Post-Rajapaksha Sri Lanka: President Sirisena for communal harmony, stability, development!

Dr. Abdul Ruff Colachal

____________

The arrival of President Maithripala Sirisena, who is seen committed to people’s causes as well as nation’s pride, signals the rise of a new phenomenon in Sri Lanka, governance and  politics, just like what the new political phenomenon the Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in Indian politics meant to India. Both have aroused the hopes of people, conscience of the nation and government commitment to the national causes.  

With the dawn of Sirisena in Lankan politics with a bang it seems people’s faith in the political leadership and government has returned to play its legitimate role in nation building task in new beginnings. His balanced foreign diplomacy added clarity to the purpose to the cause of national building.  

President Sirisena came when Sri Lankans had almost lost their faith in the government, in the national ruling elites, in the future of Sri Lanka and also lost hopes in their own future as former president Mahinda Rajapaksa became extremely a despot, prompting a divisive rule, harming the very purpose and stature of the nation. 

The exit of  powerful Rajapaksa, who had taken people for granted, happened as he and his close associates had appeared well-entrenched. The 69-year-old came to power in 2005, led his country’s military to a bloody victory over violent Tamil separatists four years later and surfed a wave of popularity among the Sinhala majority to win again in 2010. He then had the constitution changed to allow the third term he hoped to win in January’s poll, which was called two years early.  

The serious allegations of corruption, violent intimidation of political opponents, attacks on journalists, growing resentment among Tamils and mounting sectarian violence led to concern at home and abroad. The appointment of two brothers, a nephew and a son to key posts prompted charges of nepotism. The constitutional changes led to accusations of authoritarianism. Taxi drivers, cooks and shopkeepers in working-class neighborhoods in Colombo blame the ousted president’s entourage for the steeply rising prices of basic foodstuffs and major development projects that do not seem to have improved their lives. Rajapaksa sought to present his vision of a government which is unanswerable to people.

Rajapaksa and family lost and Sri Lanka won by voting Sirisena to power for protecting their genuine interests at home and abroad.

Voters do not vote for corrupt or ineffective governance but when that happens they are helpless as they can do literally nothing to the rulers who can ruthlessly suppress agitations demanding better governance, and welfare measures for the poor and needy. They reveal their anger and anguish in the next general elections by casting their valuable votes against the government and replace the incumbent ruling dispensation with a new government.

Generally politicians do not learn anything from people and their reactions. They just try to mold voter mindset to suit their designs.

Now the Lankans have regained their faith and hopes under Sirisena, a well wisher of freedoms and peace. Understandably, they now look upon the new leader with high hopes. 

A month after his surprise victory over Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose controversial rule had lasted more than nine years, the new president of Sri Lanka has launched an ambitious 100-day program of reform and redirection. The progress report looks fairly satisfying.  Already, there is a change in atmosphere in Sri Lanka that even the usually oblivious tourists filling Colombo’s rapidly proliferating luxury hotels must notice. “The people changed the situation. They want democracy,” a leftist Lankapelli told the Guardian, speaking in a rundown trade union federation office below a faded portrait of Leon Trotsky.

President Sirisena is encouraging people to live fearlessly. Many refer to the victory of Sirisena over both Rajapaksa and Tamil separatists as a reason to vote for him again. Hana Ebrahim, a respected journalist and former editor in Colombo, said the “fear has gone”. He’s a good politician who has a link with the poor and rural people,” said one of his sympathizers, “He knows how to appeal to them, even if his pure majoritarian policies eventually backfired”.

Muslim and Christian leaders also said they had been reassured by the new president’s recent statements. The issues in the north are complex however, and much depends on Sirisena persuading Sri Lanka’s powerful Sinhala-dominated military to give up land, businesses and a view of Tamils as potential troublemakers.

Representatives of the Tamil minority, who have faced discrimination and repression in recent years, are equally upbeat. His supporters say Sirisena’s attempt to reform and redirect is a big task. “The early signs are very promising. The mood has totally changed. Earlier, it was very scary. Now there’s lightness,” a western diplomat in Colombo said.

