The former lankan President remains in limbo
There had never been a good chance of Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa making it to the prime ministership of Sri lanka. Although President Maithripala Sirisena had given him a ticket from the Sri lanka Freedom Party to contest the parliamentary election under pressure from sections of his party either still loyal to Mr Rajapaksa or convinced that the latter could attract critical votes for them, he had refused to name the former President as the prime ministerial candidate.
This showed that the President and many senior members of the party, whose loyalty he commanded, were intent on denying Mr Rajapaksa a political return. Mr Rajapaksa, in addition, faced another challenge: The fragmentation of his core Sinhala vote-bank. Moreover, it was an open secret that, if push came to shove, Mr Sirisena would rather back Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe and his United National Party in the formation of a Government, than support Mr Rajapaksa. Given the hard political realities, it comes as no surprise that the former President's political return through the parliamentary poll has been foiled. He conceded defeat on Tuesday, even before the final result was out, to the United National Party. It is one of those occasions when Mr Sirisena can celebrate the defeat of his own party — or at least the section that Mr Rajapaksa led.
The political ramifications of Mr Rajapaksa's failure to make a comeback are obvious. In the first place, he now has to wait for a more opportune moment to try another bid — and nobody knows when he will get that. He can utilise the time to re-build the alliances that had broken during the last phase of his presidentship and reach out to the Tamil community which resents him deeply. On his part, President Sirisena does not have to lose sleep over having to work with his bitter, if a relatively new political rival, or a Government the latter may have led.
This has given another opportunity to the United National Party and the coalition Mr Wickremesinghe had stitched, named the United National Front for Good Governance, to collaborate with Mr Sirisena's Sri lanka Freedom Party and the ruling grouping, the United People's Freedom Alliance, because no single party seems to have got a massive mandate in the 225-member House. It's a complicated state of affairs, for sure, but it’s one in which Mr Rajapaksa and his small band of supporters do not have a say.
Mr Rajapaksa's failed bid will not trouble New Delhi. While Mr Rajapaksa had in the decade as President been more than friendly to India and sensitive to its concerns, with India responding in kind and hailing him for the victory over the liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, he had in the months of his last tenure suddenly adopted a hard posture and sought to aggressively play the China card to rein in New Delhi's influence in the region. later, he rather irresponsibly attributed his loss in the presidential election to a ‘conspiracy' that he claims had been hatched by Indian agencies.