Posted on January 30, 2010 by admin

GENERAL ELECTIONS BEFORE SINHALA NEW YEAR

By Winston de Valliere.

Several government trouble-shooters have been mired in a complex jugglign act, on the one hand driving the presidential election campaign with an unprecedented vigour while cosying up to opposition members of parliament to harness the backing of at least 19 of them to pave the way for the SLFP led alliance to grab a two-thirds majority in parliament (150 votes)to ensure it can push through constitutional amendments to alter election laws to replace the exixting system with a mix of the older electoral laws and some facets of the obtaining law. Should this fail to come to fruition within the next few days, President Mahinda Rajapaksa will then dissolve parliament imediately after the Independence day celebration – in all probability on February 5th – and instruct the commissioner of elections to name a pre-Sinhala New Year day general election, authoritative government sources told LANKIKA.

The Sri Lanka Freedom Party(SLFP) has instructed all party district electoral organizers and alliance party leaders to move into immediate action on a general election campaign strategy and has told them the election will very probably be held prior to the Sinhala-Hindu New Year in April. Treasury men have reportedly said a new parliament would have to  almost immediately on being sworn in present a budget for the new financial year since the November Vote on Account only reckons with recurrent expenditure upto the end of April. This necessitates a new parliament being sworn in before end of April 2010 the source explained.

The government decision has been open ended only because of the possible failure to harness the opposition’s support for constitutional amendments. The draft constitutional amendments have already been licked into shape by the government’s legal brains with the twin objectives of changing the current counter-productive 2/3rds majority brickwall against constitutional changes as well as to give itself the political leverage to implement Rajapaksa’s plans to solve the grievances of the Tamil community while also not disturbing the cutting-edge of power any presidential incumbent would have under the current constitution.

The sources would not say whether the planned amendments would empower the government to implement an ethnic grievance solution that goes beyond or falls short of provisions and impositions embodied in the 13th and 17th amendments.

Rajapaksa’s statement earlier this week that India will not interfere in a Lankan goverenment’s solution to the ethnic grievances is seen as an indicator that India has been briefed on the amendment proposals and has given Colombo the thumbs up to proceed with it. The unexpected congratulations from the US and EU to Rajapaksa on his electoral victory are also suggestive of the same sentiments coming from those two vital global players.That even the UN has seen fit to issue a statement with an oblique reference to the opposition to accept the election results without contention could also well mirror its knowledge and acceptance of Rajapaksa’s ethnic grievance solution that is expected to stymie calls for a north-east merger.

The presidential election, despite its results being challenged, has also sounded a serious warning  to sitting opposition MP’s that any optimism they have of retaining their seats in parliament at the coming general election could end up with a taste of what General Fonseka got in his foray into politics. These MP’s are among the many who are wooed with promises of reasonable ministerial rewards should they agree to back the government’s constitutional amendment reforms. A bigger, stronger government will certainly have development plans which can accomodate the current over-weight cabinet – plus a dozen more - when provincial level development programs are being implemented with massive foreign aid flows.

The government is meanwhile quietly pressing ahead with its plans with a positive approach despite the impending pitfalls which opposition allegations of rigged polls results could produce.

Opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday told the media the United National Front would shortly take appropriate action to determine whether elections commissioner Chandrananda Dissanayake had been put under political pressure to announce results with which he probably did not agree. Wickremasinghe’s claim got a poor press however.

The media spotlight meanwhile refuses to let Fonseka out of focus while  public opinion holds that the goveernment’s chances of a sweeping  general election win will derive much mileage with Fonseka out of the reckoning in any nominations list.