SLFPers: More reasons to remain than to quit

After all politics in Sri Lanka is nothing but a way of big-time money making.

• If there are MPs of the Maithri group to defect why don’t they do so now?
• Revealing this fact beforehand would provide an opportunity to take precautionary measures to prevent defection
• There are differences of opinion over SAITM which is now a hot topic in the media. 

Are there eighteen Sri Lanka Freedom Party Parliamentarians who are supporters of President Maithripala Sirisena planning to resign from the Government, as claimed by the Joint Opposition? 
Mahinda Rajapaksa camp says that those defectors are to join their camp while some SLFP members in the Government are declaring that they would sit as independent MPs in the Parliament in the near future.

If there are MPs of the Maithri group to defect from the so-called “National Government” or the so-called unity government, why don’t they do so now? 

Surely there is no difference between now and the “near future” for them to break away from the government, if they have reasons to do so.

Although this speculation cannot totally be ruled out, the number of people who are said to be willing to leave the government seems to be contentious and has been exaggerated. The speculation was first “revealed” by the Mahinda supporters or the Joint Opposition and later several SLFP Parliamentarians in the government also confirmed it, sans the number of them to quit.

However, the question remains as to why the JO members “reveal” this without letting those who wish to withdraw from the government to do so. Revealing this fact beforehand would provide an opportunity for the President and the other leaders of the government who look forward to continue with the unity government to take precautionary measures to prevent defections.

Needless to say there are differences between the ministers of the United National Party (UNP) and the Maithri faction of the SLFP. This has been manifested on so many occasions in the ministries where the minister represented one group while the deputy minister or the State minister was representing the other. 

The latest indication of the cold-war between the two groups was the conflict between Minister Kabir Hashim, who was also the UNP General Secretary and his deputy Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena over sharing of rooms in the ministry building. During the row Minister Hashim had reportedly told that he did not like SLFP national list MP Dilan Perera either to be appointed as his deputy.

However, the SLFP members of the government always attempt to describe the cold-war between the two groups as one based on policies, which is not the fact. In spite of there being differences of opinion they cannot be cited as policy matters.

For instance, there are differences of opinion over the South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine SAITM) which is now a hot topic in the media. 

SLFP ministers like Dayasiri Jayasekera want the institute to be closed down while UNP ministers such as Lakshman Kiriella and Rajitha Senaratne are working hard towards its continuation.
However, the policies of both the groups on private medical education in particular and on private higher education in general do not seem to be varied. President Maithripala Sirisena, who had never called for the closure of the SAITM, had recently declared open the fee levying Green University in Homagama.

Both groups have recognised and have been following the open market economy as their basic 
economic policy. 

The UNP is generally described as a “capitalist party” from its inception and has been following capitalist policies throughout its 61 year history. It was the party that introduced the open economy in Sri Lanka in 1978 under the leadership of former President J.R. Jayewardene. 

The SLFP or the leftist parties who claim to be Marxists had also followed the same economic policy subsequently when they came to power in 1994. They have never at least thought of reverting to their old closed economic policy that had devastating effects during Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike’s regime between 1970 and 1977. 

Therefore, the SLFP, whether it is the Maithripala faction or Mahinda Rajapaksa faction is no longer following socialist or closed economic policies.

When it comes to implementation of market policy, both parties pursue the privatization of State institutions and high profile corruption has been the norm during the regimes of both main parties, the UNP and the SLFP. 

The incidents during the last regime which are fresh in our memory and the recent bond scam would attest to the point.

Both parties have been vacillating over the issue of abolition of the executive Presidency while preferring the same mixed electoral system with a higher percentage of members elected under the first-past-the post system. 

They did not have the political will to take drastic action towards the resolution of the ethnic problem. 
Despite both main parties having gone for federal solutions on varying occasions, they did not have the guts to hold on to them in the face of southern opposition or at least to accept that they had done so. 

Despite their rhetorical public utterances against foreign pressure both the main parties had succumbed to it in the past, in respect of human rights.

Therefore, the claim by some SLFP members of the government that they want to leave the government on policy grounds is groundless. The real reason, if any is that the UNP has gained the upper hand in almost every important aspect in governance. 

All the important ministries that can influence the overall policies of economy, defence and law and order are being handled by the UNP leaders. The frustration of the SLFP leaders might have stemmed from UNP’s ability to bulldoze through the decision making process in spite of its leadership having not been vested with executive Presidential powers. This had happened during the  UNF government under the Chandrika Kumaratunga Presidency. The outburst by President Maithripala Sirisena in October, last year that the anti-corruption drive of the government had been politicized and two weeks ago that the UNP had an understanding with the Rajapaksas to absolve the latter from high profile corruption charges were indications of that frustration at its highest level.

Nevertheless, the possibility of all the SLFP members, who are currently supporting President Sirisena breaking rank with the government is highly questionable, as it would not change the regime. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution does not provide for the President to dissolve the Parliament before it completes four and a half years. Before that even if all of the SLFPers withdraw from the government there is a possibility of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) coming forward to assist the UNP to continue with the government, at least from outside. 

TNA would find it difficult to directly join the government due to the pressure from its rivals headed by Northern Province Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran and the Tamil diaspora who are already on record that the TNA leadership had betrayed the Tamils to the Sinhalese through their links with the 
government leaders.

Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe’s prediction that the UNP would form the government with the TNA in the event of a SLFP withdrawal has some substance in it, but his claim that they in the SLFP joined the government after the 2015 Parliamentary Elections to prevent the TNA from taking control of the government was not the fact. 

In fact some SLFPers joined the government to save their skin from corruption charges, while others were in greed of ministerial perks. They were the people who during the Presidential election told the country that Maithripala Sirisena was an agent of the Western Powers and the separatist forces. Hence, the threat by some SLFPers to resign from the government seems to be a bargaining tactic as the factors that pushed them to join the government- the perks and corruption charges- are still valid.  After all, in an individual point of view, politics in Sri Lanka is nothing but a way of big-time 
money making.