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In Sri Lanka’s electoral history, the first signs of tension on the political horizon appear more often than not at the ground level when seemingly monolithic majorities crack with the fissures inevitably widening if left untreated, spreading out to the national level as the Centre collapses within itself.

Electoral dreams turning into nightmares

To put it in another way, as much as egoistic Colombo would like to think that it dictates the political story to lesser stars orbiting its core, the lesson is in the reverse. That reality was keenly understood by the Rajapaksas of Medamulana whose stranglehold on ‘the masses’ became an intoxicating post-war dream as the ‘(Sinhalese Buddhist) saviours of the nation’ mantle was wrapped around them. This is until supreme greed and narcissistic craze for absolute control of the State turned that dream into a nightmare.

The Nero-like (fiddling while Rome burnt) idiocies of Gotabaya Rajapaksa were precipitating factors in that regard. On his part, that lesson was never learnt at all by Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe around whose fractured figure revolves the strange half-dead, half-alive political creature that was once the indomitable United National Party (UNP). In a wearying repeat, grinning caricatures of party front-men pose as dealmakers in the wake of the recently concluded local government elections.

These familiar games despised by the electorate are practiced by the former President who continues to think that he is too clever to be understood by any other than himself and his loyalist cabal no matter how much public antagonism this generates beyond the city elite. The UNP’s breakaway Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) has seemingly cloned itself on the mother party given the same indifference to intra-party criticism, the deflection of party transparency in decision making within a cult of ‘loyalty to the party leader.’

Why is the President so bothered by ‘political scraps’?

Profiteering from all these self-perpetuated misfortunes of the Opposition, the ruling National Peoples’ Power (NPP) Government captured state power last year in an extraordinary reversal of political fortunes. But the NPP has lost little time in treading the same treacherous path on which its predecessors fell to their ruin. In fact, it is doing so with a poisonous blend of political thuggery (JVP), irritatingly bland naivete (NPP) and collective clownishness that raises worrying concerns about constitutional governance in Sri Lanka.

A case in point is the perturbing warning by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake this week at the 60th anniversary of the NPP’s leading constituent party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) that the NPP has the ‘mandate’ and will use its two thirds parliamentary majority with the full weight of political power to amend laws if ‘someone works against the mandate.’ ‘How can a collection of political scraps challenge our mandate?’ he thundered, adding that these ‘scraps’ shamefully contested against each other and are now trying to ‘unite.’

This was in regard to forming local government councils where the numerical majority won by the Government is less than the collective strength of opposition parties. In the first instance, one is not quite sure why an evidently agitated President thought fit to use a sledgehammer (two-thirds majority) to crush a fly or flies (‘political scraps’) as it were, given this scornful reference. The threat was even more insidious given that the threat to ‘amend laws’ lacked specific legal parameters and betrayed an evident failure to comprehend the impact of the same.

A fantasy world of ‘absolute majorities’

Certainly the amendment of whatever law cannot apply retrospectively to a concluded election? Or are we entering into the fantasy realm of Alice in Wonderland where the law and the Constitution will be tossed to the four winds with the Red Queen (in this case, the Red King) bellowing ‘off with their heads’? President Dissanayake may surely recall the perfidious fate of the last Head of State who declared that he is ‘the law’, namely the unlamented Gotabaya Rajapaksa.

In sum, there is a troubling lack of clarity in what the President said. Certainly there can be no question that the NPP should be able to form councils in the local bodies in which it has obtained ‘clear’ mandates. The question of anyone ‘interfering’ with that mandate does not arise. Where the majorities are not so ‘clear’, much will depend on coalitions formed variously by the NPP as well as by the opposition. That bargaining for power is often accompanied with seducing offers, long a nauseating aspect of Sri Lankan politics.

The NPP has itself dexterously abandoned the moral high ground of refusing to ally with ‘tainted parties.’ Minority parties have confirmed that they have been ‘approached’ by friendly Government colleagues to form councils in disputed bodies. So what occasions this thunderous Presidential roar of using a two-thirds majority and amending the law perchance?  He also predicted on Thursday that ‘opposition’ local government councils will not have a long shelf-life. ‘Let them form councils and run for three, four months. We will see what happens’ he said.

An infringement of the law on multiple counts

Taken in tandem with the Government’s claim that funds will not be allocated for local bodies controlled by the Opposition, this constitutes a seriously anti-democratic stand. The NPP had reportedly distributed leaflets to that effect in the run-up to the local government polls, leading to opposition parties lodging complaints with the Elections Commission. But the election monitoring body seems to be following the example of the three ‘wise’ monkeys who ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’

While such willful ignorance may suit parables on avoiding negativity, this does not sit well with the responsibilities of a national elections regulator tasked with ensuring a free and fair poll. Local government laws do not permit the Central Government to impose such restrictions. And to be clear, as much as such threats are a potential obstacle to the functioning of ‘opposition’ local bodies, the (repeated) utterances by the President and his Ministers during the polls campaign infringes the law at multiple levels.

Truth be told, the NPP’s nervous excitement over the recently concluded local government elections which witnessed a fall in an overall poll count among disenchanted voters, indicates that it is well aware of electoral history. Whether in regard to regime change in 2015 or 2019, early definitive signs came from provincial and local polls. Thus, I return to the opening theme of this week’s reflections, namely that the electoral mood of the ‘local’ or the ‘provincial’ is dismissed only at a Government’s peril.

Aggravation of an opposing ‘critical mass’

Rhetoric of ‘different priorities’ in the ‘punchi chande’ when compared to the ‘national’ as touted by a few optimistic souls, can be taken at face value so far and no further. Witness the examples of the 2014 provincial polls (ahead of the defeat of the Rajapaksas in 2015) and the 2018 local government elections (a precursor to the 2019 return of the Rajapaksas). These resounding rebuffs to bloated ruling regimes by the grassroots were ignored in what turned out to be costly mistakes.

In contrast, the electoral knock on the NPP’s head in 2025 gives it much needed time for critical self-evaluation rather than quarrelling in passing the blame around. Immediate realisation of priority manifesto promises is crucial as well as correcting obvious shortcomings in how NPP Ministers exercise power as well as communicate this to the public. Refraining from self-indulgent boasts and lies will be a good start.

Above all, the answer does not lie in calling down fire and damnation on the heads of the democratic Opposition, however dysfunctional that may be. Neither is it to threaten the use of parliamentary majorities or the law to impede democratically formed local government bodies.

The President should know better, to put it bluntly.