{"id":71297,"date":"2017-11-03T13:21:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-03T20:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=71297"},"modified":"2017-11-03T13:21:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-03T20:21:56","slug":"slfps-dilemma-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/11\/03\/slfps-dilemma-2\/","title":{"rendered":"SLFP\u2019s dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

November 3, 2017, 10:07 pm<\/span>
\nThe Joint Opposition (JO) has sought to bargain from a position of strength with the SLFP, which has invited it to contest the next Local Government (LG) polls together. It has put forth some pre-conditions, the main being that the SLFP pull out of the ruling yahapalana coalition.<\/p>\n

President Maithripala Sirisena is now in a dilemma. He succeeded in outwitting his b\u00eate noire Rajapaksa, in style, at the 2015 general election. He used Rajapaksa, who wanted to be the Prime Minister, to lead the polls campaign and queered the pitch of the latter on the eve of the election; thereafter he sacked the general secretaries of the SLFP and the UPFA, appointed his men to those two posts and formed a joint administration with the UNP. He manipulated the composition of Parliament to deny Rajapaksa the Opposition Leader\u2019s post, which went to TNA Leader R. Sampanthan. The SLFP is apparently trying to play the same trick again, but it is doubtful whether it will succeed in its endeavour this time around because once bitten Rajapaksa is twice shy.<\/p>\n

The SLFP is sure to face an ignominious defeat at the upcoming LG polls if it fails to secure the backing of the JO. President Sirisena needs an electoral debacle like a hole in the head in that he will have to lead the SLFP\u2019s polls campaign, thereby, pitting himself against the UNP led by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. The mini polls will be a battle for supremacy between the President and the Prime Minister to all intents and purposes. If the President fails to steer his party to success his position will be further undermined in the yahapalana government. The UNP ministers are already short-changing their SLFP counterparts and asking the latter, in public, to leave the government.<\/p>\n

The President will have to show his hand before the LG polls; he will have to tell the SLFP whether he is planning another political marriage with the UNP. The same goes for the Prime Minister, who will have to let his party know what he really intends to do after the LG polls. Many UNPers have not taken kindly to their party sharing power with the SLFP. The President and the Prime Minister won\u2019t be able to keep their parties in the dark and extend their cohabitation to the grassroots level after the LG polls because they will have to face the electorate again at the PC elections and, most of all, the presidential election due in 2019.<\/p>\n

It is highly unlikely that the President will agree to pull out of the yahapalana coalition to appease the JO. For, he will render himself politically much more vulnerable in such an eventuality. Worse, leaving the government will place him at the mercy of the JO led by the Rajapaksas; he would be in the same predicament as a fly in a spider\u2019s parlour if he met the JO\u2019s demand! He, therefore, would just as soon stay in the yahapalana coalition and hope for the best.<\/p>\n

Let it be repeated that SLFP cannot avoid a crushing defeat at a future election unless it secures the backing of its dissidents. The UNP will be at an advantage if the SLFP and the JO contest elections separately. But, the JO\u2019s battle plan is not so much winning an election but weakening the President and wresting control of the SLFP in time for the next presidential and parliamentary elections. It will be happy if it can beat the SLFP at the mini polls. The President will have a hard time, trying to prevent mass defections from his camp in such a situation.<\/p>\n

President Sirisena finds himself between a rock and a hard place. He cannot leave the government or be at the mercy of the JO and at the same time his chances of enabling the SLFP\u2008to win an election without smoking the peace pipe with the party dissidents are remote. Whether he will be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editorial\u00a0Courtesy The Island November 3, 2017, 10:07 pm The Joint Opposition (JO) has sought to bargain from a position of strength with the SLFP, which has invited it to contest the next Local Government (LG) polls together. It has put forth some pre-conditions, the main being that the SLFP pull out of the ruling yahapalana […]<\/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-71297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71297","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=71297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}