Sri Lanka: The new president is in a real dilemma

The unexpected defeat of Sri Lanka's strongman Mahinda Rajapaksa in the presidential election last week to his former health minister Maithripala Sirisena, a relatively unknown political player, brought an abrupt end to an increasingly controlling presidency. It is abrupt because when Rajapaksa first decided, in November, to go for a mid-term election two years ahead of schedule, hardly anyone cast a doubt over his success to extend his rule by another six years.
It was a close contest and according to Sri Lanka's Election Commission, Maithripala  Sirisena bagged  51.3 per cent of the votes against Mahinda Rajapakse's 47.6 per cent. The margin was just about 450,000 votes.  
It would be interesting to note how Rajapaksa's former political ally and health minister Sirisena quietly undercut the incumbent's strong position by defecting from the government a few months ago and offering himself as an alternative presidential candidate. His decision triggered a slew of defection from Rajapaksa's cabinet and the party and became a sort of rallying point against his dynastic policy, his powerful family, his cronyism and widespread corruption.  
RISE AND FALL OF RAJAPAKSA: Critics say after he won, in 2010, his re-election as president overwhelmingly, Rajapaksa started tightening up his grip on power, appointing scores of his close family members in powerful positions, amending constitution to eliminate two-term limits of the president and dismissing a supreme court judge who resisted these changes. Initially, he was able to do so riding on the wave of popularity among the large majority of the Sinhalese as he crushed a decades-old minority Tamil insurgency in the north of the island country in 2009. Since that victory, Sri Lanka's economy began to turn around, enjoying the highest economic growth in the region and its once thriving tourist industry rebounded. Many people mistakenly thought that voters would tolerate his consolidation of personal power.         
Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, told the New York Times that this calculus has been called into question in the Thursday's (January 08) vote. "Basically," he said, "the electorate has turned its back on mis-governance and the dynastic project as well as authoritarianism."
After counting began on Thursday night, he said, the president must have quickly understood that he had lost the election and was encouraged to concede by army and police officials. Mr. Saravanamuttu said: "I think, he saw the writing on the wall…. He would have realised there was swing. His representatives within the arms of the state would have told him, 'Look, we are not going to buck the popular will.'"
Rajapaksa decided to concede and quickly made all the arrangements for a peaceful handing over of power to his elected successor. Even before the sunup on Friday morning, Rajapaksa had a meeting with the Leader of the Opposition Ranil Wickeramsinghe, prime minister nominee, and said that he would fully cooperate with the new administration. In turn, Wickeramsinghe promised that the former president and his family would be given total government protection.
A Tamil school teacher in the north reportedly claimed that with majority Sinhalese votes almost equally divided, Sirisena was elected by the minority Tamil voters who would never have voted for Rajapaksa. The teacher, Kanchana Keethiswaran claimed: "We were the deciding factor and we hope the new president does not forget that he won only because of our (Tamil) votes."   
SIRISENA'S ELECTION PROMISE: New president Sirisena, a moderate who became increasingly critical of Rajapaksa's authoritarian rule, has promised in his election manifesto to return Sri Lanka to parliamentary system of government. He is trying to form a 'national unity cabinet' that would include members from a cross section of parties. In a bid to restore confidence, he has already ordered lifting of censorship on dissident websites, an end of phone tapping, surveillance of journalists and politicians and the establishment of a right to information law. Besides, he has taken an initiative to ask dozens of Sri Lankan journalists and other dissidents who fled the country to return home "immediately".
Sirisena has promised a 100-day programme to carry out urgent political and economic reforms that include cut back on the powers of the president that Rajpaksa gave himself during his decade in office, especially since 2010 re-election.
However, experienced Sri Lankan political analysts appear a little wary of the new president's eagerness to implement his promised reform agenda speedily. While, they say, a momentum of reform needs to be built up soon to convince the people of his sincerity, he may face trouble if he tries to dismantle the edifice of power structure that Rajapaksa had built suiting his own style over the years without first replacing them with careful consideration. This needs time but, again, too much delay could also allow the powerful vested interests to regroup and assert. The new president is in a real dilemma.
Meanwhile, a former Sri Lankan diplomat Dayan Jayatilleka, who supported Rajapaksa's re-election bid, opined that he expected some sort of turbulence in the coming months.  He said: "The opposition will certainly have a transition plan, and chances of instability are small, because the state machinery will switch to the winner….Instability will set in later, if at all, when the executive presidency is abolished and multiparty (system) has set in."         
CHINA CARD: Sri Lanka's China policy has, no doubt, some opposition in the country. Some fear Beijing's aggressive move to invest billions of dollars in huge infrastructural projects in Sri Lankan ports, highways, power, etc. would eventually draw the country into the Chinese camp. Colombo's next-door giant neighbour Delhi has never hidden its concern on China's closer involvement in Sri Lanka and warned Colombo of its consequences. Rajapaksa was responsible for cultivating Beijing as a closer ally. He deliberately overlooked Delhi's concern over the issue. The critics would like to correct this one-sided China policy by widening the scope of Sri Lanka's foreign policy.
However, there is also strong anti-Indian sentiment in the country because of Delhi's involvement in the Tamil insurgency that robbed the country of its development for well over two decades. Besides, Delhi's continuous 'big brother' attitude has hardly amused anyone in the island country. India has formally complained to Colombo after the sightings of Chinese military submarines at Colombo port a few months ago.
President Maithripala Sirisena appears to be aware of this question and in his election manifesto he has pointedly suggested that he would develop "equal relations" with India, China, Pakistan and Japan. With an oblique reference to China, he criticised his predecessor for incurring heavy foreign debts. Analysts say while he may make an attempt to somewhat amend Colombo's China policy, he is most unlikely to go for any abrupt policy change. After all, Sirisena was in Rajapaksa's cabinet when the Country's closer China policy was being evolved and knew the reason, context and the extent of the policy shift from the beginning. So, he is cautious about it.
Indian geopolitical analysts in their reactions were seemingly happy about the sudden change of guard in Colombo, but did make no suggestion that the new Sri Lankan leader would go for any major shift in the foreign police regime. The mainstream western media has tried to focus on Colombo's "controversial China policy" and repeatedly suggested that Sri Lanka would have to soon make a suitable change in its China policy making it a balanced one. Apart from the new president's election manifesto for "equal relations" with other countries, there is no indication that the China policy would undergo any change. Even if it does, it would be very gradual.
Beijing doesn't seem to be much concerned about the change. At a regular briefing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei congratulated Sirisena on his victory and said that cooperation between the two countries "has been deepening." He said, "Our friendship runs deep, and successive governments of Sri Lanka have had a friendship policy towards China. We have a good momentum there."    
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