{"id":31270,"date":"2018-10-27T12:54:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T07:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=31270"},"modified":"2018-10-27T12:54:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T07:24:06","slug":"back-to-the-chessboard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/back-to-the-chessboard\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the chessboard?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/lead\/back-to-the-chessboard\/article22755003.ece\"><b>Back to the chessboard?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sri Lanka\u2019s local government election held on February 10 has led to a political crisis in the country,<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">threatening the stability of the present government.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>What has happened?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sri Lankan President and PM have failed to reach consensus on the future of their coalition government, following the huge defeat their parties suffered in the recent local government elections.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mr. Wickremesinghe\u2019s United National Party (UNP) and the Sirisena-led faction of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), its traditional rival, have been in government together since 2015<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the February 10 local government polls, the partners in national government contested separately and lost to the newly formed party, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), or Sri Lanka People\u2019s Front backed by Mr. Rajapaksa<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Background of the Crisis:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The discord between the President and the Prime Minister has been building up for over a year on a mixture of policy and personal issues.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The President had alleged that Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and his ministers had been mishandling the economy, and had been even engaged in large-scale corruption while preaching clean governance. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the backdrop of the escalating cold war between the two leaders was a major policy failure of the government. A massive financial fraud was committed during the central bank\u2019s bond sales in 2015.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Much of the blame was put on the Prime Minister by<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the opposition and the media for allowing it to happen and then attempting a cover-up. <\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Amidst a public outcry, Mr. Sirisena had appointed a commission last year to investigate the fraud<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Commission had recommended the prosecution of the bank\u2019s former Governor, his son-in-law and their accomplices.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This had further deteriorated the relations between the Prime Minister and the President<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is this conflict that exploded in February 11 soon after the election results showed the newly formed party, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), or Sri Lanka People\u2019s Front backed by Mr. Rajapaksa winning comfortably. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Dimensions of the Crisis:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are two dimensions:<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The pressure from the Rajapaksa camp for the Wickremesinghe government to resign, interpreting the local government election as a referendum on the government as well as a loss of its popular mandate of 2015. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government can easily dismiss the pressure. The outcome of the local government election has no direct bearing on the government\u2019s parliamentary majority.Thus, the power within Parliament has not been altered, and it is likely to remain that way unless the ruling coalition breaks up.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><b>Difficulties ahead:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If the President and Prime Minister do not find a framework of reconciliation between them, governance in Sri Lanka will crawl along for two years<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The programme of constitutional and political reform, peace building, inter-ethnic reconciliation and democratic consolidation will enter an extended state of stalemate.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back to the chessboard? Context: Sri Lanka\u2019s local government election held on February 10 has led to a political crisis in the country, threatening the stability of the present government. What has happened? Sri Lankan President and PM have failed to reach consensus on the future of their coalition government, following the huge defeat their&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/back-to-the-chessboard\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Back to the chessboard?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704797227},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}