UNP creates broad front while UPFA leads a retreat to the past

By Harim Peiris

As nominations closed earlier this week, the contours of the battle lines for the general election to Parliament became clear. The two major political formations in the country, the UNP and the UPFA are vying for a parliamentary majority and with it effective control of the next government.

The UNP spent an useful weekend, creating a broad political front, styled the United National Front for Good Governance, (UNFGG) which will contest the elections under the UNP’s elephant symbol and be registered as a party after the elections. The UNFGG is a broad rainbow alliance, much like the NDF of January this year, having in its spectrum, the Sinhala nationalist JHU to the ethnic minority parties, including the SLMC, the breakaway Maithri faction of the SLFP and the up country political parties with the dominant UNP in the center. The UNFGG, as successor to the NDF, are clear favorites to win the elections, not least because of the myriad of problems that beset the UPFA.

A declining trend for the UPFA

A quick analysis of elections results from early 2014, shows the UPFA in a steady decline from the Western and Southern Provincial Council elections of early 2014, to a more comprehensive near loss at the Uva provincial elections in October last year and of course its historic and monumental loss by over half a million votes in the presidential elections of 2015. There is little reasons for the trend to not continue (with Arjuna Mahendran’s alleged foibles hardly a game changer) and the UPFA is headed for a more ignominious defeat.

While the UNP has reinvented itself by having the JHU to guard its Sinhala nationalist flank, the UPFA has lost its sole Tamil alley of the EPDP, now going solo in Jaffna and as well as having lost all its Muslim allies in January itself. The presence of both AHM Fowzi and Faizer Mustapha on the national list and not contesting, is a clear indication, that the UPFA let alone elect a Muslim is unlikely to get a single Muslim vote, almost.

The UPFA nostalgia for Rajapakse

The presence of the discredited and defeated former President Rajapakse, in practice leading the UPFA’s electoral effort to a mono ethno religious, rural Sinhala Buddhist voter base needs to be understood in the context of two factors. Firstly, President Maithripala Sirisena was seen as unwilling to be a partisan leader of his own political party, the SLFP. Especially in an electoral contest in which his political allies were vying for parliamentary seats as well as in governance since January, President Sirisena has played the role of umpire, rather than that of captain of the SLFP. This left the SLFP in a dilemma since they obviously did not want to face the hustling led by Opposition Leader Nimal Siripala De Silva, who failed to secure the Badulla District for the UPFA in the last provincial poll, let alone lead in the country. Since Rajapakse had been nursing a dynastic project, his sudden defeat left a leadership vacuum, which President Sirisena as the opponent who defeated him could not really fill, as was demonstrated by his party continuing to be in opposition, while he headed the government.

UPFA out of ideas in the midst of declining support

This writer way back in 2010, had both in private and in the press, advised the then Rajapakse Administration, that it had maxed out on Sinhala nationalist support. In other words, it had moved so far to a Sinhala nationalist political hue, that it could not hope to ever increase its support by being more nationalist than it already was. There are no additional votes to be got by being more Sinhala nationalist than it already was. The only socio political space more extreme than Mahinda Rajapakse, was overt communal violence and at the tail end of the Rajapakse regime, even that was unleashed with impunity from Dambulla to Dharga Town. So increasing voter support for the UPFA meant a shift to the center. That is a shift it has failed to do. Out of ideas, stuck in the past and morally and intellectually bankrupt, the UPFA will be ratcheting up the rhetoric and engaging in the same racist hate mongering and fear peddling which is its only stock in trade and the only language that its gang of four, the main non SLFP leaders of the “Bring back Mahinda Campaign” understand.

Protecting the January 8^th People’s Revolution

On January 8^th this year, the non populist, lesser known, non iconic and soft spoken presidential candidate Maithripala Sirisena, defeated the larger than life, populist and war win glory hugging, two term incumbent Mahinda Rajapakse. Mahinda Rajapakse won every aspect of the January election campaign, he won the poster war, we were smiled down at every street corner by North Korean dictator style giant cutouts, the state media, especially electronic gave a totally monopoly to Mahinda Rajapakse and slandered Maithripala Sirisena. The Telecommunications Regulatory Commission released Rupees six hundred million for giveaways to voters and despite all this Mahinda lost. Even the pre dawn attempt to stop the vote count, complete with advice by the interloper who impersonated as the Chief Justice for two years, was unsuccessful as the public, the officials, observers, security forces and international community saw the writing on the wall. Mahinda Rajapakse’s astrologers, magicians and soothsayers had been wrong about his reelection prospects and they and his political allies are similarly wrong about his rather misguided attempt at a political come back. The country needs a better opposition leader than Mahinda Rajapakse.

