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Rajapaksa makes a comeback, but Lanka in political turmoil

Call it a coup or a geopolitical war, but the country is being pulled from all sides - internally and internationally.

Some dubbed it a constitutional coup. For others, it was the 'Et tu, Brute' moment of Sri Lankan politics. Yet others reckoned the removal of Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister by President Maithripala Sirisena in a Machiavellian style as the fallout of a long-drawn geopolitical shadow war involving regional superpowers like India and China. In fact, all the three descriptions would fit the bill depending on which side of the prism you are looking through.
Let's take a look at the constitutionality of Wickremesinghe's removal and the swearing-in of Mahinda Rajapaksa as new prime minister. While pundits are busy splitting hairs on the 19th Amendment of 2015, the order of the events that unfolded on the evening of October 26, 2018, would itself render the procedure unconstitutional. According to the legal fraternity, there were three announcements in the following order - the withdrawal of the United People's Freedom Alliance from the government; the swearing-in of former president Rajapaksa; and the removal of Wickremesinghe from office. This essentially means a new prime minister was appointed and sworn in while the serving prime minister has not legally ceased to function.
This procedural mess-up, which has led to an unprecedented constitutional crisis, needs to be solved by a show of strength by either of the contenders on the floor of parliament. In a fresh twist to the crisis, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya has thrown his weight behind Wickremesinghe, recognising him as the lawful prime minister.
The United National Party (UNP) leader is confident of proving majority support, but Sirisena has checkmated him by suspending parliament until November 16.
This gives Rajapaksa ample time to muster the support of fence-sitting MPs from the UNP. Sirisena has apparently calculated that a Rajapaksa in power would be stronger to win over the UNP legislators he needs to prove majority.
The Wickremesinghe camp argues that as per the 19th Amendment, the prime minister can only cease to hold office by death, resignation, by ceasing to be a MP or if the whole government has lost the confidence of parliament by a defeat on the throne speech, the budget, or a vote of no-confidence. While the UNP says President Sirisena has appointed Rajapaksa as the new prime minister without legally removing Wickremesinghe from his position, the president's men point out that Article 42 (4) of the constitution says "the president shall appoint as prime minister the member of parliament who, in the president's opinion, is most likely to command the confidence of parliament". And Sirisena believes the UNP leader is unlikely to command the confidence of parliament and has, therefore, lost the right to continue. Though the Wickremesinghe government had been under pressure on account of the falling rupee and the multi-million dollar treasury bond scandal, his removal is seen as undemocratic.
However, there are legal experts who maintain the president still has the power to fire a PM. "The president continues to exercise sufficient executive authority and control over the appointment and removal of both the prime minister and other ministers/deputy ministers of the cabinet," maintains prominent lawyer Chrishmal Warnasuriya. The amendment, which envisaged the dilution of many sweeping powers the executive presidency had assumed since 1978, was the result of a promise made by Sirisena in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election which he won by defeating Rajapaksa. It's the biggest irony and political treachery in the island's recent history that the proponent of the amendment himself is wielding the power he is supposed to have abolished to sack a prime minister who had defeated a no-confidence vote by a substantial majority earlier in the year.
This is when the "Et tu, Brute" moment becomes relevant. Sirisena, who had come out of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) to form an electoral alliance with the opposition, ran against Rajapaksa in the 2015 presidential elections with the help and blessings of Wickremesinghe. It was a huge sacrifice by the UNP leader who himself was planning to take on Rajapaksa. Once he was elected, Sirisena was invited back to the SLFP as the party constitution requires the country's president to lead the party, too. Rajapaksa on his part floated another party called the Sri Lanka Podujana Party, which came ahead of the SLFP and the UNP in the February 2018 local council elections. Like Sirisena, Rajapaksa also claimed he had not quit the SLFP as he plotted a political comeback with the help of Sirisena, who held several rounds of secret meetings with the former president. What followed was a Machiavellian plot to backstab Wickremesinghe at a time when he was nursing the ambition of running for president in the 2020 elections, proving that the SLFP leader is not only an opportunist but also a ruthless schemer.
The geopolitical power play in Sri Lanka's foreign policy is conspicuous in the investment opportunities Colombo offers to certain nations. New Delhi knows Rajapaksa had been thankless in showering the expansionist China with several infrastructure projects, including a sea port and an airport in the south of the island, despite the moral and material support Colombo had received from New Delhi in the climax of the civil war. Though Sirisena followed Rajapaksa's China appeasement policy, Colombo had been careful not to rub India the wrong way. In fact, Sri Lankan leaders have recently been cozying up to their Indian counterparts, but Wickremesinghe was a man in hurry and treaded on Sirisena's toes by issuing a statement after meeting his India counterpart Narendra Modi in New Delhi recently. The statement held Sirisena responsible for non-awarding of projects to India.
Sirisena soon launched a counter offensive by accusing Indian intelligence of trying to assassinate him. When his statement at a cabinet meeting made headlines and angered India, he issued a strong denial. However, in his address to the nation on Sunday, Sirisena dropped another bombshell by accusing a Sri Lankan cabinet minister of his involvement in the assassination plot.
In the meantime, Rajapaksa, who had maintained close relations with India's rightwing leaders like Subramanian Swamy, seems to have mended fences with New Delhi. He met Modi in New Delhi as recently as last month. While a China ploy to claw back its influence cannot be ruled out as a precipitant of the crisis, New Delhi's recent strategy to prop up two power centres - Wickremesinghe and Rajapaksa - seemed to have backfired. However, in the geopolitical horizon, the stars seem to favour Rajapaksa, who wasted no time to make a thanksgiving call to his trusted friend Swamy soon after he was appointed prime minister.
Neutral Tamils are of the view that though he has the blood of the 2009 carnage on his hands, Rajapaksa would be a better bet to put the country's economy back on track. They, however, fear that things could go wrong if Rajapaksa acts as the de facto president with Sirisena staying on as a rubber stamp. There are ominous dark clouds gathering over Colombo with a bloody attempt on Sunday to take Petroleum Minister Arjuna Ranatunga hostage and Rajapaksa-aligned unionists jostling to seize control of state media.
Watching Sirisena's political trajectory in the last four years, the Bard would turn in his grave and recite his own Hamletian phrase: "One may smile, and smile, and be a villain."
-suresh@khaleejtimes.com