNP government for the avowed purpose of \u2018expediting\u2019 investigations into complaints. The strategy of the UNP (and the JVP and JHU) was obviously to destroy the credibility of the UPFA with corruption and bribery charges against everybody who was anybody in the past government ahead of the parliamentary election and to wade through slaughter to victory.<\/p>\n

If Maithripala Sirisena had stood by idly and allowed the opponents of the SLFP to have their way, he would have gone down in history as the man who destroyed the party. It is unlikely that Sirisena would want to end his career with such a black mark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Political Watch Courtesy Island February 14, 2015, 8:29 pm Had the SLFP executive committee meeting held yesterday been mishandled, it could have resulted in a seismic shift in the political landscape of Sri Lanka. But President Maithripala Sirisena steered clear of making any contentious changes. He remains the party chairman, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa the general […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}