(The writer is the Chairman of the Resettlement Authority, the views expressed are personal)

An open letter to SLFP General Secretary Anura Priyadarshana Yapa

By Harim Peiris

Hon. Anura Priyadarshana Yapa

General Secretary

Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)

Colombo.

My dear Sir,

I am writing to you, since you are much in the news, together with your colleague Susil Premajayath, due to the intrigue and compounded confusion regarding SLFP and UPFA nominations for the general elections and specifically the issue of nominations for defeated former President Mahinda Rajapakse.

As a Sri Lankan, I was deeply disappointed at the astounding news last Friday, that the defeated president was going to be a candidate at the general elections. If Mahinda Rajapakse cannot internalize that he was repudiated by the people at the polls, you as the General Secretary of the party he belongs to should assist him in that regard. Not pander to his whims and fancies.

However, I was rather impressed with your performance at the UPFA press conference yesterday, when you stated that your party has learnt the mistakes of its past and as a mature political organization it would correct the same and face the general election. However, I found the fact that you did not divulge or admit to any specific mistakes to be evasive and hence unpersuasive. Accordingly I would present a few serious mistakes which I believe a future SLFP led Administration should never repeat and it would be reassuring if you could confirm that these lessons have indeed been learned.

Firstly I would recommend that the SLFP never again seeks to casually and illegally interfere with and politicize the higher judiciary and ultimately impeach the Chief Justice. Your own rather sordid role in that affair can frankly be overlooked, since implicit obedience to Rajapakse, was a necessity for survival.

I would also avoid imprisoning defeated presidential candidates. The whining and self centered bleats of the defeated Rajapakse regime, is hilarious considering the shameful manner in which they treated their own defeated rivals such as Field Marshal Fonseka and even predecessor in office President Kumaratunga, who gracefully left office. As President Maithripala Sirisena himself, personally mentioned, if he had lost the presidential election, he would have been six feet underground by now.

The Rajapakse Administration was, as you are well aware, the most corrupt Government, Sri Lanka has ever had the misfortune to have. The allegations are long and voluminous, But you should strive for an SLFP led government to never repeat, the world’s most expensive highways per kilometer, missing government vehicles, the sovereignty selling giveaway terms of the port city project, many unsolicited projects approved without tender processes, floating armories and unlicensed weapons to private parties, massive corruption at Sri Lankan Airlines, casinos made strategic enterprises, abusing TRC funds for election campaigns, to name just a few, of a very long list. So, avoid giving nominations to the drug barons, casino kings, ethanol importers and cheap thugs who are among Rajapakse’s strongest backers. Also I would avoid trying to use ill gotten gains in the campaign. It only lends credence to the corruption allegations to see the amount of money which the Abayaramaya Cabal is able to throw at its campaign.

Further, you should also take note that since Mahinda and his cabal was defeated, there has not been a single attack or mob assault on religious minorities, the mosque attacks and Koran burnings and indeed the church attacks and Bible burnings have ceased completely, together with the white vans. Once strongly suspects, this is due their patronage and protection from the State ceasing.  I should also state in this context, that the distortion of the National Flag outside the Bribery Commission by some of your senior SLFP colleagues, in cohorts with the “rent mob extremist groups” is in extremely bad taste and should not be repeated. I am glad that Dulles Allaperuma has apologized for his shameful role in the same.

My dear Anura, it should concern you greatly, that Mahinda Rajapakse and his “Abayaramaya Cabal” had been indulging from the time of their defeat in an exercise of barely disguised racism. This began with Mahinda’s disgusting statement of “Eelam votes”, his absolute inability to accept that since 1931, we have had universal adult franchise or one man, one vote, irrespective of race, religion or gender. If the Abayaramaya Cabal’s racism was thinly disguised earlier, it is now open and blatant. This is a natural path for intellectually and morally bankrupt minor allies but not a path the SLFP should tread. The SLFP has a proud tradition of minority leaders such as Alfred Duraippa and Bathuideen Mohammad and should work hard to recapture the minority vote it has lost, rather than lose its multi ethnic and multi religious character. The SLFP is in the process alienating urbanites and the young, both key constituencies and important segments of society.

