What the events of the last week showed was how different Mahinda Rajapakse is to Ranil Wickremesinghe. When this newspaper revealed that President Rajapakse’s potential main rival was completely under his power and as a serving soldier, General Sarath Fonseka could not resign to contest the presidential election unless the president allowed him to do so, Rajapakse’s first reaction was to say that he will release General Fonseka within half an hour if that is what he desired. And the General himself rushed to avail himself of the opportunity. No politician would have ever done what Rajapakse did - to release his main rival to contest against him, when it was well within his power to keep the General in military service and out of politics for at least eighteen months more.

Even when I first wrote about General Fonseka’s legal issue three weeks ago, what I was told by colleagues in the profession was that these points of law that I raised would suit Ranil Wickremesinghe but not Mahinda Rajapakse. MR is a street fighter and when faced with a challenge, his first instinct would be to tuck up his sarong and meet it head on. On Wednesday last week, having completed the security council meeting, the president had amiably asked General Fonseka "So how are things?" General Fonseka had got down to the point and said that he was going to contest as the presidential candidate of the opposition. The president had said that he will release him from duties and wished him well but advised him that he was making the biggest mistake of his life. He warned the general that he would be used and discarded. In parting Rajapakse had invited Fonseka to work with him again after the election.

Very unlike Eisenhower

General Fonseka’s entery politics, will give the opposition a much needed boost.

The opposition was negotiating to get him to contest as the common opposition candidate even while he was still a serving officer in the armed services. There is a precedent for this because General Dwight D.Eisenhower was invited by the Republican party of the USA to become their presidential candidate in 1952 while he was serving as NATO commander in Europe. When he became the Republican candidate, Eisenhower got to present his own programme to the people and once he won the election, he got to keep the position of president and implement his program. Fonseka’s brief however will be very different. Firstly, Fonseka will not be leading either the UNP or the JVP, or even the new opposition alliance that has been formed. Neither of the two main opposition parties have extended an Eisenhower type invitation to Fonseka to take over their parties. Secondly, unlike Eisenhower, Fonseka will not be able to put his own programme before the people. He will have to present a pre-determined agenda which was decided on by his handlers. Thirdly, he will not get to keep the position of president after winning it – he’ll have to abolish it and hand power over to his handlers. The opposition is not looking for a leader, they are looking for a Siri Sangabo. (The legendry Buddhist King who donated his own head to charity!)

My dear departed friend, the late General Cecil Waidyaratne, used to say that a pack of camels led by a lion will be able to defeat a pack of lions led by a camel. In this instance, it does seem for all the world that the opposition camels have indeed got a lion to lead them; but given the conditions under which Fonseka will be contesting the presidency, the real situation seems to be more that of a pack of jackals persuading a lion to go out and hunt for them. In any case, if a pack of camels led by a lion is to defeat a pack of lions led by a camel, the other side has to be led by a camel. But in this instance, the other side too is led by a lion in President Rajapakse. In fact it is Rajapakse who still commands the original pride from which Fonseka has reneged. Had General Waidyaratne been around today, the question I would put to him would be "What happens when a pack of jackals led by a lion, meets a pride of lions led by a lion and accompanied by their usual retinue of hyenas?"

The relationship between Fonseka and his main backers will be uneasy at best. The UNP leader for example will most probably not give Sarath Fonseka membership of the UNP because the UNP constitution says that if a member of the UNP (even an ordinary member) becomes the president of the country, he will become party leader automatically. When I asked one prominent UNPer whether his party will be offering its membership to General Fonseka, the answer I got was that the JVP wants a non-political common candidate to carry out the contract of abolishing the executive presidency and therefore it was not feasible to give General Fonseka UNP membership! This is a far cry from the invitation extended by the Republican Party to General Eisenhower.

At the presidential election of 1982, when Sirima and Anura wanted to undermine Hector Kobbekaduwa who became the SLFP’s presidential candidate because Mrs B had been stripped of her civic rights, what they did was to go around saying that Kobbekaduwa was only a ‘contractor’ who in the event of victory would restore Mrs Bandaranaike’s civic rights and resign for a Bandaraniake to step into the position of president. The impression that Kobbekaduwa was not contesting a post that he would be allowed to hold seriously undermined his prospects. Likewise, the fact that the opposition is looking for a candidate who will not stay on in the position of president but will abolish it within six months will seriously affect General Fonseka’s chance of mounting a proper challenge to President Rajapakse.

The disadvantages

Abolishing the executive presidency, is the main slogan of the opposition. But this is hardly a matter of national urgency and indeed the incumbent president is a very popular figure. If the opposition candidate is to have a reasonable chance of success, he will have to galvanize the whole country to a grand cause and the abolition of the executive presidency is hardly a cause to grip the masses. In entering politics as the opposition candidate, Fonseka will be up against some major disadvantages.

1. The lack of an attractive cause to rally the masses.

2. The fact that he is not a party leader and will not be able to prepare a policy declaration of his own except for whatever is given to him by his handlers.

3. His lack of power within any of the political parties backing him will make him appear more a poodle on a leash than a leading lion.

