Tuesday 17th October, 2023

Adversity made the SLPP and the UNP strange bedfellows, last year, but their political marriage is now on the rocks to all intents and purposes, with their big guns being all out to undermine each other. Their relationship has turned sour because the SLPP leaders, lulled into complacency by the prevailing semblance of order and their Panglossian worldview, are trying to consolidate their grip on power, again, at the expense of President Ranil Wickremesinghe. They, however, cannot ignore the sobering political reality; their vote bank is fast eroding, and they are unable to shore it up, much less recover lost ground on the political front and be able to face future elections with confidence. They are also resentful that they have not been able to secure Cabinet posts for the SLPP district leaders.

Most of all, the Rajapaksas’ plan to have President Wickremesinghe on a string has gone awry. In one of the Aesopian fables, a fox which falls into a shallow well lures a goat into jumping in, and uses the latter’s back as a platform to leap out. The Rajapaksa family tried the same modus operandi as the proverbial fox when it found itself in a hole, last year, but unfortunately for it, the hole is very deep unlike the one in the fable, and it has mistakenly enticed another fox, of all animals, into leaping in! Now, the foxes are trying to outfox each other!

The SLPP, having benefited from what President Wickremesinghe has been able to achieve on the economic front, is trying to lay the blame for all the sins the government has committed during the past one year or so at the latter’s door. Some SLPP politicians are demanding that the public be granted economic relief immediately; they are acting as if they were free from the blame for bankrupting the country and inflicting unbearable suffering on the people.

SLPP MP Rohitha Abeygunawardena has gone so far as to warn that he and his colleagues will not support the upcoming Budget 2024 if it seeks to heap any more economic burdens on the public! Some other SLPP MPs have taken up the cudgels for the rights of journalists, and are critical of the government’s efforts to curb media freedom! What takes the cake is SLPP General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam’s latest announcement that his party wants elections held on schedule, and it is wrong to deprive the people of their right to vote!

Never will the SLPP support any move to postpone elections, Kariyawasam has told the media. He is seeking to absolve the SLPP of the blame for the postponement of the local government polls. The SLPP seems to have a very low opinion of the intelligence of the public. In a way, it cannot be faulted for this because millions of people fell for its lies and promises at the last three elections. It is trying to disprove the Lincolnian aphorism that all the people cannot be fooled all the time.

We hear that the Opposition parties are planning to sink their differences and hold a joint protest in Colombo to pressure the government to hold elections. It is heartening that they are trying to make common cause, but whether they will be able to achieve their goal is in doubt. The leaders of these parties may go ahead with their protest and face water cannon, baton charges and tear gas by way of penance for their contribution to making the country what it is today, but there is something more important they ought to do.

Now that a person of no lower rank than the SLPP General Secretary has declared that the SLPP will never support any move to delay elections, it is up to the anti-government forces to put his claim to test.

Let the Opposition be urged to move a resolution in Parliament, calling upon the government to allocate funds for elections so that the SLPP will have to back it, or vote against it, thereby giving the lie to its General Secretary’s much-advertised claim.