The big problem with brining back Mahinda is that he has just not learnt his mistakes. Listening to his coterie and him, they really seem to believe that more of the same, the same tired slogans, the same racism, the same fear mongering and hate peddling which lost Rajapakse and the UPFA the January presidential election, will somehow magically result in a victory in August. Your colleague SB Dissanayake among others are correct, that Mahinda Rajapakse is a complete turn off to the floating voter and will only make civil society coalesce around the UNP, to simply safeguard the hard won new freedom and people’s democratic revolution achieved in January this year.

I hope you will consider the above and even at this late stage, reverse the disastrous “party before country SLFP policies” going forward and instead work towards a country first, party policies. An enlightened path of supporting President Sirisena and working towards a nation building post election national government is a much more beneficial political strategy, than a dangerous dalliance with a discredited and disastrous past.  Remember that he, who nestles a Viper to his bosom, will surely get bitten, sooner rather than later.

Best regards,

Harim Peiris

(The writer is the Chairman of the Resettlement Authority. The views expressed are personal)

President CBK – A reflection on her politics of peace

By Harim Peiris MBA

In 1994, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, at the age of forty nine years, was elected as the youngest and first ever female President of Sri Lanka. Twenty one years later, in June 2015, as she celebrates her 70^th birthday, it is appropriate to look back at the legacy of this amazing lady, who has so significantly impacted and helped shape the contemporary history of our nation.

Epilogue

The epilogue to the politics of President CBK, is surely her single handed leadership in crafting the politics and creating the rainbow coalition of the National Democratic Front, which defeated the populist but corrupt, divisive and authoritarian rule of her successor and one time Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, in his bid for an unprecedented third term, in January 2015.

As President Rajapakse changed the constitution via the 18^th amendment to run for unlimited terms of office and prepared to call early elections on the advice of his astrologers, diviners and magicians, CBK realized that defeating the Rajapakse’s kleptocratic, dynastic and dictatorial political project required a divided government and a unified opposition. Both seemed impossible. Mahinda Rajapakse was firmly entrenched with an iron grip on power and the political opposition deeply divided, both within the UNP and amongst the other smaller opposition political parties. It was the unique political trust that all anti Rajapakse forces reposed in CBK, from the factions of the UNP, to the JVP, including General Fonseka, the SLMC and the TNA, which enabled the winning formulae of the Common Candidate, President Maithripala Sirisena. Her political credibility two decades after leaving office, was epic in proportion and history changing in impact.

The origins of a peace agenda

It may be difficult even for CBK to lay an exact finger on the origins of her peace agenda. However, the fact that this began early and during her youth is undeniable. If not during school days at St.Bridgets Convent, then definitely through the idealism of her university days at the Sorbone in Paris, at that time a bastion of free thinking about liberty, equality and fraternity. If CBK’s deep personally ingrained commitment to justice, tolerance, plurality and human dignity ever needed a practical and political outlet, it emerged from her marriage to Vijaya Kumaratunga, both of whom, together were arguably the first Sinhala leaders, who made the politics of peace, a populist exercise. CBK and Vijaya while as opposition politicians, launched a ground breaking initiative to dialogue with the Tamil militant groups in India. Though making little progress, it legitimized and created the space for a political engagement with Tamil political militants and armed groups. The cruel assassination of her husband Vijaya Kumaratunga, could only delay but not deny, their populist politics of peace and when as a  presidential candidate in 1994, on a pro peace platform, CBK secured an amazing and as yet an unrivaled sixty four percent (64%) of the popular vote, it was the culmination of her real political tribute to Vijaya.

