SRI LANKA: DEFECTIONS REDUCE PRESIDENT'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 COLOMBO 001079 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/INS MCC FOR D NASSIRY AND E BURKE E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/03/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER PHUM MOPS CE SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: DEFECTIONS REDUCE PRESIDENT'S PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY TO BARE MINIMUM REF: A. COLOMBO 263 ¶B. COLOMBO 1045 ¶C. COLOMBO 1071 Classified By: Acting DCM Michael DeTar. Reasons: 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: On August 2, the Ceylon Workers Congress (CWC) Party leader, Minister of Youth Empowerment and Socio-Economic Development Arumugan Thondaman, and four out of five CWC Members of Parliament announced they would no longer vote with the President's coalition. The one CWC parliamentarian who did not break with the President is Vadivel Puthirasigamoney, the only CWC MP not awarded a ministerial position when the CWC joined the ruling coalition in August, 2006. The split leaves President Rajapaksa's ruling coalition with a wafer-thin 113-112 majority. If the President cannot repair the rift with the CWC, he will have few attractive options other than to court the hard-line Sinhalese nationalist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP),which has said that it will not join the Rajapaksa coalition unless it takes a minimalist position on devolution and abrogates the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA),probably forcing the withdrawal of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM). END SUMMARY. CWC WITHDRAWS FROM RULING COALITION -------------- ¶2. (SBU) On August 2, CWC party leader and Cabinet Minister Arumugan Thondaman announced his resignation from the government, along with four of the five parliamentary members of his party: Deputy Minister of Posts Mr. S Sellasamy, Deputy Minister of Estate Infrastructure Muthu Sivalingham, Deputy Minister of Education M. Satchithanathan, and Deputy Minister of National Integration S. Jegatheeswaran. The only member of Thondaman's caucus who has not split with the President is Vadivel Puthirasigamoney -- the only CWC parliamentarian not awarded a ministerial position when the CWC joined the ruling coalition in August, 2006. ¶3. (C) Publicly, the CWC said that the "party was insulted," but refused to disclose the nature of the insult or who was responsible for it. Privately, party chairman R. Yogarajan told us that on the morning of August 2, Presidential Advisor and brother Basil Rajapaksa berated Deputy Minister Sivalingham in the presence of Thondaman and others. In the course of the argument, Sivalingham said he was prepared to resign, at which point Basil Rajapaksa offered him a blank piece of paper on which to draft his resignation letter. The CWC left and held a crisis meeting in which five of the six members voted to withdraw from the ruling coalition. ¶4. (C) When asked by Reuters about the possibility of reconciliation, Yogarajan said: "For the moment there is no chance of patching things up." Privately, Yogarajan told us that the CWC is resolute in their decision to leave the President's coalition, but fear receiving the "Sripathi treatment" -- a reference to former Deputy Minister Sripathi Sooriyarachchi, who was jailed after breaking with the President along with former Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera (ref A). Despite their declared intent to stand firm, some speculate that Rajapaksa will be able to coax Thondaman to lead the other CWC members back, citing wide-spread rumors that Thondaman is subject to blackmail through the possibility of corruption charges (ref B). PRESIDENT'S PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY DOWN TO ONE -------------- - COLOMBO 00001079 002 OF 002 ¶5. (C) If the CWC does not return to the ruling coalition, the President's Parliamentary majority will be narrowed to one -- 113 to 112. One more defection could result in the balance in Parliament swinging to the opposition United National Party (UNP) and those aligned with it. However, losing the majority in Parliament would not automatically result in a fall of the government. According to the Sri Lankan constitution, only if the President were unable to pass the budget and accompanying appropriations bills, due in November, would he be obliged to turn the government over to the opposition or call new Parliamentary elections. Rajapaksa would not necessarily fare well by calling a snap election now. Despite the military victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the East, the President's popularity is waning in his political base in the Sinhalese South (ref C). ¶6. (C) Reuters and other media sources are speculating that the loss of CWC support will force Rajapaksa to court the JVP, which was once firmly supportive of the President. However, in recent weeks the JVP has pulled away from the administration, stating that is will not join the ruling coalition unless the government abrogates the Ceasefire Agreement and adopts a minimalist position on devolution. In any case, the President's party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP),has already been arguing within the All Parties Representative Committee (APRC) for the smaller district as the unit of devolution, instead of the province, which is supported by the majority in the APRC and in the Parliament. Although he has not publicly commented on the JVP's efforts to convince the Supreme Court to strike down the Ceasefire Agreement, in the past two weeks Rajapaksa has repeatedly referred to the signing of the CFA as a "criminal act." If the Supreme Court declares the agreement invalid, it will remove the legal basis for the presence of the Nordic-led Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, and cast doubt on the future of the Norwegian peace process facilitation. ¶7. (C) COMMENT: Defections to the opposition by members of the President's coalition obviously operate to the advantage of the UNP, but the timing of this most recent defection could prove inconvenient. There are other minority parties reportedly waiting only for a signal from opposition leader Wickremesinghe to desert the Rajapaksa government. However, well-placed UNP contacts had previously confided to us that they hoped to bring down the government in the lead-up to the budget fight in November. The CWC's actions may have started the ball rolling prematurely. If the present timing does not suit the UNP, there may not be an immediate domino effect of defections by other marginalized members of the President's coalition. MOORE