Rajapakse wonderland

Less than a month after the end of the Fourth Eelam War, the state-owned weekly Silumina carried a full-page interview with a Sri Lankan astrologer. 'President Mahinda Rajapakse and the Rajapakses will rule this country for a long time,' he predicted. 'The next chapter in Sri Lanka is reserved for the Rajapakses.' In Sri Lanka astrology is serious business, with politicians avidly soliciting favourable predictions. The political importance accorded to astrology by the Rajapakses was also on display when the authorities arrested an astrologer in June 2009 for making an anti-government prediction.

On 8 September, the last remaining obstacle to the establishment of this Rajapakse future crumbled. The 18th Amendment to the Constitution is a sui generis piece of legislation, designed to suit the politico-dynastic requirements of the president and his family. It enhanced the powers of the president even while removing the term limits that would bind him. Otherwise, President Mahinda Rajapakse would have had to retire from politics in 2017, an utterly unpalatable prospect from a personal perspective, and disastrously premature from a dynastic perspective. Retirement would not only deprive the president and his family of the power that comes from confirmed expectations, but in turn would make them vulnerable to political, propaganda, and perhaps legal attacks by opponents and erstwhile supporters, given the polarisation they have created in Sri Lankan politics. President Rajapakse would also want to stay president until his eldest son, neophyte parliamentarian Namal, amasses enough years and experience to succeed him.