Winning the Sinhala vote on a peace platform

When CBK secured the political leadership of the SLFP dominated People Alliance in 1993, she acquired a political grouping that had opposed even the 13^th Amendment and provincial councils. However, she resolutely and single handedly moved to change direction. In the remarkable Southern Provincial Council elections of 1993, which the SLFP then in opposition won, under her leadership, she constantly presented the electorate with a peace agenda, much to the consternation of senior SLFP leaders on stage at the rallies. However, the impossible was achieved and victory was won. Even after her emphatic victory in the 1994 presidential election, the Sinhala polity had to be further convinced of the need for a political settlement with minority communities or a new social compact amongst our nation’s peoples. To appeal and speak direct to the people, rather than through a ethno nationalist leadership elite, she launched a “Sudu Nelum” or White Lotus movement, a remarkable public outreach program which conducted literally hundreds of seminars or town hall meetings and a popular pro peace street drama program called Thavalama. Current Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, then a young, energetic and newly elected second generation young Minister from Matara, was her key point man in the mobilization of people for peace. The results were independent opinion polls and surveys which demonstrated a two third majority or roughly 67% public support for a political solution to the ethnic problem.

President CBK’s approach to peace 1994-2005

The CBK peace initiative can be roughly divided into two phases, approximating her two terms in office. The first phase was from 1994 to 2000 with a political package of devolution, which ultimately culminated in the August 2000 draft new constitution, which fell short by just eight votes in Parliament of the required two third majority and accordingly had to be abandoned. The constitution making exercise was a bold attempt at something even more than state reform, it was a nation building exercise, a  new compact with and amongst our peoples, using CBK’s enormous political capital to mould public opinion. It was ultimately derailed by the LTTE, who had been cleared out from Jaffna through the war for peace, which prevented the TNA from providing the crucial votes which would have seen a new inclusive, tolerant and pluralist Sri Lankan State, a union of regions. It was not to be, a unique and historic opportunity defeated through terror by mad men with warped mentalities, from deep in the jungles of the Wanni.

The saga of CBK’s second phase of peace making surely begins with the LTTE’s attempt to assassinate her during the final political rally in her presidential re-election campaign of 1999 at the Colombo Town Hall grounds. Blinded in one eye by the force of the explosion from the suicide bomber, the remarkable feature was that she still bore no ill will towards her would be assassins and continued remarkably doggedly in her quest for peace. In the assassination of her late father, husband and almost her own, which left her blinded in one eye, President CBK has paid a huge price in the quest to resolve Sri Lanka’s unfinished nation building exercise.

Subsequently from the year 2000 to 2005, it was necessary to engage the spoiler and seek a negotiated conflict transformation. Accordingly there was an attempt through Norwegian facilitation, to dialogue afresh with the LTTE, which resulted in the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) of February 2002, signed by a then recently elected UNP cohabitation government.  The CFA process, was the antithesis of the constitutional reform approach, focusing exclusively on dealing with the LTTE, accepting the reality that the Tamils were under the gun and were not really free to decide. The CFA continued throughout President Kumaratunga’s second term in office, providing much relief to the people and the economy and survived the defeat of the short lived UNP Administration in 2004. When the LTTE subsequently pulled out of the CFA and resumed the war, it ultimately led to their complete defeat in 2009.

The CBK groundwork for the war victory

The CBK peace processes of 1994 to 2005, laid a crucial groundwork for the war victory which followed in 2009. Basically the whole world had watched, supported and cheered as a remarkable female political personality, with a unique political pedigree sought to change the modern history and political destiny of her nation. That this attempt at solving the ethnic problem, on the international radar screens post July 1983 with the resultant Tamil refugee Diaspora in the western world, was thwarted by the LTTE became an accepted international community norm by the end of her term. If the first term process could be faulted for insufficient political engagement and solely a military engagement with the LTTE, then the CFA process which focused solely on engaging the LTTE, remedied that criticism leveled from the LTTE dominated Tamil side. Under President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, the Sri Lankan State, eliminated violent racism of the 1983 type and demonstrated the robust nature of its democracy’s ability to attempt state reform. That this was thwarted by the non democratic and terroristic force of the LTTE, was accepted by the world.

In 2004, President Kumaratunga issued a public, national apology to the Tamil people, for the ethnic riots of July 1983. A special presidential commission appointed subsequently paid out some further compensation to those that had received no restitution for their past losses due to communal violence.

