Ex-president Rajapaksa sworn in as prime minister of Sri Lanka

Former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa of the opposition Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) has been sworn-in as the prime minister of Sri Lanka replacing Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party Front (UNP).

The move came on Friday after the United Peoples’ Freedom Alliance (UPFA), a group of parties led by President Maithripala Sirisena, left the coalition government headed by Wickremesinghe earlier in the evening.

As on date, the UPFA plus the SLPP do not have majority in parliament. Together they add up to only 95 in a house of 225. They need 113 for a simple majority.

Rajapaksa has to prove his majority on the floor of the House when parliament is convened.

Although Rajapaksa does not have the numbers, the president could call him to form the government if in his view he can get majority support in parliament.

When Wickremesinghe was appointed prime minister by Sirisena in 2015, he did not have majority in parliament, but later obtained it.

Political sources say that Rajapaksa will be able to get the seven more needed.

Seven UNP MPs are likely to join. Some Muslim parties now with the UNP are also likely to give the Rajapaksa government sufficient numbers to win the floor test.

Sources added that seven UNP MPs met Thursday evening to discuss the possibility of switching to the side of President Sirisena and Rajapaksa.

Earlier on Friday, the president met 23 MPs from his own Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). It was decided to leave the government and join with the SLPP and the Joint Opposition to bring down the government headed by Wickremesinghe.

The move to walk out of the coalition with the UNP came after months of infighting between President Sirisena and Wickremesinghe.

The two leaders who had come together in January 2015 to defeat the then president Mahinda Rajapaksa in the Presidential election, could not pull on for ideological and personal reasons.

Sirisena, who is a leftist, is rural based, and is a Sri Lankan and Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist leader, could not get along with the right wing, urban-based and pro-West Wickremesinghe.

The two leaders kept challenging each other on every issue. Wickremesinghe would take decisions without consulting the Executive President, and the President would countermand them.

The two had clashed on foreign policy too. While Wickremesinghe had bowed to the demands of the UN Human Rights Council on the onerous mechanisms for post-war ethnic reconciliation, Sirisena openly told the UN General Assembly that Sri Lanka does not favor foreign intervention of any kind.

They also differed on the policies towards India and China. Sirisena said that the Indian intelligence agency RAW had a role in an alleged plot to assassinate him and Wickremesinghe appearing to pooh pooh it.

The President was critical of Wickremesinghe’s decision to give the Hambantota port to China on a 99 year lease with a 70% stake. He was also critical of the bid to give the contact to build the East Terminal in Colombo port to India.

For months now, the 23 MPs of Sirisena’s SLFP had been trying to persuade Sirisena to sack Wickremesinghe and appoint Rajapaksa as Prime Minister to form an anti-UNP  government.

They considered an SLFP – SLPP alliance to be natural and an SLFP-UNP to be an unnatural tie up.

And the SLPP was after all only a splinter from the SLFP. It had split after the January 2015 parliamentary elections as Rajapaksa disapproved of Sirisena’s alliance with the UNP which had been the traditional rival of the SLFP.

Now with the SLFP and SLPP coming together stalled elections to Provincial Councils are likely to be held and parliamentary election due in late 2019 or early 2020 ,may be advanced.