Who now wants an honourable exit ?

By N Sathiya Moorthy

It looks like eternal rebels in Udaya Gammanpila and Wimal Weerawansa are learning new lessons in democratic politics. That once the real Opposition hijacks their cause, and make a song and dance of it, they have to fade away. Once thus the SJB took over the demand for the exit of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa?s government, and took it to Parliament, where they have better numbers when the original 16 rebels from 11 parties in the ruling coalition were seeking to increase their base, together, the latter class lost out. Today, they can be an appendage to the SJB combine, though of course, if it?s going to be a new government, they have their usefulness and hence bargaining power. But not as the force terrible that could topple the present government.

In the week since politicians hijacked what was seen as genuine public protests, barring former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, not many has come up with actionable suggestions for the prevailing economic crisis that?s at the centre of it all. It is anybody?s guess if he is authorised to talk on behalf of Sri Lanka with international institutions like IMF, World Bank and possibly some friendly nations. But he has authorised himself to talk to them on behalf of the suffering millions, for whom neither the SLPP government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, nor the official SJB Opposition combine, has offered any road-map to economic recovery. If SJB?s Harsha de Silva has some ideas, as he has told Parliament, he won?t open it up until after the present government was replaced by another one.

In the process, Wickremesinghe has said that the government could approach the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for double-quick short-term assistance even as the IMF negotiations go on. He has pointed out how the present tranche of assistance from the Indian neighbour would not see through the nation past next month, and suggested that the World Bank could be requested to set up an ?Aid Sri Lanka Consortium? involving rich nations like the US and Japan, among others.

To this end and even otherwise, Ranil wants Parliament to run the finances of the government, by recourse of Article 148 of the Constitution. Whether that would be feasible remains to be seen, but a fresh budget can be debated threadbare before a new Cabinet, could begin implementing the same. Whether this has to happen under this President and Prime Minister, namely, Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Mahinda Rajapaksa, respectively, or under a new pair, or with only the Prime Minister changed, to avoid a constitutional crisis, is all beside the point. According to some reports, Ranil also wants a compact 10-member Cabinet by merging many of the existing departments, to cut down on extravagant expenses.

According to some media reports, not necessarily friendly to the ruling Rajapaksas, the government has the numbers, variously put at above the required minimum of 113 in a Parliament with 225 members.

Bargaining or what

In between, you have three ?independent groups? of 42 MPs who were with the government, sharing ministerial positions until the other day, writing a common letter to President Gota, making suggestions that the 14-member SLFP had done at a personal meeting with him before deciding to stay away from the ruling SLPP combine.? Multiple interpretations are possible.

One, they seem now convinced that this government is not going to go away, and may after all get the numbers as and when challenged in Parliament. So, better look for an honourable exit from the present ?independent? status and work out an honourable return to the government. The 12 SLPP ?rebels? may be the first ones to return, as their grouse really seems to be not what the street-protestors demanded, but that they were not given ?weighty? positions earlier. The SLFP may become a divided house, if it came to that. Maybe, a respectable Cabinet berth for Maithripala Sirisena at the commencement of the Gota-Mahinda team might have, well, done it.

It?s in the 16-member original ?ginger group? of the 11-party Right-Left combo that may have a problem. Most of them still live in the socialist past and cannot be seen in the company of the SJB, which in turn is only a breakaway group, from the UNP, with its western market-capitalist model of economic policies. If anything, the likes of Wimal Weerawansa and Vasudeva Nanayakara began it all by targeting the US firm, New Fortress Energy, contracted to supply LNG for the Kerawalapitiya power project.

Ironically, their comrade-in-arms, the right-of-centre Udaya Gamanpila was the Energy Minister at the time, until he and Weerawansa got the sack for wanting Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa out. Today, Basil is out, not because they wanted it, but what they had sought in private had become a people?s movement and was also hijacked by the Opposition SJB. And it?s more than a week or ten days that people have heard the three-some talk.

Of course, they have all together or separately declared their intention to stay ?independent?, even if as three separate groups. Does it mean that in this Parliament, of which they are all members, they are going to abstain from voting all the time, or would vote against the government of the day all the time, or extend ?issue-based support?, as the coinage goes.

Or, have they adopted this old-wine-in-a-new-bottle approach, of writing to the President, to strengthen their bargaining power with either side? In the coming week, it is expected all the MPs and the nation are tired of hearing their voices inside Parliament without doing anything about the economy, or even their unsubstantiated hopes of having the Rajapaksas out of the way.