Accordingly the world and especially India, were ready to believe the Sri Lankan government, when indications were made of moving beyond the 13^th amendment. Therefore when the LTTE withdrew from the CFA, the world supported the war against the LTTE fully. From weapons systems, to intelligence sharing, to squeezing LTTE international financing networks, the world both West and East, supported Sri Lanka. President Kumaratunga and her international credibility on peace and the foreign affairs policies of her Administration, could legitimately lay claim to all of the groundwork and the credibility that Sri Lanka had internationally to wage war against the LTTE. The LTTE were rightly blamed for the failures of CBK’s peace initiatives of 1994 to 2004 and the politics of CBK, had made the world, ready to see a future without the LTTE. Further the CFA period of 2002 to 2006, allowed the Sri Lankan Military to rearm and become the dominant force which so decisively won the war in 2009. While the LTTE’s rearming exercise was globally curtailed by post 9/11 anti terror laws worldwide, under President Kumaratunga the Sri Lankan military rearmed with state of the art equipment, including the Kfir jets, which came complete with renewed diplomatic relations with Israel, the Chech multi barrel rocket launches, Russian Antanov aircraft, American Bell helicopters, heavy artillery from Pakistan and a hugely increased deep sea naval patrol capability. When the LTTE resumed fighting after the end of CBK’s term, they were no match for the rearmed Sri Lankan military, she bequeathed her successor.

Reflections through the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and the Club de Madrid

In the two decades since leaving office as President, with dignity and grace, due to term limits and not due to an electoral defeat,  President Kumaratunga fairly quickly evolved in to a global elder stateswoman sharing her experiences in conflict transformation through the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) and the Club de Madrid, that exclusive Association of former heads of state and government, who contribute their expertise and moral standing towards addressing issues of public importance and resolving conflicts. In such forums she has been candid about the political weaknesses of the attempts of her administration to make peace, including after the devastating Tsunami of December 2004 and the subsequent Post Tsunami Operational Management Structure (PTOMS) negotiated with the LTTE.

Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR)

Reforming the Sri Lankan State so that it reflects the true diversity of her society and eliminating what LTTE suicide bomber victim, the late Neelan Tiruchelvam, so aptly described as the “anomaly of imposing a mono ethnic state on a multi ethnic polity”, is perhaps the unfinished business at hand for President CBK as she is thrust once again to the forefront of national affairs in the President Maithripala Sirisena Administration, her one time general secretary of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP).

Accordingly President Kumaratunga has been vested with the leadership of the Office for National Unity and Reconciliation (ONUR) tasked with the enormous challenge of creating national unity and consolidating post war social reconciliation.

Today, the forces of narrow ethnic nationalism on both sides of the political divide are the weakest they have been in decades and certainly weaker than when CBK was president. The Tamil people are no longer led by the LTTE, but rather by the democratic and moderate TNA political leadership committed to a united and undivided Sri Lanka. In the Sinhala polity, the divisive chauvinism of the Rajapakse’s is now no longer in the political mainstream and its cheer leaders are minor parties of petty demagogues, such as the MEP and the NFF, with mercifully very limited public support.

Standing behind President CBK on a stage in Jaffna’s Valigamam North, in April 2015, at the public ceremony where private land held by the military was released to their original owners,  by President Sirisena, President Kumaratunga, Prime Minister Wickramasinghe and the Military Commanders, I could only wonder in amazement at this remarkable human being, who still at age 70, is influencing and guiding through sheer moral persuasion and the courage of her convictions, the destiny and direction of our nation and her peoples.

A tale of two Presidents, six years after the war

By Harim Peiris, B.Sc MBA

May 19^th 2015, marked six years since the end of Sri Lanka’s civil war, which at that time had been the world’s second longest running civil conflict, after Lebanon. The end of the war was commemorated in two very different ways from two very different leaders, one present and forward looking, the other defeated and backward looking, who lead a very real battle for the soul and spirit of our nation.

A tale of two presidents

President Maithripala Sirisena officiated at the official celebration in Matara, renamed “remembrance day” as opposed to “victory day” under the previous dispensation, on the basis that in a country torn by violence and war, it is more appropriate to remember with deep gratitude than it is to celebrate with fanfare. The remembrance was focused on those who paid the supreme sacrifice and was devoid of the adulation in song, verse and dance to the leader, which had been a hall mark of the Rajapakse years.

