Columns

• The ruling NPP also gains control of several Sabhas, but all eyes on tomorrow’s CMC mayoral contest
• Controversy persists over presidential pardon and the release of red-flagged containers
• President concludes Germany visit, but no appointment to meet the Chancellor
  

When a group of opposition parties first started talks last month on reaching an agreement to form administrations in local councils where the combined number of seats won by political parties and independent groups outnumbered those won by the ruling National People’s Power (NPP), the development was met with both anger and mockery by the government.

The NPP had won 151 local councils outright, but the party insisted it had both the political and moral right to form administrations in all councils where it had emerged as the largest party, including those where it failed to secure 50 per cent or more of the vote.

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake walks with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier as he is received with military honours at the Bellevue Palace in Berlin on Wednesday.

The government saw efforts by opposition parties to come to an agreement on working together to obtain control of councils where the NPP did not have an outright majority as a sinister attempt to hijack the people’s mandate.

“How can a collection of scraps challenge the mandate of the people?” asked President Anura Kumara Dissanayake last month while addressing the 60th anniversary of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), the leading constituent party of the NPP. He was referring to ongoing talks by opposition parties to support each other to form council administrations. The President warned that if someone tried to work against the mandate given by the people, the government was prepared to use the Constitution, the law and political power to thwart them. He added that if existing laws were insufficient, the government might even use its two-thirds parliamentary majority to introduce new laws to prevent efforts to go against the people’s mandate.

Yet, the talks between the parties continued, mainly involving the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), the United National Party (UNP), the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) and the People’s Alliance (PA). Senior officials from the four parties held a joint media conference on Thursday to announce that they had come to an agreement to work together to form administrations in local councils where opposition parties have a majority when their seats are combined.

Opposition parties gain
control of some councils

Opposition parties working together won control of several local councils this week. In the Kadugannawa Urban Council in the Kandy district, the candidate fielded by the SJB for mayor prevailed over the NPP candidate by eight votes to seven. The NPP emerged as the single largest party in the Kadugannawa UC at the local council election but failed to win an outright majority. The SJB candidate for mayor emerged victorious after he was also backed by the SLPP, the PA, the UNP and Independent Group 01.

A similar situation occurred at the Kuliyapitiya Pradeshiya Sabha in the Kurunegala district. At the May 6 elections, the NPP won 21 seats, but the combined number of seats obtained by other parties and groups was 25. The NPP and the SLPP both fielded candidates for council chairperson. The SLPP candidate prevailed by 25 votes to 21. The SLPP had only six members in the Pradeshiya Sabha but won because all opposition parties, including the SJB, the UNP, the PA and the Sarvajana Balaya (SB), backed the party’s candidate for chairperson. The deputy chairperson post of the PS was won by the SJB.

Control of the Udubaddawa Pradeshiya Sabha in the Kurunegala district also went to opposition parties. The NPP had won nine seats in the PS, but other parties had 10 members elected. Accordingly, they combined to elect the SLPP chairperson candidate by 10 votes to 9 over the NPP candidate. The SJB and UNP members backed the SLPP candidate. An SJB candidate was elected deputy chairperson.

Chairpersonship of the Kebithigollewa PS was won by the SJB by 10 votes to 8, with the SLPP and PA backing the SJB candidate. The deputy chairperson post went to the SLPP. Opposition parties also gained control of the Ududumbara PS by 8 votes to 7 with the support of the SLPP and the UNP. The SLPP won the deputy chairperson post.

The NPP, too, won control of some councils where it had not secured an outright win after the party’s candidates for heads of those elected bodies were backed by others. For example, the NPP’s candidate was elected chairperson of the Haldumulla Pradeshiya Sabha in the Badulla district. The party had nine members in the PS, but its candidate for chairperson won over the SJB candidate by 11 votes to 10, with the NPP candidate being backed by the two members elected from the Tamil Progressive Alliance (TPA). A TPA candidate was elected deputy chairperson. The incident prompted an angry reaction from TPA Leader and MP Mano Ganesan, who held a news conference accusing the NPP of luring his party’s two members to vote for the party’s candidate without directly talking to the TPA. “This is a government that came to power promising to restore discipline and ethics,” Mr Ganesan said. “If they want our support, they should have reached out to the TPA leadership for discussions, but they went behind our backs and lured our members away, violating all norms of decency. “This is wrong,” the TPA leader complained.

