A political landslide that deepens Sri Lanka’s dynastic politics

The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna, which registered a landslide victory in the general election, securing a two-thirds majority in Parliament, is now determined to use the popular mandate to introduce sweeping electoral reforms, thus reversing several measures taken by the former administration, writes Dilrukshi Handunnetti, a Colombo-based investigative journalist.

Colombo:To Sri Lanka’s powerful Rajapaksa family, clinching an unprecedented yet easy electoral victory at the August 5 parliamentary elections and securing 145 out of a 225-seat legislature was only the first step in political agenda-setting. The Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), very much the family political party of the Rajapaksa, is now determined to use the popular mandate to introduce sweeping electoral reforms, thus reversing several measures taken by the former administration, chief among them the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

To form the new administration, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa swore in the two-term president and elder sibling Mahinda yesterday morning (9) as the country’s new prime minister. The new Cabinet of ministers will take their oath on Friday (14) at the historic Magul Maduwa or the royal audience hall at the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy, the most revered place of Buddhist worship and the last palace of the Kandyan kings. The Cabinet is expected to consist no more than 26, though another three dozen deputy and state ministers are to undertake specific duties in a new administration that has twin priorities: constitutional reforms and an agenda to overhaul the COVID-hit island economy.

Under the 19th amendment to the island’s Constitution, it is possible to form a cabinet consisting of 45 ministers in the event of forming a national government. Having campaigned for the repeal of the 19th Amendment in its entirety, the SLPP is keen to either repeal o at the minimum, introduce significant changes to the amendment than utilize its provisions. Instead, the SLPP prefers to keep a lean cabinet that is not represented by its political allies, allowing it to make decisions independent of others and push its agenda in a parliament that lacks an effective opposition.

Family rule

The biggest political strength, according to SLPP insiders, is that the Rajapaksas have managed to convince an electorate that family rule –albeit in the garb of representative democracy – can serve national interest; in this case the majority’s interest. The electoral results in Sri Lanka may reflect a global rise in rightwing politics where nationalism plays a huge role in electoral decision-making with national security becoming the top priority. What sets Sri Lanka apart, a country strongly divided on ethnoreligious lines, is how it marks the heavy ascendancy on power by a single political family and a majority’s popular wish to confer political supremacy upon them without question. It is in stark contrast to the general electoral behaviour of Sri Lankans, though there’re had been increasing nationalism and divisiveness that kept seeping in.

Except the landslide victory of the United National Party (UNP) in 1977, Sri Lankans have only conferred working majorities on elected governments, but in 2020, a combination of ultra-nationalism, security concerns following the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings and vehement rejection of mainstream opposition politics have marked an unprecedented victory for the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).

Road to family rule

Prime ministerial candidate Mahinda Rajapaksa emerged the most successful in the August race, setting a new record by polling the highest preferential votes ever by garnering 527,364 preferences, reconfirming his status as the island’s most popular political figure. Five members of the Rajapaksa family have been elected this time, four of them topping the preference lists, Mahinda Rajapaksa (from Kurunegala in the northwest), his son Namal (from Hambantota in the native deep-south) and first-time contestants, nephews Shasheedra Rajapaksa (from Moneragala in the southeast) and Nipuna Ranawaka (from Matara in the south). At the senior level, there is both Mahinda and his elder brother Chamal (and Shasheendra’s father), followed by their own sons and nephew at the second tier.

Then there is the November-elected Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Mahinda’s younger sibling, the serving as country’s Executive President. Party insiders say that Basil Rajapaksa is highly likely to enter parliament as a nominated member of the SLPP, replacing actor turned politician Jayantha Ketagoda. What is not surprising is the overwhelming popularity of the Rajapaksa family, something the political family has nurtured over the years, fiddling family members from different electoral bases, thus paving the way for a groundswell of support for family and SLPP politics.

The disturbing trend here is an electorate’s decision to hand over unmitigated political power to a single family in the exercise of representative democracy casting aside any fears of absolute concentration of power on a single family, though a well-known tradition in Asian politics, and the failure to factor in the tenets of separation of powers to ensure a healthy balance between the executive and the legislature.

This exercise of electoral empowerment also reflects a vengeful desire to vote out the United National Party (UNP), a regime troubled since its inception, a poorly cobbled coalition that was often at cross purposes and condemned by a majority of Sri Lanka’s for a security lapse that resulted in the Easter Sunday bombing in April 2019 –and likely the closest reason for the UNP’s most humiliating defeat since its inception. In stark contrast, despite a plethora of corruption allegations that the UNP has done next to nothing to prove during its rule, the Rajapaksas inspire public trust. They are credited for winning the war against separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 and for being security conscious. The Rajapaksas have read the electorate right and have from the outset promised a security-concerned administration, coupled with vital constitutional reforms.

Constitutional reforms

The recent victory has placed the SLPP in a comfortable position with 145 seats under its belt with the ability to draw support from allies to reach 150, two thirds in the 225-member House. The administration’s main call is to amend J.R. Jayewardene’s 1978 Constitution. The primary wish here is to either amend or repeal the 19th Amendment introduced during the previous administration, an amendment that effectively clipped several of executive powers and paved the way for establishing independent key public institutions, previously kept under the executive president’s writ. Such a move would dilute some of the progressive measures taken by the previous government which sought to depoliticize key public institutions through the amendment.

Add to this the possibility of moving amendments to reduce the scope of the 13th Amendment under which Provincial Councils have been set up, the only constitutionally recognized devolution mechanism introduced by the Sri Lankan state. Such a move will have serious political implications, a constitutional amendment that finds its roots in the 1987 Indo-Lanka Peace Accord. Another law that is highly likely to see changes is the Right to Information Law, introduced just four years ago and among the most recognized RTI laws in the world.

Role of the opposition

Basking in their victory, the SLPP is ready to make quick moves–and swift changes. Mahinda Rajapaksa will be sworn in as prime minister at a well-known Buddhist temple, the Kelani Raja Maha Viharaya tomorrow (9), a new cabinet sworn in the next day (10) and the new parliament convened on August 20.

But the political agenda-setting will have to be tempered heavily by economic repair work, as the Indian Ocean Island, reeling under its current debt burden will be required to ease the economic burdens of the people, deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and hopeful of relief measures by the government they have supported. This would place Sri Lanka in a precarious position, deepening its debts and getting pushed further into the influence of China.

Colombo-based political commentator and investigative journalist.