Last week there was a British parliamentary delegation in Sri Lanka to discuss the situation in the No-War Zone and the visit was marked by how unremarkable it was. Columnist Lucian Rajakarunanayake described the endless stream of foreign do-gooders passing through Sri Lanka, as an extension of the local tourist industry and indeed it’s beginning to look like that. The foreigners come, are taken to see the president who nods his head to all the platitudes they utter like "There has to be a political solution" "The Tamil civilians have to be safeguarded" and so on. The president shakes his head to every suggestion the foreigners make such as "Let’s have a ceasefire" "Allow them to surrender to a third party". Then the visitors are given a bottle of chilled water each and packed off to Vavuniya for a tour of the IDP camps.

Then they leave the country and Sri Lanka prepares to receive the next batch of visitors. Last week, the British parliamentary delegation was unable to meet the opposition coalition, as they got held up in Vavuniya. However, they had conversed with the UNP and their coalition partners over the phone. One of the things that they had said, was that they were perturbed that the government did not seem to realize the need to have a political solution on the table.

An important event that took place last week was the shift of power within the UNP at the working committee meeting on Tuesday. It was decided that the party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe would not preside at the political affairs committee, disciplinary committee, the management committee and the finance committee and that these committees will be chaired by Deputy Leader Karu Jayasuriya.

These were among the reforms agreed to at that marathon six hour working committee meeting held last month. There was the fear that the minutes of that working committee would be doctored in such a manner that nothing is really conceded. Last week, with the party leader himself declaring that he would step down from the chairmanship of these committees, these fears were allayed.

Henceforth, the power to appoint electoral organizers will be vested in a the organizational committee comprising of Wickremesinghe, Jayasuriya, Tissa Attanayake and others. It is only with the unanimous agreement of everybody in this committee that someone can be appointed a UNP organizer. This will no doubt be welcomed by many who have been victims of the irrational policy of appointing or not appointing electoral organizers based solely on the whims and fancies of the party leader. Among those who defected to the government recently, quite a few had left owing to disputes over electoral organizerships. Duminda Silva, Thilanga Sumathipala, Dhanasiri Amaratunga (the Dehiwala-Galkissa deputy mayor) Ananda Abeywickrema of Galle, just to mention a few, were among them. The appointment of organizers taking place without that element of arbitrariness that Wickremesinghe displayed, would serve to stabilize the party.

What does Wickremesinghe’s partial stepping down translate to in practice, is now the main question on the minds of many. Does the fact that he will not be presiding over four of the UNP’s committees really mean anything? The UNP is by far the most committee-heavy political party in the country. And the leader not presiding over the meetings of some of these committees may not mean anything. And in any case, any decision taken by these committees can always be vetoed by the working committee which is chaired by Wickremesinghe. Furthermore, the appointments to these committees will be made by the working committee on the recommendations of the party leader. So real power still resides with Wickremesinghe. Just as he declared at last week’s working committee meeting that he would not be presiding at meetings of the political affairs committee, the management committee and so on, he can always declare at a later date that he is going to preside over these committees once again. This will no doubt raise a furor within the party, but then, that is not something that the UNP leader is not used to.

However, the political affairs committee, the disciplinary committee and the management committee are the three most important committees after the working committee, and the fact that Wickremesinghe has ceased to chair these committees will create an alternative power centre where decisions will be made without reference to him. These decisions will become known to the public through the press and if for instance the political affairs committee passes a resolution to the effect that Wickremesinghe should resign, there’s nothing that he can do. If the disciplinary committee refuses to punish those who rebel against his leadership, that too will be in the public domain and it will make a bad situation worse for Wickremesinghe.