4. Fonseka will not be able to give any pledges to the people. He cannot even promise to clamp down on corruption because that cannot be achieved in the six month period he would have.

5. The fact that he will be contesting against his own commander in chief and other superiors, who provided him with the wherewithal to become what he is, will not necessarily go down well with the people. Remember that in the US, General Ulysses S.Grant never contested against Abraham Lincoln, the war president and his commander in chief. Similarly, General Eisenhower never contested against his commanders in chief, the war presidents Roosevelt and Truman – that would have been unthinkable.

6. General Fonseka’s one and only claim to the presidency will be his role in crushing the LTTE. But he has to share the credit for this with his opponent, and that will dilute his claim. Besides, the opponent has other claims such as major development projects, resisting foreign pressure to stop the war and so on. If MR succumbed to foreign pressure to stop the war, Fonseka would have no achievement to claim credit for.

7. The fact that General Fonseka’s main political backers and handlers will be the very people who both opposed and ridiculed the very efforts for which he claims credit will strike a discordant note, and will offer a propaganda advantage to the other side. There will be no way to counter the barrage of government propaganda in this regard.

8. The nationalistic forces which are General Fonseka’s natural constituency will be campaigning against him. Up to now, not a single nationalist intellectual had declared in favour Sarath Fonseka’s candidacy, but quite a few have declared against it.

9. In 2005, President Rajapakse was not the SLFP leader when he contested the presidency. But at that time there was great urgency attached to his victory because the nationalist elements thought that a Ranil Wickremesinghe victory would take the country to a point of no return vis a vis the LTTE. It was this belief that galvanized a groundswell of support for Rajapakse. Today, however, there is no urgent or pressing reason for Fonseka to be elected instead of Rajapakse.

With all this, there is still no certainty that Fonseka will even be the presidential candidate of the UNP led alliance. Last Monday, the Galle district UNP working committee met and all those present had wanted to know who the next presidential candidate of the UNP was going to be. Vajira Abeywardene had replied that whatever anybody says, Ranil Wickremesinghe is going to be the candidate of the UNP. While the UNP has received a much needed morale boost by the entry of Sarath Fonseka into the fray, there were other rumbles within the party. The only reason why the UNP was able to form a government even for a brief period during the past one and a half decades was because S.B.Dissanayake crossed over from the SLFP in what was at the time the biggest crossover in parliamentary history. SB and Sajith Premadasa were the two people who could galvanize the UNP rank and file. Today, with the advent of Sarath Fonseka, both of them have been eclipsed to some extent. Because of their ability to galvanize the rank and file, both SB and Sajith were deliberately kept in the shadows by a leadership fearful of being overtaken. Hence, whenever the party wanted a boost instead of looking inwards, the party looked to complete outsiders who would not pose a threat to the leadership. Sarath Fonseka is the latest outsider to be used for this purpose.

Questions over SB

In fact this tendency to seek outsiders to bail out the party is so pronounced that some people connected to the government were wondering aloud whether in a situation where Sarath Fonseka has already resigned to contest as the opposition’s common candidate, whether it would not be strategically wise to have the parliamentary elections first. In such an event, Fonseka will have to wait another two years to contest the presidency. The present coming together of the UNP and the JVP cannot be sustained for an extended period of time. Besides, in the UNP everything has a short time span. While waiting for a presidential election, Fonseka may have to enter parliament to wait out the two years left. In any case, whether he enters parliament or not, an extended association with the UNP over a period of time is sure to bring about splits which would undermine the momentum built up at present.

Even SB fell from the frying pan into the fire by leaving the SLFP to join the UNP. It took seven years for SB to hand in his resignation from the SLFP government. But it took him less than the same number of months to offer his resignation after joining the UNP! The announcement the president will be making today at the SLFP convention will be crucial. If the president declares a parliamentary election first, Fonseka will be stale by the time the presidential election comes around two years later and by that time, the chances are that he will no longer be on talking terms with Wickremesinghe. Wickremesinghe will never allow Fonseka to be kept in the in the limelight for an unbroken two years as the presidential candidate of the UNP as that will undermine his authority in the party. Giving prominence to an outsider will of necessity be a short term thing as far as the UNP is concerned.

Be that as it may, on Thursday, there were strong rumours to the effect that if Fonseka was to be declared the presidential candidate of the UNF, SB would join the government. On Friday, SB was a conspicuous absentee at the vehicle parade of the UNF from Colombo to Kandy. Quite clearly, there is a problem. The question is that when the UNP gains one, they may lose others. General Fonseka’s resignation may add some fizz to the UNP’s campaign in the short term. But what happens if the government suddenly goes in for a parliamentary election and allows Fonseka to grow stale? In such an event, the loss of people like SB who have political experience, will be a major blow to the party.