A secret ballot was held on Friday to elect the chairperson of the Panduwasnuwara Pradeshiya Sabha, where the NPP had 17 seats while other parties had a combined total of 21. The Sarvajana Balaya member in the PS, however, was removed from the chamber by authorities before the vote on the grounds that his name had not been officially gazetted among those elected to the council. The NPP candidate received 19 votes at the subsequent secret ballot, while the SJB candidate received 18 votes. In the Minipe Pradeshiya Sabha, the NPP candidate for chairperson received 12 votes to defeat the SJB candidate, who got only 10. The NPP won because the member from the party known as the United National Alliance backed its candidate while the SB candidate abstained from voting.

With the SB candidate opting to remain neutral and abstain from voting, both the NPP and SJB candidates contesting for chairperson of the Medagama PS ended with eight votes. Again, the SJB, the SLPP, the PA and the UNP combined to give eight votes to the SJB candidate. With both candidates ending with the same number of votes, lots were drawn to choose the PS chairperson. The NPP candidate was duly chosen.

Controversies over
election of council heads

In the Medawachchiya PS, the chairperson election was conducted under controversial circumstances, with the local government commissioner who convened the meeting opting to hold a secret ballot for the post despite appeals from some members to hold an open vote. The NPP candidate was elected chairperson over the SJB candidate by 11 votes to 10. However, when it came to the appointment of the deputy chairperson, an open vote was held, which resulted in the election of the candidate fielded by the SLPP. Speaking to journalists outside the council premises, SJB Anuradhapura District MP Rohana Bandara alleged there were irregularities in the election process and accused the local government commissioner of bias. He questioned how the NPP candidate could win the chairperson post in a secret ballot, but the SLPP candidate fielded by the opposition could be elected deputy chair in an open election.

Voting to elect a chairperson for the Kobeigane PS also erupted into controversy, with the first vote having to be annulled after one member was found to have used a mobile phone to photograph his ballot paper. The second round of voting resulted in the NPP candidate being elected chair by 9 votes to 8.

SJB National Organiser Tissa Attanayake said they had complained to relevant authorities, including the Public Administration Ministry Secretary, about the conduct of some local government commissioners in the Kurunegala and Anuradhapura districts during voting to elect chairpersons of local councils. “The law clearly states that the local government commissioners must take a decision on whether to hold an open vote or a secret ballot after obtaining the views of members of the council. We had a situation this week when the local government commissioner held a secret ballot to decide whether to hold a secret ballot to elect the council chairperson, despite a majority of members publicly calling for an open vote.”

Grand ambitions

Opposition parties also have grand ambitions of forming local councils. “We are targeting about 100 local councils and won control of six councils this week. Though we were unable to have our chosen candidate elected chair in two other councils, we still managed to obtain the posts of deputy chair,” Mr Attanayake said yesterday.

He said it was ‘tricky’ in some situations to obtain the support of members elected from independent groups since “they owe allegiance to no one”. He said the issue was that the government, despite its rhetoric, was behaving just like every other political movement and was offering various perks to individual members to entice them to support the NPP.

Political parties other than the SJB, the UNP, the SLPP and the PA are also involved in supporting opposition efforts at council level, Mr Attanayake said, adding even the Sarvajana Balaya has supported opposition candidates in some areas.

Nevertheless, results from elections held for the chairpersons of local councils this week show that the grip whichever party has on power in these councils is tenuous at best. In many cases, the winning candidate won by a majority of just one or two votes. For opposition parties, the risk of their arrangement unravelling in such councils is high. The SJB national organiser acknowledged this. “We have to be careful because we are all working together. Our main focus now is to secure power in these councils. Afterwards, we are hoping to issue detailed guidelines to the local councils on how to work together according to a plan. We hope to set up a monitoring system as well to ensure these plans and guidelines are being followed.”

