By Kassapa 

If a week is a long time in politics, two years is an era. Look back at what has happened in three months.

Just three months ago, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), better known as the ‘pohottuwa’ party, was politically dead. Its elected president had been chased away by the masses, the houses of its parliamentarians were set on fire and they dared not appear in public. On the few occasions some did, they were heckled and jeered. The SLPP’s founder Basil Rajapaksa was the target of ridicule with vehicles tooting their horns to the tune of ‘kaputu kaak, kaak kaak’ to mock him. Politically, everyone thought that the ‘pohottuwa’ and the Rajapaksas were doomed.

Then, see what happened last week at Kalutara. It was the first of a series of ‘reorganization’ rallies by the SLPP, spearheaded by the party’s Kalutara district leader Rohitha Abeygunawardena, previously known for his more adventurous pursuits on the railway lines. Most of the SLPP bigwigs were there including Mahinda Rajapaksa. Basil Rajapaksa was absent because he was in his motherland, the United States, but everyone knew this had Basil’s blessings.

More importantly, there was a decent crowd- orchestrated or not- and no one jeered the speakers. In fact, they were quite well received. It was as if the SLPP and Rajapaksas are still in charge (which they are by proxy), the party was preparing for an election (which they are) and everything was hunky-dory in the country (which, most certainly isn’t the case).

For the discerning observer, there was a theme that ran through the event. That was to distance themselves from the Gotabaya Rajapaksa era and even disown it. The decorations had pictures of Mahinda Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa but not of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. That was no accident.

Speaker after speaker lamented the actions of the past two and a half years. Their take was that Gotabaya Rajapaksa was misled by officials, the poor little political infant that he is, having had no previous political experience. It was the officials at the Treasury and the officials who advised Gotabaya to adopt organic farming who were responsible for the current economic mess the country finds itself in, they said.

The concurrent theme to this was that the ‘pohottuwa’ was reverting to their most charismatic figure, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to guide them to victory again. Pavithra Wanniarachchi, who once literally fell at Mahinda Rajapaksa’s feet and worshipped him, said it best: “Whoever is president, they must act according to the advice of Mahinda Rajapaksa”. There was not even an attempt to sugar-coat that blatant message to Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The most important message however came from Mahinda Rajapaksa himself. “We used to criticize Ranil Wickremesinghe because he was from the United National Party (UNP). Now he has chosen the correct path. He is with us now. We must support him,” Rajapaksa said. He maybe not be in the best of health, but to give credit where it is due, the former president is still an expert at public relations and knows how to deliver a political message in a few words.

In reality, Mahinda Rajapaksa didn’t tell us anything that we didn’t already know. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s actions, from the day he became president with the blessings of the SLPP parliamentarians, has been supportive of the Rajapaksas and following their dictates. That is why the Cabinet still remains the Cabinet that Gotabaya Rajapaksa selected (with Ali Sabry being substituted for G.L. Peiris who defected). That is why thirty-eight state ministers, some of them with highly dubious credentials, were appointed. That is why the membership of the Parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) now looks like a wanted list at the Criminal Investigations Department.

Mahinda Rajapaksa, Basil Rajapaksa and the rest of the SLPP must know that, despite their claims that the ‘pohottuwa’ will bloom again, public opinion on the street about them is at a pretty low ebb. Still, they have some factors favouring them: the opposition is fragmented and not represented by a single, dominant party and then they have Ranil Wickremesinghe with all the presidential powers at his disposal, and his UNP, working for them overtime.

The SLPP hierarchy feels this is enough for them to win the next elections. There was, of course, no mentions of the dozens and dozens of allegations of corruption against their members and how all of it is being swept under the carpet. Hopefully though, they will not be forgotten by the masses at the time of the next poll.

The SLPP is, for all its bluster and bravado at Kalutara, not at the peak of its popularity. That is why it is pleading with Ranil Wickremesinghe to allow the current Parliament to run its full course instead of calling for early elections. That is the promise they extracted from him, in return for voting for him at the presidential ‘selection’ in Parliament.

The UNP finds itself in a similar fate. It was decimated at the last general election and wiped out of the electoral map, save for one National List seat. The lion’s share of its vote now rests with the Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB). Contesting by themselves at the next election, they will suffer a similar fate and the outcome will only be marginally better, especially because Ranil Wickremesinghe has failed miserably to engineer any economic miracles, at least until now.

What next, then? The answer is obvious. It would seem that a pooling of resources of the UNP and the SLPP is the most likely outcome. Given Ranil Wickremesinghe’s passive acceptance of the SLPP’s dictates thus far, that is not impossible. In fact, it is quite likely.

Politics, it is said, is the art of the possible. The UNP or the SLPP will not be able win the next elections by themselves. Together, they could mount at least a semblance of a challenge to the opposition.

That is what Mahinda Rajapaksa was trying to tell us when he said that ‘Ranil is with us now, we must work with him’.

-This article was originally featured on counterpoint.lk