The government too has been making some mistakes – mistakes they did not make over the past four years. Firstly at the SPC elections, over 20 UNP campaign offices were destroyed in the Hambantota district alone. Parliamentarian Palitha Range Bandara’s house was torched and no serious police investigation has ensued. To cap it all, General Sarath Fonseka, was jeered at outside the precincts of the Kelaniya Raja Maha Viharaya. General Fonseka may have switched sides, but he is a man who has done his duty by the country and jeers and catcalls directed at him looks as ugly as General Fonseka’s own act of contesting against his commander in chief. The government played their cards carefully when it came to Janaka Perera. Even though they refused Perera extra security other than what a usual PC candidate would be entitled to, they still refrained from slinging mud at the decorated war hero. The unseemly exhibition outside the Kelaniya temple shows that the government has lost its sense of balance. The attack on the UNP’s vehicle parade to Kandy is symptomatic of this trend.

The government should realize that the reason why so may UNPers from the grassroots level upwards joined the UPFA was not simply because of the weak party leadership and the lack of prospects. That was only one factor. The other key contributory factor was that there was virtually no tension between the UNP and the government. The government did not persecute the UNP during the past four years and with the reduction in political tension, party loyalties also became fluid. But if the government abandons this policy for one of unnecessary confrontation, they are going to help the UNP to close ranks to meet the threat from outside. The reason why the Chandrika Kumaratunga government fell in just seven years despite having won the presidency with an unprecedented 62%, was because her relentless and senseless persecution of the UNP made everybody gang up to get rid of the scourge. The government should be mindful of these facts.

The government sent a powerful message to the country by giving General Fonseka his discharge even though they were entitled to refuse it. The effect created by such an act should not be spoilt by acts of violence directed at the opposition. The damage done to the government by acts of unseemly violence is much greater than the damage that would have been done by not giving General Fonseka the release that was discretionary. If the government is going to make a public spectacle of itself by engaging in acts of violence all because of the increased challenge from the UNP, then the wiser thing to do would have been to simply refuse to release General Fonseka - that would have been clean and surgical unlike the messy hooliganism that has been unleashed now.

The GSP+ issue

The European Union’s final decision on the extension or otherwise of the GSP+ facility, will come next month. In past weeks, this column has emphasized that if the final decision is unfavourable to Sri Lanka, the government should take the matter to the World Trade Organisation because as far as the WTO laws were concerned Sri Lanka has a very strong case; and the very investigation launched by the European Commission against Sri Lanka was from the outset in violation of WTO laws with regard to the granting of GSP (Generalised System of Preferences) facilities. Professor G.L.Peiris in fact hinted in his speech in parliament on the final report of the EC saying that the government may invoke the WTO law if the EU decision on GSP+, goes against Sri Lanka. Some may think that going to the WTO is a step that a country like Sri Lanka should not take. But the WTO and its dispute settlement process exists for the purpose of pronouncing a final judgment on matters precisely like the one faced by Sri Lanka at present.

The WTO was founded only in 1995 and since its inception, the United States of America has filed action against various countries on no less than 93 occasions. They have even dragged India and Pakistan to the WTO. The European Union itself has taken other nations to the WTO on no less than 81 occasions since 1995. Among them are India and Pakistan. In point of fact the USA and the EU are the two main litigants in the WTO. If not for them, WTO lawyers would be out of work! The USA and the EU have been taking one another to the WTO more often than anybody else. The USA has taken the EU to the WTO on no less than 31 occasions and the EU has filed action against the USA on no less than 19 occasions. In contrast to this, Sri Lanka has gone to the WTO only once. This was over a dispute with Brazil in 1996 over import duties on desiccated coconut and powdered coconut milk exports from SL to Brazil. However this was only a request for consultations and there was no dispute settlement panel established or a settlement arrived at. If Sri Lanka was prepared to go to the WTO over desiccated coconut and powdered coconut milk, how much more prepared should they be to go to the WTO over the suspension of GSP+?

The WTO dispute resolution procedure goes through three stages – the consultative stage, the settlement panel stage and the appellate stage. Sri Lanka has such a strong case with regard to GSP+ that it may not need to go beyond the consultative stage. The time frame fixed by the WTO from the point of asking for a consultation to the point where the appellate body declares its final judgment is 18 months. If the EU council votes against Sri Lanka next month, there will be a grace period of six months before the GSP+ facility is stopped. So even in the event of a negative decision, SL would have the facility until June 2010. Sri Lanka should immediately file action in the WTO if the EU council votes against SL. There is the possibility that the dispute may not go beyond the consultative stage in the WTO; in which case it may be possible to enjoy GSP+ in an unbroken manner beyond June 2010. If the EU tries to take things beyond the consultative stage, there is the danger that the WTO may shoot down the entire GSP+ scheme. This would be the second time in just five years that the WTO has shot down a special GSP incentive scheme of the EU.

In the meantime the government has sent its response to the European Commission’s final report on the investigation conducted against Sri Lanka. In this response the government has pointed out that where everything started going wrong, was on March 13, 2008, when External Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner of the European Commission told Professor G.L.Peiris in the presence of some others including the then Sri Lankan ambassador to Brussels and representatives of the SL apparel industry that "This war is never, never going to be solved militarily, the only possible solution is a political one. We have been telling you this for a long time. You have ignored us. We now have a powerful weapon in the GSP+, which we will not hesitate to use."