All eyes on tomorrow’s CMC meeting

In the wake of the success enjoyed by opposition parties this week in winning control of several councils, the first meeting of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC), scheduled for 9.30am tomorrow (16), will be intensely watched nationwide. Both the NPP and SJB are planning to field candidates for the posts of mayor and deputy mayor. The NPP, which has 48 members in the 117-member council, is 11 seats shy of the 59 needed for an outright majority. Other political parties and independent groups have 69 members combined, and there have been extensive negotiations over the past month as both sides attempt to secure the necessary numbers to have their respective candidates elected. The CMC remains the biggest prize out of the 339 local bodies to which elections were held on May 6. The nature of its importance to both the government and the opposition can be summed up by the fact that President Dissanayake himself hosted a meeting last month of smaller political parties and independent groups that had members elected to the CMC. Meanwhile, both former President and UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe and Opposition and SJB Leader Sajith Premadasa have also hosted negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement among opposition parties to elect their candidates as the CMC’s mayor and deputy mayor.

The NPP has proclaimed that it has already secured the support necessary to have its mayoral candidate Vraie Cally Balthazaar elected as the new mayor of Colombo. The opposition too has expressed confidence. The SJB has 29 members in the CMC, the UNP has 13, the SLPP 5 and the PA 1. The Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), which is allied with the SJB nationally, has 4 members. Even if all these members were to back the SJB candidate for mayor, they would still need the support of members of some other political parties and independent groups, and there have been intense negotiations over the past few days to secure support for the opposition’s mayoral candidate.

Arrangement does not mean formation of a ‘joint opposition’—SLPP

The SLPP will support the SJB candidate for CMC mayor, party General Secretary Sagara Kariyawasam confirmed. “We have discussed each and every local authority, and in certain local authorities, other parties have agreed to support us. In some local authorities, we have agreed to support SJB, while in others, the support will go to the UNP, and in other cases, the PA.”

Mr. Kariyawasam, though, stressed that the fact that the parties were working together at local council levels did not mean there was now a larger alliance known as the “joint opposition”.

“A lot of people are trying to interpret this as a kind of alliance by the opposition. It is not so. We will never align with the UNP or the SJB because policy-wise, we are different. We also believe in different kinds of economic solutions. There cannot be an alliance between our parties,” he emphasised.

The reason why they are working together is that the parties have recognised the NPP as the biggest threat to the country’s democracy, he claimed. As such, they have come to “an understanding” that it is best for the country to defeat the NPP in these local authorities. “This is an arrangement rather than an alliance,” said Mr Kariyawasam.

Scandal over presidential pardons

Even as parties grapple over the formation of local councils, the nation’s attention has also been riveted on a fast-moving scandal surrounding the alleged illegal release of a convicted fraudster from prison on a so-called ‘presidential pardon’.

In-depth reporting on the scandal appears elsewhere in this newspaper, but the main allegation is that prison authorities had released Athula Tilakaratne, a former finance company manager convicted by the Anuradhapura High Court of misappropriating four million rupees, on a claim that he had received a presidential pardon in view of Vesak. He had only been convicted on May 2 but was released just ten days later.

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) began a probe following a complaint that Mr Tilakaratne’s name was not among the original 388 inmates recommended for pardon by the Commissioner General of Prisons. That probe has already resulted in the arrest of both Anuradhapura Prison Superintendent Mohan Karunaratne and Prisons Commissioner General Thushara Upuldeniya. Both are still in remand custody. A wider probe by law enforcement authorities is now looking into whether other prison inmates, who are ineligible to receive presidential pardons, had also been released under the guise of presidential pardons.

Container controversy continues

In another development, Pivithuru Hela Urumaya (PHU) Leader Udaya Gammanpila appeared before the CID this week to give a statement over the release of 323 red-flagged containers without subjecting them to Customs inspection from the Colombo Port in January. Mr Gammanpila’s visit to the CID followed that of SJB Kurunegala District MP Dayasiri Jayasekara, who was also summoned to the CID last week over the same issue.

