There was a request in the SLFP to nominate the presidential candidate, but no request to nominate the prime ministerial candidate. However, the President has not only nominated Mahinda Rajapakse as the presidential candidate but has also nominated her own brother as the prime ministerial candidate. All that happened while a constitutional amendment making Mrs Chandrika Kumaratunga the leader of the SLFP as long as she lives was being introduced.
What all this shows is that the President has taken one step forward while taking two steps backwards. This also shows that the President has not totally given up the struggle to prevent her being invalidated.
The vital issue as to whether the presidential election will be held at the end of 2005 or at the end of 2006 has not been settled so far. The President seems to think that, if everything else fails, she should at least have the right to remain the President until the end of 2006.
What will be the Elections Commissioner’s decision? Before he conveys his decision, will the President seek an interpretation from the Supreme Court in terms of her right to do so? What will be the interpretation that the Supreme Court gives in such an event? If the Supreme Court’s interpretation differs from the decision that the Elections Commissioner is going to take, what will the Commissioner do next? If the decision given by the Com- missioner, at a time when the Supreme Court has not given an interpretation, disagrees with the President’s intent, will the President go before the Supreme Court, challenging that decision? On such an occasion, what decision will the Supreme Court give? Although all these questions are of decisive importance, it is not possible to give answers beforehand.
Even if a judgement is announced that the Presidential election must be held this year itself, the Presi- dent retains the right, even after such an announcement, to dissolve parliament. She will be able, if she so chooses, to create conditions to hold both the parliamentary and the presidential elections simultaneously.
This move on the part of the President (naming Ma- hinda as the presidential candidate while naming Anura as the prime ministerial candidate) would, in the game of chess, be considered an extremely dangerous and cunning move.
If the presidential and parliamentary elections are held simultaneously, and if Mahinda loses the presidential election, he will lose not only the expected post of presi- dent but also the post of MP he already has. Even in such circumstances, Anura will have not only his position as an MP, but will also become the leader of the opposition.
If, on the other hand, instead of holding the presidential election, the parliamentary elections are held first and the SLFP loses, the result will be the same. Then Anura Bandaranaike will become the leader of the opposition, and Mahinda Rajapakse will have to contest the presidential election with defeat as the foregone conclusion. If the presidential election is held first and the parliamentary elections are held thereafter, the result will be somewhat similar.
The defeated presidential candidate would contest as an ordinary candidate for a post of MP, while Anura Bandaranaike would contest as the candidate for the post of prime minister or that of the leader of the opposition.
This equation may be considered an extremely subtle creation and may also be considered a political equation created for the purpose of ensuring the continuity of the family dominance in the SLFP.
Although there is a multi-party system in Sri Lanka, the two main founts of power in Sri Lankan politics (the SLFP and the UNP) cannot be considered to be demo- cratic parties. The LTTE maintains an alternative fount of power, of a special kind, outside the mainstream. The SLFP is controlled by one feudalist party and the UNP is controlled by several bourgeois family groups. In the final analysis, the leadership of both these parties is determined by these families, viz. by the relevant fam- ily in the case of the SLFP and by the relevant groups of families in the case of the UNP. Although Mr Premadasa effected a change, it was a special circumstance created by the particular political situation of that day and not a normal one. Mr Premadasa’s triumph in the party did not lead to a change in its path of progress. Although Mr SWRD Bandaranaike who founded the SLFP had no sense of family dominance, Mrs Bandaranaike who succeeded to the leadership of that party after her husband’s death, turned it into a party of the Bandaranaikes and the Ratwattes. Although the three children of the late Prime Minister Bandaranaike were educated abroad, they do not hesitate to talk in public of the rights of the family in the party.
President J R Jayawardene obtained letters of resigna-tion from the MPs of his party who were in a majority of 5/6th in the parliament. Only one single MP of all the UNP MP’s had backbone enough to oppose it. Although JR Jayawardene was quite senile at the end of his second term of office, he even dreamed of a third term. It could not be realized although there was the necessary parliamentary strength for such a constitutional amendment because Mr Premadasa courageously stood up against it, and because of the exceptional political conditions that prevailed in the country at that time. Although President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumara- tunga did not have a 5/6th majority in parliament, she tried to do everything (for political power) that President J R Jayawardene tried to do, with the support of the judiciary. In drafting a constitution in the year 2000, she obtained undated letters of resignation from 23 of her deputy ministers. Although she did not have a 5/6th strength in parliament, she dreamed of avoiding her in-validation after the end of her second term of office. Her dreams will become fruitless only if Mahinda Rajapakse can become a R Premadasa.