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NEIGHBOURS,
SRILANKA
Shaken and Stirred
Kumaranatunga
buckles under prssure and defers a devolution bill that could have shored
up her flagging fortunes
 Just
a week ago when Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga arrived at
the Parliament complex in a sleek American Bell-412 helicopter to table
her coalition Government's constitutional reforms, it looked as if she
was beginning to pull out of the political hole she had dug for herself.
Attired
in an elegant gold-embroidered sari, she confidently presented the bill
to amend the Constitution that would bring far-reaching changes in the
country's unitary form of governance. It was aimed at establishing a quasi-federal
system that would see the Tamil-dominated north and east regions merge
and gain administrative autonomy. Though well short of demands of the
militant Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), it was still a big step.
By granting
major concessions, the beleaguered Kumaratunga hoped to win over the moderate
Tamil parties and also gain support from the international community which
had been watching the ongoing ethnic strife with growing concern. Though
her People's Alliance (pa) party had a majority of only one in the 225-member
Lower House, she hoped to woo the Tamil parties and cause a split in the
opposition United National Party (UNP) to reach the critical figure of
150 seats or a two-thirds majority in order to ram through the amendments.
Taking a
leaf from Indian political parties, Kumaratunga's cabinet colleagues reportedly
went on a "shopping spree" to win over some of the 94 UNP MPs
with monetary incentives. They even housed such MPs at a downtown Indian-owned
five-star hotel and ferried them back and forth in Sri Lankan Air Force
helicopters. The excuse given was that the MPs were targeted by the Tamil
Tiger suicide cadres who had opposed the package since the beginning.
The UNP also seems to have closely studied the counter-strategies adopted
by Indian parties to ward off defections. For, fearing that many more
would either cross over or be bought, the party flew 11 MPs to Singapore.
Meanwhile,
Kumaratunga met with stiff opposition from the powerful Maha Sangha (Buddhist
clergy) which accused her of betraying the Sinhala nation and weakening
it. They objected to the proposal of merging the northern and eastern
provinces into one administrative unit as the Sinhalas living in the eastern
province would come under the control of a minority ethnic group. Another
important provision in the proposed Constitution which drew severe criticism
from the Sinhala hardliners was the selection of two vice-presidents from
the ethnic minorities. The protesters took out several rallies that clogged
Colombo's streets.
Realising
that the strategy was not working and fearing that the bill would be defeated,
Kumaratunga pulled back. Leader of the House Ratnasiri Wickremanayake,
who took over as prime minister on August 10 from Kumaratunga's ageing
mother Srimavo Bandaranaike, was given the unenviable task of making the
decision public. Amidst raucous cheers by the Opposition backbenchers,
he informed the House that the Government was putting on hold the debate
on the new Constitution.
With Parliament's
term ending on August 24 and fresh elections to be held in the coming
months, the withdrawal is a major setback for the pa. Kumaratunga herself
narrowly regained the presidency late last year after a bitter battle
with UNP chief Ranil Wickremasinghe. Soon after, the losses suffered by
the Lankan Army in the troubled north and with the Tigers making a strong
comeback, her ability to govern took a serious beating. With the clergy
also losing confidence, Kumaratunga finds herself in a tight corner. Though
the Lankan Army has fought back and halted the LTTE's march towards Jaffna,
the situation remains tense. Now the withdrawal of the bill makes her
task of regaining political control an uphill one.
-Roy
Dinesh in Colombo
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