‘Democracy’ at odds with people’s concerns in Sri Lanka
After Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena announced the shock decision on Oct 26 to appoint his longtime political foe Mahinda Rajapaksa as prime minister, Western diplomats and the international media expressed outrage at what they perceived as “lack of respect for democratic institutions”.
But within an hour of the announcement, Sri Lankan media broadcast images of people setting off celebratory firecrackers across the country, including in Tamil-dominated Jaffna.
When President Sirisena addressed the nation three days later, he gave a lengthy 30-minute speech explaining why he had to sack Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe and appoint Rajapaksa.
It was a devastating indictment of Wickremasinghe’s manipulation of parliamentary procedures, inability to connect with ordinary people and his disrespect for those outside a small circle of the Colombo-based elite, disregard for the country’s sovereignty and his tendency to favour foreign business over local ones.
He called Wickremesinghe’s political conduct “unbecoming of civilised politics”, saying it “belittled the victory achieved risking my life in 2015”, when Srisena defeated Rajapaksa in the presidential election.
“I believe that Mr Wickremesinghe and his group of closest friends, who belonged to a privileged class and did not understand the pulse of the people, conducted themselves as if shaping the future of the country was a fun game they played,” President Sirisena told the nation. “Corruption and fraud spread widely in the country”.
He said Wickremasinghe had repeatedly blocked attempts to investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of the biggest financial scandal in the country’s history, the Central Bank bond scam that happened while the prime minister’s friend Arjuna Mahendran was heading the bank.
But the president did not explain why he dissolved parliament in June 2015 just before an independent report on the scam was to be presented.
Though political manoeuvring is continuing and the standoff between the sacked premier and his presumptive successor remains unresolved, Sirisena’s action has been widely welcomed in Sri Lanka. People have seen their standard of living dip badly due to perceived economic mismanagement by the Wickremasinghe government, and they have also been resentful of policies to open up the economy to foreign investors, even to the extent of allowing them to buy land freehold.
In February, the government suffered a heavy blow when the new Sri Lanka Podhujana Peramuna (SLPP), headed by Rajapaksa loyalists, won 239 of the 340 councils contested in local government elections. This was seen as a rejection of the policies of the Wickremasinghe government.
In September, the “Janabalayaa Kolabata” people’s march organised by the youth wing of the SLPP brought 200,000 people to Colombo demanding the dissolution of the government. A groundswell of public opinion had been building up for the sacking of Wickremasinghe, who was increasingly seen as a servant of the West, particularly the US, supporting its geopolitical agenda in Asia.
Dr Wijedasa Rajapaksa (no relation to the ex-president), who defected from Wickremasinghe’s United National Party (UNP) to join the new cabinet, said the final straw for him came when the administration leased out Hambantota Port to a Chinese company without a proper appraisal.
He also referred to inaction on the bond scams, the handover of the East Container Terminal at Colombo Port to India without presidential or cabinet approval, new land laws, and government action at the UN Human Rights Council that he said put Sri Lankan sovereignty at risk.
Others, however, have characterised recent events as a “constitutional coup”. Among those that condemned Srisena’s actions was the Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA), a western-funded local NGO.
“The current constitutional crisis is unprecedented in that Sri Lanka has never had the legality and legitimacy of its government called into question in this way,” it said in a statement.
“The whole set of circumstances suggests not the way a change of government ought to occur in a democracy, but the sharp practices associated with a constitutional coup, which is likely to lead to a constitutional crisis,” added CPA research fellow Dr Asanga Welikala.
Rajapaksa supporters reject such claims, pointing to the way Wickremasinghe was appointed prime minister in 2015. Sirisena said at the time that the appointment was based on a campaign promise he had made, even though it turned out that Wickremasinghe’s party won just 46 seats in a 225-member parliament.
The Sirisena-Wickremasinghe alliance then forced DM Jayartane, the incumbent premier, to provide a back-dated resignation letter to avoid any constitutional hassles.
Sirisena was the general secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) which was led by Rajapaksa during his tenure as president from 2005-15. He defected in November 2014 and became the opposition candidate to challenge Rajapaksa — a decision that also shocked the nation.
The son of a rural rice farmer, Sirisena was able to connect with Rajapaksa’s Sinhalese Buddhist support base. Along with a slogan of yahapalanaya (good governance), coined by western agencies and delivered via NGOs funded by them in Sri Lanka, it connected with the masses who resented the corrupt practices of Rajapaksa cronies. He rode this anti-corruption wave to victory in January 2015.
Yahapalanaya has become a joke today, as people who voted for clean government in 2015 now find that they have a new mob that is not any better, even worse, because it’s selling national assets to foreigners.
A free trade agreement (FTA) signed with Singapore has been challenged in the courts on grounds that it lacks parliamentary approval and infringes on the rights of Sri Lankan service sector workers.
At a time when the US and some European countries have raised concerns about Russian interference in domestic politics in their countries, the behaviour of their own missions in Colombo has raised eyebrows in the country.
Western ambassadors have had meetings with the ousted PM, NGOs and opposition groups and issued statements via their governments for the “immediate convening” of parliament and “restoration” of democracy. The EU has warned that it could withdraw trade concessions.
Sirisena has reportedly told Western envoys that they appeared to be “unaware of the pulse of the people”. He has suggested that if they did surveys to ascertain the average person’s thinking, that would “reveal that 70% to 75%” of the people are with him.
Leave the governance of Sri Lanka to Sri Lankans as the people of Sri Lanka know best what is good for them, he is saying.
Venerable Elle Gunawansa Thero, a Buddhist prelate, suggested tears were being shed in the West because these countries are wondering “if their agendas have come to an end in Sri Lanka”.
“Why are the citizens of the country not taking to the streets if there has been an injustice?” he asked rhetorically.
“Why are the citizens of the country not taking to the streets if there has been an injustice?”