In his speech, President Sirisena was forthright that the scourge of terrorism would never again be allowed to raise its head and that national security would be strengthened through a new national defense policy, which takes into account the future security needs of the nation. He very correctly articulated the priority of development but also started introducing the very social democratic concept of focusing and investing in people as opposed to solely focusing on hard infrastructure. President Sirisena spoke constantly of reconciliation or “sanghindiyawa” as he termed it in Sinhala and was very forthright that development and reconciliation needs to go hand in hand. He spoke of the need to heal hearts and minds, besides rebuilding infrastructure and acknowledged the failures of past governments, which had resulted in the ethnic polarization we have in our society today. Such sentiments were entirely missing during the past six years after the war. The term reconciliation was almost anathema to President Rajapakse.

In contrast to the official remembrance of the Sri Lankan State under President Sirisena,  the night before at the Vihara Maha Devi Park’s open air theatre, an unofficial “victory day” vigil was held under the patronage of defeated President Mahinda Rajapakse. He loved in the past to be adulated as a king, songs were sung in his honor and it was all about him. There his political allies, their most vociferous spokesmen most notable for their barely disguised racism, spoke darkly of the need to protect the victory won, insinuated about the threats from various quarters, real or imagined and focused for purposes of personal political gain to perpetuate the polarization we have in our society. It was political fear and hate mongering at a slightly sophisticated level and one could easily draw the direct parallel between perceived paranoia of the Rajapakse allies and their “rent a mob” goon squads of extremist ethno religious organizations, reduced now to distorting the national flag, a violation of the penal code now that their godfather had been removed from the apex of the national security apparatus.

The SLFP old guard suffering from a lack of political and moral imagination

It was Oxford political science scholar John Paul Lederach, who a decade ago expounded on the theme of the moral imagination, which he described as the ability to recognize turning points and possibilities in order to venture down unknown paths. It is such a moral imagination which some of the old guard of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) seem to lack today. Instinctively after the Presidential election, the vast bulk of the SLFP came and collapsed onto the lap of President Sirisena. This despite the best efforts of the defeated President Rajapakse, to hang onto the party leadership.

President Sirisena boldly charted a new course. As promised in his election manifesto he established a national government and proceeded with reforms, the boldest being the successful, if somewhat diluted 19^th amendment. Further, to the willfully ignorant who claim that the UNP was appointed to Government without a mandate, it must have been because they were ignoring election pledges. Common candidate Maithripala Sirisena, pledged again and again, that he would appoint Ranil Wickramasinghe as Prime Minister, the day after he is elected. Accordingly the NDF (Swan) mandate included a mandate for the new government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe. This is exactly why, despite the propaganda of the “counter revolutionists” as President Sirisena terms them, the Government has legitimacy, public acceptance and the consent of the governed.

As the SLFP and indeed all political parties view an upcoming general election to Parliament, the SLFP old guard lacking a moral imagination wants an enemy to run against. The Rajapakse mentality of identity politics and polarization tactics, requires the “other” the enemy. It cannot contemplate the lack of a domestic adversary. On the other hand, a brand new possibility exists, the reality of a government in which candidates are elected on a party basis, with party affiliation and discipline of the parliamentary party whips, but cooperating together, more along the lines of the old Ceylon State Council days. This is a road untraveled but pregnant with real possibilities for genuine state reform and nation building. The absence of an adversarial system of governance for a term may be just the real new beginning, Sri Lanka needs to consolidate and sustain the sacrificially and hard won end of a violent civil war.

An open letter to Opposition Leader Nimal Siripala de Silva

By Harim Peiris

Hon.Nimal Siripala de Silva MP

Leader of the Opposition

Sir Marcus Fernando Mawatha

Colombo 7.

My dear Honorable Sir,

I thought of writing to you, due to the upcoming general election and the choices that face the SLFP in that context. My interest stems from my own personal association with the Party and is also motivated by my late father having been a founding member and Central Committee member of the SLFP in the 1950s, which fact seem to have been known to President Sirisena, who as the then General Secretary called and condoled with me on his demise last year.  However, I hasten to add that, though I previously served as Presidential Spokesman and currently as the Chairman of the Resettlement Authority, that the views expressed in this letter are strictly my own.

