• Current political situation is very dicey
• Parliament is hanging onto a very thin majority
• SLPP a spent force with serious legitimacy issues
• There is some dissent building up within the party
• Rajapaksa Govt., Yahapalana to blame for economic mess
• Freedom People’s Congress preparing for election
• Nationalistic politics being questioned, important to be open

By Marianne David   The current political situation is very dicey, with the governing side hanging onto a very thin majority, says dissident Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MP Dr. Nalaka Godahewa, who is now part of an independent platform – the Freedom People’s Congress. In an interview with The Sunday Morning, he pointed out that support for the Government in the House was clearly declining, as evident from voting patterns. “This shows that there is some dissent building up within the party, so we do not know whether the Government has the absolute majority at the moment. We will get to know that only at a very crucial voting point,” he noted, citing examples of declining votes and Government attempts to prop itself up by handing out state ministerial portfolios. Dr. Godahewa also charged that the SLPP was facing a serious issue of legitimacy, having supported the election of President Ranil Wickremesinghe after contesting on a platform condemning him. He noted that the MPs had completely betrayed the mandate given to them by voting for Wickremesinghe. Speaking on the current economic crisis, Dr. Godahewa said that both the Rajapaksa Government and the Yahapalana Government were directly responsible for the mess. As for a return of the Rajapaksas, despite attempts by the SLPP to ‘play the Mahinda Rajapaksa card’ once again, he said that the people would see through it and reject it. Dr. Godahewa also called for more open-minded thinking and rejection of nationalistic policies in order to prosper: “Sri Lanka always wants to protect nationalism and national assets and looks inward, trying to protect the population of 20 million, rather than understanding that the population of 20 million can do far better by catering to the billions outside.” Following are excerpts of the interview:     How do you view the current political situation?   The current political situation is very dicey. If you look at the Parliament, it is presently hanging onto a very thin majority. At the parliamentary poll for president, Ranil Wickremesinghe was voted in with 134 votes. One would have expected the Government to continue that pattern at subsequent instances of voting for various bills, but the number has been dropping. At the vote for the Emergency, it came down to 120. At a subsequent bill it dropped further and at the last bill, only 91 had voted. Either they are losing interest or there is an issue. When Government MPs do not turn up for an important bill – take for example the vote on the last bill on social security, where only 91 MPs turned up – this shows that there is some dissent building up within the party, so we do not know whether the Government has the absolute majority at the moment. We will get to know that only at a very crucial voting point. In any case, the Government is trying to keep the peace by handing over ministerial portfolios and various other perks. A classic example is the appointment of 38 state ministers, with no portfolios. Actually, they can be called ministers without portfolios; even though there are names for them, this lot has no responsibilities assigned. A minister has to have a ministry and a secretary as the chief accounting officer. These state ministers have neither. They have been asked to work with the cabinet ministers with an additional secretary assigned by the cabinet minister and no institutes have been gazetted under them, so they are at the mercy of the cabinet minister. Essentially, what has happened is that the Government does not want these guys to do any work other than vote for the Government as and when necessary. It’s a ridiculous state of affairs at a time the Government is asking the State sector to cut down costs. There is colossal expenditure that the Government has to control. In a situation like this, when more is being spent for Cabinet and state ministers rather than setting an example, I don’t think it is going to be taken lightly by the general public, who are going through a lot of hardship.     What is the current state of the SLPP political platform? There have been several splits from the SLPP alliance that contested the 2020 General Election. Where is the SLPP now heading and will there be more defections?   Originally, before the 9 May incident, close to 40 people defected from the original 145 we had, but then some people came back to the Government and some from the Opposition joined too. The Government numbers stood at 117 or so before the last group – which is this Freedom group – defected with 13 members. My calculation is that the original SLPP is now marginally 100 or so and anything above that is people from other parties. For example, Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena has three MPs in Parliament, but he is not SLPP; Jeevan Thondaman has two and they are not SLPP; Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara are not SLPP; I think Douglas Devananda also has two, again not SLPP. They are adding up non-SLPPers to show a parliamentary majority, but if you take the SLPP strictly, it is a spent force right now.     Is the SLPP facing a question of legitimacy given that it can no longer claim to enjoy its 6.9 million mandate?   They have a serious issue of legitimacy because they were voted into office in support of a president who was elected with 6.9 million votes and who presented the country a manifesto, ‘Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour’. Of course the manifesto was not fully implemented and there were problems with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s way of leading the country and the people rejected him. However, that does not mean the SLPP, which did not present a separate manifesto at the General Election, has any right to vote for a person who was on the opposite side at the time of the Presidential Election. At the Parliamentary Election, Ranil Wickremesinghe was speaking against our manifesto and against our policies. He was severely criticised by the SLPPers to get votes. Then the 134 MPs in Parliament selected that person who was rejected by the voters in general. They did so in line with their wishes; they did not ask for a people’s mandate. It’s a complete betrayal of the mandate that was given to them, so there is a serious issue of legitimacy at the moment.     The SLPP portrayed Ranil Wickremesinghe as a demon in order to gain votes and has now become the tail of the UNP. How can it now claim to be SLPP?   That’s my issue. If you vote as per your conscience, you cannot vote for Ranil Wickremesinghe. For example, before the election that was held in the Parliament, I spoke to Wickremesinghe, who was then Prime Minister, and I told him categorically: ‘You are a capable person, sir, but I will not vote for you because I have always criticised your policies. I have criticised the Hambantota Port, the FCID, the bond scam… There is no way I can vote for you.’ I wished him good luck but I clearly stated the position: our policies don’t match. I still don’t agree with the Hambantota Port sale. I cannot understand how the vast majority of SLPP MPs who were basically directed by an invisible hand voted for Wickremesinghe, when our policies are completely at odds. Does that mean that today they accept that the bond scam is not a scam? Does that mean that they are okay with the sale of Hambantota Port? Does that mean that they are okay with those top 10 corruption issues they spoke so much about those days? This is ridiculous.     