{"id":57091,"date":"2016-07-28T15:37:49","date_gmt":"2016-07-28T22:37:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=57091"},"modified":"2016-07-28T15:37:49","modified_gmt":"2016-07-28T22:37:49","slug":"pada-yathra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/07\/28\/pada-yathra\/","title":{"rendered":"Pada Yathra"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial Courtesy The Island<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

July 28, 2016, 9:17 pm<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Joint Opposition\u2019s claim that the aim of their Kandy-Colombo Pada Yathra, which commenced yesterday from Getambe, is not to topple the government, is not true. Minister Rajitha Senaratne got it right when he told the media on Wednesday that a protest march couldn\u2019t bring down a government. But, the fact remains that such an event has the potential to set in motion a process of dislodging a government. The UNP\u2019s successful Jana Bala Meheyuma protest campaign against the Kumaratunga government in 2001 is a case in point.<\/p>\n

The short-term objective of the Rajapaksa loyalists is to flex their muscles, consolidate their power in the SLFP and mobilise their supporters at the grassroots level in view of the next local government elections. Unless President Maithripala Sirisena seeks another term, he will, before long, come to be seen as a lame duck head of state and the Rajapaksa faction will become an alternative power centre within the SLFP attracting members from the rival faction.<\/p>\n

The long-term strategy of the JO is to oust the government. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s popularity among the SLFP members became evident from the mass rejection of the Sirisena loyalists who contested the last parliamentary election. Most of those rejects were however appointed to Parliament via the National List subsequently. If the anti-Sirisena faction emerges powerful enough to wrest control of the SLFP with the passage of time the UNP-SLFP political marriage will be doomed in that the SLFP Central Committee can sever the party\u2019s ties with the UNP thus destabilising the government. The UNP will have to engineer crossovers from the UPFA to raise numbers in the House or function as a minority government or coalesce with the TNA on the latter\u2019s terms in such an eventuality.<\/p>\n

The SLFP will have to decide who its next presidential candidate is without further delay. If President Sirisena comes forward, reneging on his promise to serve only a single term then the UNP, the TNA and all other constituents of the grand coalition, cobbled together at the last presidential election, will have to accept him as the common presidential candidate again in a bid to hold the Rajapaksas at bay. That is the UNP will have to opt out of the presidential race for the third consecutive time. President Sirisena can honour his promise and refuse to seek another term but it is doubtful whether he will be able to ensure the victory of an SLFP presidential candidate of his choice or get his party to back a common candidate fielded by the UNP vis-\u00e0-vis opposition from the Mahinda faction.<\/p>\n

The UNP-led UNF government lost power in 2004 not so much because the SLFP emerged any more powerful; it fell because it brought about its own downfall by compromising national security, appeasing terrorists and their fellow travellers, paying no heed to people\u2019s economic woes, implementing its controversial Regaining Sri Lanka project etc. Twelve years on it is repeating most of the blunders which cost it state power in 2004. It has provided the JO with enough and more rallying points within too short a period of time and unwittingly created conditions for mass protests. The unconscionable VAT and NBT increases have caused traders to sink their political differences and stage street protests.<\/p>\n

Attempts to derail the on-going Pada Yathra will only steel the resolve of the JO activists to take on the government with might and main. That was why the late President Ranasinghe Premadasa acted with restraint when Rajapaksa led a Pada Yathra from Colombo to Kataragama. The SLFP, demoralised, unorganised and starved of funds, at that time, hoped and prayed that the government would disrupt its march even before it left the Colombo city limits. Premadasa let them hoof it all the way to Kataragama!<\/p>\n

The only way the government can counter the on-going Pada Yathra without letting it snowball into a mass agitation campaign is to eliminate the factors its rivals are exploiting to fuel their protests. This, no doubt, is a tall order in that the government cannot do without tax increases and has crossed the Rubicon where the hybrid war crimes tribunal, the Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement etc are concerned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial Courtesy The Island July 28, 2016, 9:17 pm\u00a0 The Joint Opposition\u2019s claim that the aim of their Kandy-Colombo Pada Yathra, which commenced yesterday from Getambe, is not to topple the government, is not true. Minister Rajitha Senaratne got it right when he told the media on Wednesday that a protest march couldn\u2019t bring down […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57091","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=57091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57091\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}