You won the war, now take the giant leap for peace

British Prime Ministers are not the most popular personalities among Sri Lankans these days but it was one of them, Harold Wilson, who said that seven days are a long time in politics. If that is so, eight years are an era. That is what Percy Mahinda Rajapaksa celebrated in the presidential chair this week.

There were several reasons for Rajapaksa to celebrate. A day before the anniversary of his assumption of office as President, Rajapaksa celebrated his 68th birthday. Only three days earlier, he had been appointed as Chair-in-office of the Commonwealth after playing host in Colombo to 52 countries linked by their heritage of being British colonies.

Rajapaksa has continued to consolidate his hold on power but even his critics -- of whom there are a growing number -- will concede that he remains the most popular politician in the country. That is both a tribute to the man as it is a stinging indictment of the opposition he has encountered since he battled his way up the greasy pole of the political hierarchy in 2005.

No matter what he achieves in the remainder of his presidency, Mahinda Rajapaksa will be remembered as the leader who rid Sri Lanka of terrorism by annihilating the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a decisive military offensive. His predecessor has tried to take the shine off that victory by stating that her government had already finished 75 per cent of the war and the Rajapaksa administration only finsihed the balance 25. Nevertheless, eight years are an appropriate time for Rajapaksa to both take stock of what he has done as well as to look at what more he could do.

Had the Grand Old Man of presidential politics, J. R. Jayewardene been around he would have applauded. Jayewardene waited patiently for decades until he could prise the leadership of the United National Party (UNP) from the Senanayakes. Rajapaksa had to do the same with the Bandaranaikes in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), finally edging out his long-time friend and a man who he always called 'lokka', Anura Bandaranaike, for the presidential nomination in 2005.

In power, Jayewardene identified Sirima Bandaranaike as his most powerful rival. A Special Presidential Commission appointed by him then stripped Bandaranaike of her civic rights for alleged abuse of power, throwing her into the political wilderness for years, until she was pardoned by Jayewardene himself, many years later.

Similarly, when Sarath Fonseka emerged as the man who could challenge Rajapaksa for his popularity, a series of what many analysts saw as sham military inquiries followed and Fonseka found himself in prison, stripped of his rank and pension. He still remains without his civic rights, though he has been pardoned by Rajapaksa and released from jail.

Jayewardene discarded the 1972 Republican Constitution, introduced his own Presidential Constitution and then used it, whether it was to hold a referen- dum instead of a general election to retain his parliamentary majority or to try an impeach a Chief Justice who was not toeing his line.

Rajapaksa too has used constitutional provisions to engineer cross-overs from the UNP and ensure his parliamentary majority, impeached a Chief Justice and has gone one step further: he has removed the two-term limit on an incumbent President. If circumstances permit, he could be President for life!

Rajapaksa is sure to guffaw and brush aside any suggestions that he is becoming a dictator. If the people wish to elect him for a third term of office, he is certain to ask, why should the Constitution be a bar to their wish? Once when a foreign television reporter asked him about the stranglehold the Rajapaksa family had over Sri Lankan affairs and wondered whether the country was becoming an oligarchy, he pointed out that all of his brothers except one have been elected by the people and the one who was appointed -- Defence Secretary Gotabaya -- has more than proved his worth!

The past eight years have demonstrated that Rajapaksa is no political novice from beyond the backwaters of Beliatte. He has the cunning of Jayewardene, the ruthlessness of Ranasinghe Premadasa, the disarming charm of Chandrika Kumaratunga and the nationalistic fervour of Dingiri Banda Wijetunga. He has seen the good, the bad and the ugly in his years in Parliament and out of it, he has learnt from them and he has learnt well. He is now as crafty a political creature as you can get.

Being such a consummate politician, he must be seeing the flaws of his government. While the end of terrorism has given economic development a boost, it has not reined in the rising cost of living. Most wage earners find it harder to make ends meet. In government though, there is profligacy in spending and ministers are not shy to flaunt their wealth. Development budgets are vastly inflated and commissions pocketed, the Stock Exchange is known as the Launderette and accusations are aplenty that government tenders are fixed in favour of political favourites and that the dividends of the war victory have gone to crooks and casino merchants; and that the country is living on borrowed money.

Since the war ended, a theme of the government has been infrastructure development. The expressways to Galle and Katunayake and the massive development effort in the North and the East are examples. These are commendable but at the same time the national carrier SriLankan Airlines and budget carrier Mihin Lanka - - sharing the President's name -- continue to fly with empty seats and a bank balance that is increasingly in the red. They were both given another two hundred million US dollar handouts in Thursday's budget.

There is a perception that while hardships are being piled upon the people, the ruling party couldn't care less. That is partly because ministers go about in luxury limousines with a bunch of hangers on in tow and also because each ministerial reshuffle brings about a dozen new ministers or deputy ministers. At last count, the country had sixty six ministers, thirty eight deputy ministers and two project ministers. All one hundred and four of them would require the paraphernalia that comes with ministerial office. Rajapaksa's strategy is to keep everyone in his parliamentary team happy but do we really need a Minister for Botanical Gardens or a Minister for Public Relations?