What bodes ill is that key individuals within the UNP from both sides of the divide dismiss these changes. Parliamentarian Vajira Abeywardene, the key person in the Wickremesinghe camp says that the leader delegates powers to various people from time to time and that this instance is no different. Now that does not sound like a shift of power at all. Then if one takes individuals like Sajith Premadasa, he too has already told members of the UNP hierarchy that the fact that the party leader is not going to preside at the political affairs committee and the management committee means nothing because the final decision making power resides within the working committee which is chaired by the party leader. These dismissive attitudes coming from both sides of the divide and from the younger generation, does not bode well for the partial reforms that have taken place.

However, there is also reason for cautious optimism. It would appear that the era of arbitrary decision making by the party leader is over. Let it be said that had Wickremesinghe agreed even to these ‘half measures’ back in 2006, that group of 18 parliamentarians who left with Karu Jayasuriya may not have left the party and the UNP would be a much stronger entity today. This is a classic case of too little coming too late. People have developed an ingrained suspicion of Wickremesinghe and his motives. But there is reason to be cautiously optimistic. The new system at work could be seen in the appointment of Rosy Senanayake as the opposition leader of the western province. The recommendation to appoint her as the opposition leader and George Perera as the opposition whip came from the provincial councils and local government committee of the party which is headed by Vajira Abeywardene. In normal circumstances, the opposition leader would have made the recommendation to the working committee as was done in the case of S.B.Dissanayake, the late Janaka Perera and Ranjan Ramanayake. This time, the party leader stood aloof and the decision was made by the PCs and local government committee. The fact that this committee is presided over by Abeywardene who is a Wickremesinghe loyalist, is beside the point. It was an independent decision. On the day that the decision to appoint Rosy Senanayake as the WP opposition leader, those present for the PCs and local government committee meeting, were Vajira Abeywardene, P.Harrison and Range Bandara – all three of them Wickremesinghe loyalists.

There was a report in a Sinhala daily (NOT in the Dinamina), that it was Ruwan Wijewardene who was tipped to be the opposition leader of the WP and that his name had been suggested by a committee comprising of Karu Jayasuriya, Tissa Attanayake and others and that it was only after Wijewardene turned it down and Wickremesinghe conveyed that to the committee headed by Jayasuriya that Rosy’s name was suggested. The fact is that there was no committee appointed with Jayasuriya and Attanayake to look into appointing the WP opposition leader – that decision was with the PCs and local government committee and this committee decided on Rosy Senanayake and Wijewardene was never considered. It will be highly damaging to Wickremesinghe if people start believing that his first choice for opposition leader was his cousin and that it was given to Senanayake only because his cousin turned it down. It will also be highly damaging for Rosy Senanayake if people begin to believe that she had eagerly accepted what Wijewardene pushed off his own plate.

The WP elections was where the UNP Muslims managed to claw back ground they had lost to the SLMC. The SLMC had three seats in the Colombo district and they are now down to one. The UNP has three Muslim Councillors, Mohamed Muzammil, Mohamed Mushin and M.Firoos. In the wake of this victory, infighting has erupted among UNP Muslim leaders with Muzammil accusing Asath Sally of having sent text messages on his own mobile phone to Muslims in Colombo asking them not to vote for Muzammil. Sally is also accused of having told Kabir Hashim not to campaign for Muzammil. Muzammil’s argument had been that Sally, as a working committee member of the UNP, should not have canvassed against a party candidate in that manner. A disciplinary inquiry has been called against Sally.

Sally, as we reported, wanted to contest the WPC election but his nomination was strenuously opposed by Mohamed Maharoof who had threatened to resign if he is given nomination. Sally stood down only after being promised the UNP’s Colombo Mayoral candidacy at the next local government elections. By any reckoning, it was a good trade off because the status of the Colombo UNP Mayoral candidate is far superior to that of a PC election candidate. One thing that the recent WP poll showed was that Colombo central was crucial for any UNP Muslim candidate. All three Muslims elected on the UNP list this time, got the bulk of their votes from Colombo Central. Fairoos Hajjiar got something in excess of 15,000, Mohamed Mushin (better known as Mujibur Rahaman) in excess of 14,000 and Muzammil in excess of 12,000 votes from Colombo central. Without winning sufficient votes from Colombo central, no Muslim candidate can hope to get elected in the Colombo district. One of the deleterious effects of the proportional representation system is that it has bolstered the divisive practice of ethnic based voting. The rise of ethnic parties has added fuel to the fire and the days when a Muslim candidate like M.H.Mohamed could hope to get elected in a Sinhala Majority electorate like Borella are long past. As the SLMC also gets the bulk of their votes in the Colombo district from the Colombo Central electorate, the competition between the UNP and the SLMC is also most intense in Colombo Central.