Does your platform completely reject Rajapaksa leadership? What is its stance on Mahinda Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa?   The Freedom People’s Congress – ‘Nidahasa Janatha Sabawa’ in Sinhala – is a platform that we are building for people from all parties who love the country. If you look at our logo, it has four colours – the word ‘Nidahasa’ has blue, red, green, and yellow. Blue representing the former SLPPers; green representing the UNP, the SJB and so on; red representing the JVP, Communist Party, Socialist Party, and all those leftist parties; and yellow representing the new formations of political thinking, like the Viyathmaga, the Aragalaya, and so on. What we are basically saying is, ‘let us all get together now and look for a better system’. If you look at the Rajapaksa leadership, even though we were also part of that and supported their leadership, now when we look back and analyse the huge economic crisis that we are in, we see that both the Rajapaksa Government and the Yahapalana Government that came into power thereafter are directly responsible for the current economic mess. Their policies have not helped the country, their policies created this situation, so we can no longer support that. Let’s not talk about individuals. Basil Rajapaksa is obviously the brain behind SLPP; I see him as an invisible hand still controlling all affairs of the SLPP. What we are rejecting is the actions of the SLPP. When you reject the actions of the SLPP, if those actions are originated by someone or a group of people, obviously we cannot agree with them.     At a press conference recently, Namal Rajapaksa spoke of forming a broad political alliance under Mahinda Rajapaksa’s leadership. How do you view this?   They have played the Mahinda Rajapaksa card several times. In 2015, that didn’t work when he was the presidential candidate and he lost to Maithripala Sirisena. The entire country felt sorry at that stage, including myself, because he was the man who had led the war victory and because of that, a lot of people supported his return. Then in 2019, his brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa was at the forefront and Mahinda Rajapaksa played a crucial role, bringing five million or so votes to the table. But if they try to keep using him to fool the people, I don’t think it is going to work, because people are now far more vigilant. People have now analysed what went wrong – the corruption, the wastage, and the wrong economic policies – and they have started rejecting the Rajapaksa regime outright. That is why Gotabaya Rajapaksa as the President wanted all other Rajapaksas out. He removed all the Rajapaksas except Mahinda Rajapaksa in his second Cabinet formation and then, on 6 May, requested even Mahinda Rajapaksa to resign. That means he realised that the Rajapaksa link was coming with baggage. The people went further and rejected even Gotabaya Rajapaksa; all the Rajapaksas were rejected. Now I can see the SLPP trying to play the Mahinda Rajapaksa card again and win some kind of sympathy, perhaps by saying that in the last two years he didn’t have much of a say. But how can you say that? You cannot say that he didn’t have power. Also, the problems that we are facing today are not confined to what happened in the last two years, they very much stem from how the economy was managed from 2009 onwards – the huge investments, the white elephants, the huge borrowing, the wastage, all those are attributable to that era as well. Although they are trying to play the sympathy card now, I think wise people will reject it.     Rajapaksa politics brought in the nationalistic aspect to Sri Lankan politics. What is the status of the right-centred national political stage and future?   Nationalistic politics are also being questioned today because a lot of people have realised that we have to be more open and free in our decisions. If you look at the world, out of the top 20 richest countries in terms of per capita, 18 of them are smaller countries like Sri Lanka with populations of less than 20 million. What does that mean? It means that being small is an advantage. However, if you really look at how those successful countries manage their economies and the way we manage ours, the biggest difference is that they are free. They are far more open-minded and they are willing to engage in free trade; they gain their economic advantages by endorsing free trade. Sri Lanka went the other way. Sri Lanka always wants to protect nationalism and national assets and looks inward, trying to protect the population of 20 million rather than understanding that the population of 20 million can do far better by catering to the billions outside. That thinking has to change now. Take for example something that Sri Lankans oppose heavily, in relation to bringing in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) – the selling of land. If a foreigner comes and buys land in Sri Lanka, people are against it. The question is, can that foreigner ever take that land back to his country? He cannot. He will develop the asset, do business, and take part of the profit, while the asset remains here. If you look at Singapore, land has been purchased by foreign investors a long time back, but they employed Singaporeans and now those companies are run by Singaporeans and the Government is making so much money. That is why I think this nationalistic thinking has to change. If you want to develop economically, you have to be far more open-minded.     Where do you see your group by the time of the next General Election?   It depends on how fast we will see the election. It can come any time after March next year in my opinion, because the President gets the power to dissolve the Parliament from March 2023 onwards, according to the Constitution. However, he might even want to continue the full term of the Parliament – which is what most of the SLPP MPs want – which means the next election will be in 2025. Either way, we are getting ready for an election and a grand alliance. Eventually I think the election boils down to two camps. The question is which camp you are in, but we don’t want to be the tail of that alliance, we want to be leading it. That is one thing we are very clear on. People ask if we are joining various groups, but we are not joining any group. If you look at the 13 members – actually it is not 13, it is much more – but considering the 13 who came first, they are very different people. They are mostly qualified people and none of them have had corruption charges ever proven against them. It is a clean lot who made their money before they came to Parliament and they all stood for some principle. They didn’t come to Parliament to make money. Their job is not being politicians. They are people who worked for a living before they came to Parliament. I think we are exemplary in the Parliament right now as a group and that respect is coming. Also, our group is generally seen as a friendly group by all other parties in the Opposition – the SJB, the JVP, and breakaway parties. They all seem to be willing to work with us and a lot of discussions are going on. Actually, they are all trying to get us into their camps. I believe this strength will help us to bring everyone together at the time of election.