There is also a culture of impunity where anyone with an iota of power becomes a law unto himself. There has been a spate of crimes committed by lowlevel representatives of the ruling United Peoples' Freedom Alliance (UPFA), so the cancer is spreading from Parliament right down to the Pradeshiya Sabhas. In the provinces, ruling party politicians are involved in land sales and timber felling while ministers are lining their pockets with gay abandon. Rajapaksa is allowing them to do all of this so they remain loyal to him, and have the funds to win elections when they come. Unfortunately for Rajapaksa, with ultimate power must come ultimate responsibility. That is why he had to face questions from Britain about a murder that was being hushed up because of the political allegiance of the alleged culprits.

Then there are sectors of government that are paralysed by inefficiency and poor administration. Vying for the top prize in this category is the External Affairs Ministry. When the country's international image is under threat from Eelamist lobbies in the West, this is a Ministry that must function at its optimum. Instead, it is being increasingly staffed by non-career diplomats and headed by an incompetent Minister. Time and again, Rajapaksa is known to have been annoyed with this Ministry's poor show. As a retired diplomat said recently, "We did the hard part easily (the international campaign against the LTTE) and messed up the easy part (combatting the Tamil Diaspora)". Rajapaksa's woes today are very much its foreign policy as Western powers remain daggers drawn with him largely due to the Tamil Diaspora lobby.

A similar malady exists in the Sports Ministry where cricket is the cash cow. The country's cricket administration has been riddled with political interference and pet projects of Rajapaksa have thrown it into a colossal loss. Once a profitable institution, it is now deeply in debt and is surviving by being subservient to Indian cricket authorities. As someone said, for a clean-up of Sri Lanka Cricket to become a reality either Gotabaya Rajapaksa or Sarath Fonseka would have to be put in charge of it!

If these are examples of what blots Rajapaksa's domestic copybook, on the international front he has been stoically defending Sri Lanka's conduct during the final stages of the Eelam war.

There is no question in the minds of most Sri Lankans that liquidating the LTTE was the correct option to take, even if it entailed some civilian casualties. There is no denying the fact that, as Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott described it, 'Sri Lanka is a better place' because of it. As a result though, Rajapaksa is now a villain in the eyes of the West. It is not a role that he despises because, the more he is vilified by the West, the more Messiah like he appears to the Sri Lankan masses. The West does not vote at the presidential elections, the Sri Lankan people do.

However, he errs in not pursuing a substantial political settlement to the grievances of all communities in the country. Hawkish sections of his government simply say that there are no ethnic issues that need to be addressed. While Rajapaksa will argue that he has appointed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) and conducted elections to the Northern Provincial Council (NPC), it is no secret that considerable pressure had to be brought on him to do so, for the former by the United Nations Human Rights Council and for the latter, by neighbouring India.

Rajapaksa must realise that Rajavarothiam Sampanthan and C. V. Wigneswaran, both gentleman who are older than him, represent perhaps the last opportunity to negotiate with a moderate Tamil leadership from a generation where the Tamil community did not enjoy power that flowed from the barrel of a gun. If Rajapaksa were to forego that, he may have to deal with a more radical group of the Tamil National Alliance. That is fraught with the prospect of history repeating itself.

Also of concern is the emergence of different radical groups claiming to represent the Sinhalese and Buddhists. The 'Bodu Bala Sena' is the best known and the ease with which it operates has led to claims that it enjoys state patronage. In a democracy, such organisations also have a right to exist and be heard but they should not be inciting racial hatred or indulging in violence and religious intolerance. Sri Lanka suffered enough for 30 years because of such bigotry and the earlier this trend of racial hatred and violence is dealt with, the better it would be.

Many say that while Rajapaksa has won the war against the LTTE, he has lost the peace. That maybe a premature assessment but he certainly has more work to do, to give peace a chance. It must also go hand in hand with measures -- in all parts of the country, not just the North and East -- to improve good governance, accountability and human rights issues, not because Cameron or Navanethem Pillay is asking him to do so, but because it is the right thing to do for his country and his people.

The biggest blessing for Rajapaksa has been the opposition he has had to counter. The UNP is in disarray as it has never been in its history, struggling to get together as elections loom just next year. Cashing in on these divisions, Rajapaksa has been carrying out a tried and tested strategy: provincial council elections every few months. These elections lead to the UNP being defeated with renewed calls being made for Ranil Wickremesinghe's ouster. There will be more of the same when the Western, Uva and Southern provinces go to the polls next year demoralising the opposition further.

Elections are on Rajapaksa's mind. In the afterglow of CHOGM where he stood up to a barrage of criticism, his domestic political stock has risen, somewhat. Rajapaksa's performance at CHOGM was better than most expected it would be:

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