A matter which raised eyebrows last week was the non-inclusion of Duminda Silva and Thilanga Sumathipala in the WPC ministerial team. Even though neither of them secured enough preference votes to claim the position of chief minister, one would have thought that both would be entitled to ministerial portfolios from the Colombo district. There is apparently much anguish and gnashing of teeth and uttering of expletives over this matter as those less deserving have been made ministers. But to an outsider, this does not seem to be too unreasonable as the rule imposed is that those holding portfolios at the provincial level will not be given nominations at the parliamentary elections, and both Silva and Sumathipala obviously don’t want to get stuck at the provincial level. This was similar to the situation faced by Asath Sally in the UNP, who wanted to contest the WPC elections and then to contest the CMC election as well as the mayoral candidate – he was compelled to choose between the two.

On the UPFA side, it was clear that ambitious local government bosses were not allowed to abandon their local government offices to contest the provincial council elections. To maintain the same rule for the PCs will certainly ensure stability at the PC level as the government argues. Duminda Silva and Thilanga Sumathipala were made the SLFP organizers for Kolonnawa and Borella respectively as a consolation prize. When he was in the UNP, Duminda Silva came at the top of the UNP list at the 2004 WPC election, but was for a long time not given an electorate. About four years after he came first on the UNP list, he was grudgingly given half of the Colombo North electorate – one of the smallest in the Colombo district. But now, within days of having come in at the top of the UPFA list, he has been appointed SLFP organizer for Kolonnawa with the whole electorate, not half of it. It’s the same in Sumathipala’s case. He has long sought the Borella electorate even when he was with the UNP, but it was never given to him.

Within days of having come second on the UPFA list he has become the SLFP organizer for Borella. Contrast this with the experience of S.B.Dissanayake who came first on the UNP list in the Kandy district, winning the highest number of preferential votes in every single electorate in the district, and is the opposition leader of the central province, but to this date he still does not have an electorate to organize in the Kandy district! And SB, it might be worth remembering, is not someone who has just parachuted into his party like Duminda and Sumathipala, but the man who was instrumental in overthrowing the Chandrika Kumaratunga regime, and helping form the only UNP government in the past fifteen years.

Compared with the treatment that SB has got in the UNP, both Duminda Silva and Sumathipala, are being pampered in the SLFP. Had they both eschewed parliamentary ambitions, they could have been provincial ministers as well. They can’t really complain of the decision that the president took, not to allow provincial ministers to contest parliamentary elections because every party will have rules and restrictions like that. The UNP for example had the rule that every electoral organizer who is not an elected people’s representative had to contest the WPC poll or risk losing their electorates. Bodhi Ranasinghe the Colombo East organizer of the UNP refused to contest and he has resigned from his organizership even though it has not yet been announced by the party. This is no different to the choice thrown at Duminda Silva and Sumathipala.

It now appears that at a future presidential or parliamentary election, whichever comes first, both the government and the opposition will be asking for mandates to make sweeping constitutional changes. Last Sunday, UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe had a discussion with Karu Jayasuriya and Tissa Attanayake about how the party should face a possible snap election. The UNP thinks that the president may go in for a snap parliamentary election the moment the rest of the LTTE held area is taken instead of waiting for a presidential election which can only be held after November this year. Since it is almost certain that the government will be asking the voters for a two thirds majority to change the constitution, the UNP commenced last week, to formulate their own response to the government’s strategy.