Something is definitely rotten in the State of Sri Lanka, yes. But someone also did not do his numbers right before thinking of a bright plan like crowding the streets on price rise, inflation and shortages, all of unprecedented and unbearable kind, and then take them to Parliament, not as what they are but as the Rajapaksas and Rajapaksas alone personifying them all.

Inherent powers

The SJB could not resist the temptation to count the chickens before the eggs were hatched. Leader of the Opposition Sajith Premadasa?s parliamentary declaration, seeking an end to the Executive Presidency overnight is a case in point. Of course, he too knows that it?s not going to happen. Nor is the only reason for the current economic mess and political dead-lock.

All those that want the Executive Presidency abolished needs to ask themselves if the nation?s problem was Executive Presidency or the grassroots-level popularity of a leader. Imagine, what if J R Jayawardena had remained Prime Minister with his five-sixth parliamentary majority instead of anointing himself the Executive President through a new Constitution? Elsewhere where parliamentary democracy is the norm, an election-winning prime minister or prime ministerial candidate becomes all-powerful if he or she so desired, with or without the instrumentality of Executive Presidency.

Today?s concern is not the Executive Presidency but finding a right replacement charter. It?s not enough to ?restore? the powers of governance to Parliament, as under the 19^th Amendment. President Maithripala Sirisena did sack Prime Minister Wickremesinghe. Restoration became possible, not because of 19-A but because of the inherent powers due to the Judiciary in a democracy.

Durability, credibility

Having distracted national attention from economic to politics, the SJB has at least done well to move a no-trust motion against this government, as it would end all speculation and consequent drift in the polity and political administration, If someone reports that the government had stopped working because officials did not know which way was the pendulum swinging, it should not surprise anyone.

At the same time, by deciding to move a no-confidence motion (NCM) and circulating the parliamentary resolution draft among all members perceived to be opposed to the government, the SJB seems wanting to end the national deadlock at once ? and also expose the durability and credibility of the 42 ?independent? MPs. For the SJB, it may even be an honourable way out of the dead-lock that it had created and from which it also wants an early exit.

But Parliament is not scheduled to meet before 19 April, which means there is more time for street-protests and political horse-trading for all stake-holders and claimants. It could well mean that the Ides of March is not going to end ?before April too had passed on ? with nations considering to help out Sri Lanka with funds or foodstuff are going to hold back until there is greater clarity on what would happen to their assistance, now and later.

The SJB already has a problem of perception, not about itself (which too it needs to have) but about the rest ? and rightly so. Whether or not the party was behind it, post facto or early on, those that have gathered on Colombo streets are their traditional voters of parent UNP vintage. They reportedly despise the ?chameleon-like? 42, who jumped the Gota ship only when they found that it had developed a leak. This segment of the voters, who are also perceived to be powerful opinion-makers, both inside their own class and circles and more so in front of international media cameras, may distance themselves from any move of the party to form an alternate government with the help of ?deserters?!

Beginning or end?

The hope now is that Parliament and polity would decide the next course of governance this week, so that someone somewhere can apply their collective minds to the problems of governance, starting and ending now with economic management. Translated, it takes the shape of ensuring commodities stocks and supplies without disruptions, including on Sri Lankan streets, and finding new ways to handle the rupee (LKR) as the ?basket of currencies? approach overnight shot up the dollar rate from Rs 200 to 300 LKR, when the former itself was unaffordable for most Sri Lankans, in terms of the local cost of imported goods of daily use, beginning with pharma products.

Then, there is the long list of negotiating the restructuring of the existing debt with creditor-nations and institutions, talking to the IMF, World Bank and the ADB, not necessarily in that order, and rebuilding tourist and investor-confidence in equal measure, not to leave out the recapturing of tea and textile markets, lost to other nations, not owing to the pandemic but to the economic crisis that did not go away as the former.

In between are talks of President Gota recasting his ministry, with a purported confidence that he has the numbers in Parliament ? and that could be the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning, of whatever, whichever, however and whenever. The question is if continual street-protests of the kind already witnessed, more so in the urban centres, alone have the potential to upset the Gota apple-cart, which at least is determined to stay put and proceed on its own game-plans!

Whatever all this be, none of it is good for the nation, particularly at this juncture. Amen!

(The writer is a Policy Analyst & Commentator based in Chennai, India.