Mr Gammanpila also this week released the full list of the containers he claims were released without Customs inspection. The list contains company names, countries of origin, details of imported goods and container reference numbers. Mr Gammanpila said there had only been “dead silence” from the government in reaction to the release of the list and challenged it to take action against him if he had produced fraudulent documents. He noted that while the list showed the names of the consignees, there was no way to tell now whether the containers truly contained the goods that were described or whether there were other items inside. “Since those containers have been released, there is no way for the government to verify what was in them. What they should do now is to punish the culprits.”

He pointed out they were not objecting to the release of all containers without Customs inspection but only the release of the 323 red-labelled containers that were released in this case. “It is compulsory to check red-labelled containers, but the government ordered their release without any inspection. That is our complaint.”

Mr Gammanpila alleged that the three main ‘culprits’ responsible for ordering the release of the containers were President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Ports and Civil Aviation Minister Bimal Rathnayake and Deputy Ports and Civil Aviation Minister Janitha Ruwan Kodithuwakku.

Deputy Minister Kodithuwakku said the list publicised by Mr Gammanpila was the same as the one whose contents had earlier been disclosed by the government. “There are separate enquiries ongoing into this matter by a committee appointed by the Finance Ministry, as well as by the CID. We are awaiting the results of those investigations. I think we have issued enough clarifications on this matter now. The opposition doesn’t have any news at the moment, so it is trying to use this matter to gain attention, but we don’t see a point in wasting more time to respond to the same allegations,” he added.

President in Germany on
fifth overseas visit

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake undertook his fifth overseas visit since taking office, this time to Germany, on an official visit from June 11 to 13. He was welcomed in Berlin by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and accorded a ceremonial Guard of Honour by the German Armed Forces, following which the two leaders held talks on strengthening the longstanding friendship between Sri Lanka and Germany.

The Sri Lankan President also held talks with Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul as well as Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Reem Alabali Radovan. Both meetings were held at the Waldorf Astoria in Berlin, which is part of the luxury hotel and resort brand of Hilton Worldwide, known for welcoming royalty, heads of state and celebrities. The rest of the visit included President Dissanayake addressing the DIHK (Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce) Business Forum, during which he highlighted Sri Lanka’s economic transformation, investment potential and trade prospects with Germany, while he also met with representatives from the tourism and travel industry associations and outbound tour operators in Berlin.

The German Embassy in Colombo hailed the visit, stating that it reaffirmed Germany–Sri Lanka ties and called Lanka a crucial partner in the Indo-Pacific. “Germany values Sri Lanka’s efforts towards democracy, rule of law and human rights and supports Sri Lanka on this path together for a stronger rules-based global order,” it stated in a post on its social media accounts ahead of the visit.

However much the visit was held up as an international acceptance of the new government, missing from the President’s itinerary was a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, the elected head of the German parliament. In February 2016, when then President Maithripala Sirisena visited Germany, he met with then German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Bundestag President (Speaker), the more influential German leaders designation-wise, along with the President.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga paid a state visit to Germany in March 2001, the first by a Sri Lankan leader after the German unification in 1989. She met with the then German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder during the visit.

Sri Lanka and Germany have maintained diplomatic relations since 1953, with cooperation in many areas, including maritime security and strengthening a rules-based maritime order in the Indian Ocean among key features, while human rights, democracy and good governance are the focus of numerous civil society projects run by German organisations in cooperation with local partners. A significant number of foreign tourists visiting Sri Lanka also come from Germany, with among the more famous being former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who visited the country several times. The Helmut Kohl Memorial Maternity (Teaching) Hospital, in Mahamodera, which opened last year, was initiated by Mr Kohl, who was visiting the country when the tsunami struck in 2004. He was holidaying in a beach villa in the south when tragedy struck, and he was airlifted to safety by air force helicopters, and as a mark of gratitude, he pledged to build a new maternity hospital at Mahamodera, as the existing one was badly damaged by the tsunami, a promise he fulfilled.

President Dissanayake wound up his visit to Germany by meeting with members of the Sri Lankan community residing there. During many European tours in the midst of last year’s presidential election campaign, President Dissanayake drew strong support from Sri Lankan expatriates in these countries, including Germany, and hence the meeting was an opportunity to express his appreciation to them as well as seek continued support.

Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath, who accompanied the President, met separately with the state secretary of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, Thomas Steffen, in Berlin, where he briefed the German minister on the government’s efforts to create a more investor-friendly environment, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Tension in West Asia

The President’s return to the country comes at a time of heightened tension in West Asia with Israel’s military strikes on Iran. The MFA issued a statement on Friday which refrained from supporting or denouncing either country and said Sri Lanka is “deeply concerned” by the recent developments between Israel and Iran and urged both countries to exercise restraint, engage in dialogue and pursue diplomatic initiatives to de-escalate the tense situation.

“The Sri Lanka Missions in both countries are closely monitoring the situation and remain in contact with the Sri Lankan nationals in the respective countries. They are advised to exercise utmost caution and remain vigilant.”

On Thursday, Sri Lanka also backed a resolution adopted by the 193-member United Nations General Assembly demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in the war in Gaza and support for aid access to the Palestinians in the conflict zone. The resolution also demanded the release of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas, the return of Palestinian prisoners detained by Israel and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Tilvin’s China visit reaffirms party’s historic ties with Communist Party  While the focus was on President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s visit to Germany, the Janatha Vimukthi Perauma (JVP) General Secretary, Tilvin Silva, was visiting China to deepen relations between the JVP and the Communist Party of China (CPC). Undertaken on an invitation by the CPC, the visit saw the powerful JVP General Secretary meeting with Zhejiang Province Governor Liu Jie, Deputy Governor Lu Shen, the CPC’s International Department’s South Asian Region Director General Pan Xiu Bin, and other key representatives of the Communist Party of China. The Sri Lankan delegation comprised Deputy Ministers Eranga Gunasekara and Muneer Mulafer, MPs M. Jegadeeswaran, Deepti Wasalathilake and Dharmapriya Wijesinghe, as well as JVP party members. JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva meets with Zhejiang Province Governor Liu Jie The JVP links with China go back to the days of its founder, Rohana Wijeweera, whose favour for the Chinese brand of communism over the Russian style cost him his medical degree he was pursuing at the Lumumba University in Moscow in the early 1960s. Wijeweera had enrolled at the Peoples’ Friendship University, better known as Lumumba University, in 1960 to study medicine in the heady days of communism. He returned to the country on a holiday in 1962, got caught up in the Sino-Soviet ideological dispute raging at the time and decided that the Chinese form of communism was more in line with the teachings of Marx and Lenin. He returned to Moscow for his academic studies shortly afterward but came back to the country in March 1964 and became closely connected with the Peking (Beijing) Wing of the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, becoming the General Secretary of its youth league and a vocal advocate of the party. When he applied for a visa to return to Russia in August of that year, his visa was rejected, thus ending his medical career midway. After the 1971 insurrection, the then United Front government led by Sirimavo Bandaranaike suspected a Chinese hand in the events that year and closed down the pro-China North Korean embassy in Colombo. N. Sanmugathasan, a founding leader (general secretary) of the Ceylon Communist Party (CCP) and leader of the CCP (Maoist), a strong critic of Wijeweera, wrote in his memoirs ‘Political Memories of an Unrepentant Communist’ that the JVP insurrection led to a crackdown by the government on Chinese interests in the country, with the Chinese news agency office as well as the Bandaranaike Memorial site, where Chinese engineers and workers were on a project, being raided and hundreds of books of Mao Zedong and his pictures confiscated. In one instance, a bonfire was made of all Chinese literature. However, before relations between the two countries could run into serious jeopardy, Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai wrote to Mrs Bandaranaike, assuring her that the Chinese Government treasured the friendship between our two countries and its right to defend its sovereignty. The offer of an interest-free long-term Rs. Rs.150 million in convertible foreign exchange by China no doubt helped to prevent any diplomatic rupture between the two nations. Much water has flowed under the diplomatic bridge since 1971, and the visit by the JVP General Secretary at the invitation of the CPC is aimed, no doubt, at expanding Chinese influence in Sri Lanka in the manner in which the government frames its future policies. As the famous Chinese saying goes, ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.’ This is not necessarily the first step in relations between the CPC and the JVP, but the recent signing of a collection of still-secret MoUs between the Dissanayake government and the Indian government, including one on defence cooperation, must surely be cause for some concern in Beijing.