Last week the UNP parliamentary group was addressed by a constitutional expert, on the subject of electoral reform. The UNP leader mooted the point that 125 seats should be filled on the first past the post system and the remaining 100 seats should be on the proportional representation system. Furthermore, he suggested that in order to provide for minority representation, the old multi-member electorate system should be reintroduced. The UNP is planning a completely new approach at future elections. Last week, we made mention of the fact that the UNP and its allies are seriously thinking of fielding a common candidate at the next presidential election. This common candidate will come with a complete package of reforms which will start with the abolition of the executive presidency and reforming the electoral system into a combination of the first past the post and proportional representation system. The common candidate will be a kind of caretaker president until the new system is put in place.

The UNP feels that by presenting a package of reforms which will have individual features which will appeal to all sections of society, the party will be able to gain an electoral edge. Plans are afoot to register a new political alliance styled the United National Alliance with the UNP, the SLFP(M), the SLMC and Mano Ganesan’s Democratic Peoples’ Front. There is the possibility that for the first time in history, some Marxist fringe groups like the Siritunga group may join the grand coalition being formed by the UNP.

A bizarre event which occurred last week, before the UNP working committee meeting was the presentation of a letter to Tissa Attanayake for inclusion in the working committee agenda by Hambantota district parliamentarian Dilip Wedaarachchi – a well known Sajith loyalist – that Sajith Premadasa be made the senior assistant leader of the party. This was withdrawn later by Wedaarachchi, on Premadasa’s insistence. Having got wind of this letter, Vajira Abeywardene, Sajith’s bete noir had also prepared to contest the post. The withdrawal of Wedaarchchi’s letter resulted in this item being taken off the agenda. This is the second time in as many months that this suggestion that Sajith Premadasa be made the senior assistant leader was put forward by this same Wedaarachchi in the most ad hoc manner imaginable, and at the most inappropriate moment to boot. The first time he did so, was at the end of that six hour working committee meeting held last month. Given the heat and fury generated by an unprecedented debate, that was a singularly inappropriate moment to bring up such a suggestion and the reaction was predictable with Ravi Karunanayake furiously suggesting S.B.Dissanayake’s name and Vajira Abeywardene launching into a tirade against Premadasa.

Last week’s working committee meeting was just the second meeting after that disastrous adventure and to have such a suggestion for the appointment of a senior assistant leader put to the working committee as a ‘private member’s motion’ so to speak, was inviting trouble. It should have been put through the political affairs committee and the recommendation should have come to the working committee through the proper channels, especially as the creation of this post necessitates a constitutional change. Wedaarchchi has now reportedly been given strict instructions by Premadasa not to say or write anything which has reference to him (Premadasa) without prior consultation.

A furious Sajith Premadasa had complained to members of the UNP hierarchy that Dilip Wedaarachchi has been put up to this by Wickremesinghe, to suggest his name for a position that does not even exist, in order to give the whole world the impression that he (Premadasa) was chasing after positions in the party. Premadasa had said that if such a position is created, his running for it in an open election was another matter, but to have his name suggested by a close colleague, gives the impression to the world that he was involved in back room deals to sneak into this position through the back door. Premadasa had made it clear publicly, on several occasions, that he was for electing office bearers and not appointing them as at present.

Sniping at one another is going on apace within the UNP. At the R. Premadasa commemoration on May 1, one of the things that Sajith Premadasa had said was that the armed forces had been able to go from Pamankada to Alimankada and from Medawachchiya to Kilinochchiya and that it is one country again from Dondra to Pt Pedro and that for this he bows his head (Shirsha pranamaya pudakaranawa) to the armed forces. This was a hardly concealed barb directed at Ravi Karunanayake whose Pamankada and Medawachchiya comment got wide publicity in the press. Karunanayake is widely known to be in the Wickremesinghe camp. Despite this open sniping, Wickremesinghe, ever the wily one, had later patted Premadasa on the back saying it was an excellent speech.