The Lankan roulette

Sri Lanka is going to elect a new president on November 16. The present incumbent, Sirisena Maithripala, is not contesting. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa's brother Nandasena Gotabaya, better known as Gotabaya, is contesting this time. Though there are as many as 35 contestants in the fray, the main contest will lie between Gotabaya of the Sri Lanka Podujena Peramuna (SLPP) and Sajith Premadasa of the United National Party (UNP), with the scales tilting in favour of the former.

Gotabaya as former defence chief earned notoriety for ruthlessly liquidating the LTTE in the 25 year-long civil war in Sri Lanka. He has been accused of war crimes, as under his order, the Sri Lankan army shot about forty thousand unarmed Tamils toward the end of the civil war. In normal circumstances, his win could not be taken for granted. But the Easter Sunday massacre by Islamic terrorists earlier this year in which 258 persons were killed changed all earlier equations and crystallised Buddhist public opinion in favour of "strong man" Gotabaya. Population-wise, Buddhists account for 69.1 per cent, Muslims account for 7.6 per cent and Hindus for 7.1 per cent.

Mahinda Rajapaksa gave a pronounced pro-China tilt to Sri Lanka's foreign policy. Many China-aided projects were taken up and one day Sri Lanka realised that it had fallen into the Chinese debt-trap. It was during his rule that two Chinese submarines were allowed to be docked in the Colombo port, much to India's consternation. His brother Gotabaya has already indicated that he will refashion the island nation's foreign policy and "restore normal relations" with Beijing. Even before the election is held, Gotabaya met Chen Min'er and discussed with him his country's "future ties" with China. Chen is known to be close to Xi Jinping.

Gotabaya has also promised to strengthen surveillance of the entire population to forestall any more terror attacks in future. The rampant corruption that prevailed during the presidency of his brother Mahinda Rajapaksa, has not been forgotten by the people. Gotabaya, being the brother of Mahinda could possibly see negative effects on his presidential prospects, according to some Sri Lanka watchers.

Like China rejecting the Permanent Court of Arbitration's verdict that Beijing had no legal basis for its claims of sovereignty over much of the South China Sea, Gotabaya has said that, if elected, he would not honour the previous government's commitments to the UN Human Rights Commission about post-war accountability and reconciliation. This is expected to raise his stocks in the Buddhist voters who vastly

outnumber all other communities. Meanwhile, Gotabaya's dual citizenship (of Sri Lanka and the US) was challenged in a court with the aim of disqualifying him from contesting elections. But much to Goatabaya's relief, the related documents were found to be "missing".

Sri Lanka's Muslims started being demonised after the Easter Sunday terror attacks. Those who did it only exposed their community to further suspicion and hatred of the majority Buddhists. The Buddhist clergy has a strong influence on the politics of Sri Lanka. The rise of militant Islam in Asia has made the Buddhist clergy stridently anti-Muslim. Buddhist monks have, from time to time, demanded wholesale deportation of the Muslim population from the country. The perceived threat from militant Islam has also created the atmosphere for supporting a "strongman" for the presidency to ensure safety and security of the nation. This psychology works in favour of Gotabaya.

The struggle for power often makes friends of enemies and vice-versa. This is true of Sri Lanka. The power struggle between President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has brought Sirisena closer to his former arch-rival Mahinda, whom he ousted as president in the election of 2015. The power struggle made him sack Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and appoint a new prime minister. Wickremesinghe went to the Supreme Court which held Sirisena's action unconstitutional and restored the Prime Minister position to Wickremesinghe. Since then, the relations between the two have been extremely strained.

China is keenly watching the Sri Lanka presidential election. It thinks that if Gotabaya wins, Beijing will regain the ground it had lost in Sri Lanka. In recent times, Beijing has suffered two setbacks in Asia. In 2015, its protégé, Mahinda Rajapaksa, was roundly defeated by Maithripala Sirisena who reversed his predecessor's pro-China policy and restored the country's old relations with India. In the presidential elections in the Maldives last year, Abdullah Yameen, Beijing's close ally, who had brought in an authoritarian regime behind the façade of democracy and had arrested all the major opposition leaders, was defeated by Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

Since then, Maldives has steadily come closer to India and veered away from China. Recently, former President Mohamed Nasheed, who was ousted by Yameen with the help of the army, revealed that Maldives' debt to China had risen to $3.4 billion and that from 2020 onwards his country will have to spend 15 per cent of its budget in repaying the debt to the Chinese companies who had built some projects in the Maldives.

So China is expecting the victory of Gotabaya Rajapaksa in next month's election. It hopes Gotabaya's win will bring the island nation back again in the domain of Chinese influence. As in Nepal, as in the Maldives, so in Sri Lanka, the diplomatic war between India and China to retain/expand their influence is being fought silently, but fiercely.

(Views expressed are strictly personal)