Firstly let me belatedly express my congratulations to you on the passage of the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution by a near unanimous vote, an achievement for which the SLFP should also take some credit, since it is after all the single largest party in Parliament. The greatest credit of course goes to President Sirisena, whose patient diplomacy crafted the compromises necessary to achieve a consensus and also showed that the SLFP and the UNP can work together for the greater good of the nation. It portends well for a possible national government after the general elections.

I must say though, I was rather surprised at some of the objections that were raised by the learned Professor G.L. Peiris on behalf of the SLFP earlier on, it was a pity he was unable to be as focused or articulate when the abominable 18^th amendment was passed in essentially half a day, without a semblance of a debate. Perhaps in that avatar he believed that ignorance was bliss.

I must also congratulate you, my dear Nimal, on keeping your job as Leader of the Opposition in Parliament. It was only a few weeks ago, that Dinesh Gunawardena was making a valiant bid to oust you and occupy your seat and it struck me then, that a party (the MEP) with only himself elected to Parliament and his brother appointed through the national list, trying to be opposition leader was rather thick. It took the TNA, to remind the Speaker that in the event that the UPFA was unable to lead the opposition, that they were the third largest party in Parliament. Like much of the other non issues and hot air raised by die hard Mahinda supporters in Parliament, this too came to nothing. Except perhaps to give Dinesh some unexpected but nonetheless for him a welcome lime light before the general elections.

However, the real reason I wanted to write to you is to address the issues of the so called, “bring back Mahinda campaign” which has been launched by some of the erstwhile minor partners of the SLFP in the UPFA. Firstly of course their campaign seems to losing steam despite all the money thrown at it. Bussing the same rent a crowd around the country is expensive. But clearly the bring back Mahinda campaign is not short of funds and is unlikely to ever be so. But it runs against the majority mood in the country and the people’s mandate as well as some serious policy and political problems.

1. Firstly, for Mahinda apologists who accuse the current national government of not having a parliamentary mandate, though their presidential campaign was the winner, it is mind boggling that the loser in the presidential election now wants to use the back door as it were to grab whatever residue power he can hold onto through the SLFP party structure. This despite the SLFP quite correctly opting to move with the winning President Sirisena into the future than to retreat with the losing Mahinda into the past.
2. It is even more surprising that the few SLFP colleagues who are in the Mahinda camp, do not realize that the Maithripala Sirisena presidential campaign was very much about ending the misrule of the Rajapakse’s and with the voters having delivered their verdict, their voice and mandate should be respected. I am glad that President Sirisena was very public that he would not let down the 6.2 million Sri Lankans who voted for him.

3. As a campaign activist and voter for President Sirisena, I must say I was appalled at the low down personal and vitriolic campaign that was run by Mahinda Rajapakse in his loosing reelection bid, where President Sirisena was called everything from a Diaspora lackey to a foreign stooge. Now nowhere do I see or hear any expression of regret, remorse or a recanting of these claims by Mahinda Rajapakse. Surely this must be a first step.

4. I am also rather surprised at this call to not investigate allegations of corruption and misrule of the Rajapakse Administration, which was made a campaign issue, so that a public mandate has even been received for this. The allegations are rather long and voluminous and need no mention here. But voters have not forgotten and there needs to be accountability for the world’s most expensive highways per kilometer, the missing vehicles from the presidential secretariat, the sovereignty selling giveaway terms of the port city project, a long list of unsolicited projects approved without tender processes, floating armories and unlicensed weapons to private parties, massive corruption at Sri Lankan Airlines, casinos made strategic enterprises, using TRC funds for the election campaign to name just a few, of a very long list.

5. Regarding the local councils, which have finished their term of office, I would not fight to be extending their term. This unwillingness to retire or give up office is a distressing Rajapakse trait and there is no need to pass on that toxic political virus to local government. The SLFP and indeed all local authorities can and must be prepared to contest regular elections and get a public mandate to hold office.

6. My humble suggestion by the way, is for the SLFP to dump the pro Mahinda UPFA allies for the general elections and run an SLFP slate of candidates. Frankly more SLFPers will get elected that way and SLFP votes would not be going towards electing those stuck in the past.

I hope you will consider the above ideas and suggestions in the formulation of SLFP policies going forward. Please accept my best wishes for the same.