Observers were encouraged by the 63-year-old career politician’s speech on Sri Lanka’s Independence Day last month, in which the president spoke of the losses of all communities and made a series of other conciliatory statements towards the Tamil minority. In an address to top diplomats last week, Sirisena spoke of matching “the physical defeat of terrorism” with “a deeper and genuine peace”. “All people living in the country whatever language they speak, whatever religion they follow, should... live with feelings of strong brotherhood and with bonds of unity,” he said.

Such statements have allayed some concerns that the new head of state might be less inclusive than hoped. Sirisena was close to Rajapkasa, is a Buddhist like most of the Sinhalese majority and comes from a conservative rural background. Brian Keenan of the International Crisis Group said: “He comes from the same stock but is a very different kind of person. He is on the softer side of the Sinhala nationalist spectrum. There are indications that he wants to be calm, statesman-like reformer who doesn’t have a personal agenda but keeps the whole process going forward in a positive way”.

President Sirisena remains unprovoked by negative comments from opposition quarters and that is his positive mindset the people like.  

President Sirisena, known now known as a good and calm politician who has a link with the poor and feel for rural people, is eager to change the roadmap of his country and is now seen too busy as he began his democratic duty as mandated by the people of this island nation. He is often busy with a regular stream of officials, visitors, business people, soldiers and ambassadors meeting him through the colonial-era gates to his white-washed residence in Sri Lanka’s principal city.

Yet no one doubts the challenges facing Sirisena and his new government, which is led by Ranil Wickremesinghe, a veteran of Sri Lanka’s convoluted and bitter politics. One problem is the instability of the coalition. Essentially united only by a desire to oust Rajapaksa, the government faces parliamentary elections in June and needs to consolidate its hold in the national assembly to push through new laws and repeal others. Even before the polls, legislation including major constitutional amendments and a right to information act has been tabled.

One key problem for the new government is an impending UN report into alleged war crimes committed during the civil war and particularly its last year.  Launched under the Rajapaksa government, largely by the US and the UK, the report has the potential to embarrass the new administration as well (if the government approves the Rajapksha regime anomalies) by exposing acts by Sri Lankan government forces. After Sirisena’s foreign minister trawled western capitals, the report’s publication was pushed back to September.

There are also deep economic problems, only partially mitigated by the Rajapaksa’s investment in infrastructure, and the scars of the 26-year war are still livid. The closing phases of the conflict saw thousands of Tamil civilians killed in army bombardments and confused fighting with separatist extremists from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Many hundreds of Tamil political prisoners are still believed to be imprisoned, often without charge“.

There has been an economic crisis in Jaffna and the north and the new budget created a sense that the economy will now change. Human rights campaigners said surveillance and harassment of activists in the north have continued, however.

The Rajapaksa government swung Sri Lanka closer to Beijing, with scores of agreements signed with Chinese state firms for huge infrastructure projects and massive private investment too. The most high profile project involves building a marina, a Formula One circuit, luxury flats and businesses on a 200-plus hectare plot reclaimed from the sea off Colombo itself next to the city’s main port. A strategic tilt towards China also worried the US and India, Sri Lanka’s northerly neighbour.

Lanka sits astride key shipping lanes down which much of the oil and gas required by East Asian nations, including China, travels. The new administration appears undecided over the fate of the project, which will create and occupy some of the most strategically and commercially important real estate in south Asia.

Of the first acts of Wickramesinghe, the new prime minister, was to cancel tax breaks given to a huge casino project launched by Australian gambling tycoon James Packer. The high-profile investors are easier to see off.

The feeling in Colombo is broadly optimistic because there is a sense here that people contributed to Sirisena’s victory, a movement from dictatorship to democracy and they want to reap the fruits from the changing political atmosphere in the country under President Sirisena, a rare leader of  the corruption  ridden third world.