Political circles in Colombo couldn't resist the joke. "This time she's early," they chuckled when Sri Lanka's notoriously unpunctual president, Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, proclaimed that she was calling snap presidential elections almost a year ahead of schedule. As is customary in the island in the sun, the date, 21 December, was picked in consultation with astrologers. The star-gazers deemed the day auspicious for Kumaratunga, 52, who is standing for re-election to a post she solemnly pledged to abolish five years ago.
Although her opponents are rubbing that in her face, and have been doing so for some time now, the main opposition United National Party (UNP) is not likely to abolish the allpowerful executive presidency if they can grab the plum they created in 1978. Given that Kumaratunga has only a single-vote majority in Parliament — although she is comfortable in the legislature with the backing of the minority Tamil parties in the opposition —the executive presidency provides the stability that would otherwise have been impossible.
In fact, Kumaratunga called for the early presidential election fearing a parliamentary coup. An acute consciousness of the Bandaranaike dynasty's experience with such "conspiracies", makes her sensitive to the dangers. Announcing the snap election to her ministers a few days before the scheduled 1 November budget presentation, she spoke darkly of the lurking risks. "There are Buddharakkhitas, Somaramas and C.P. de Silvas in our midst," she said.
The president was alluding to the Buddhist monks who conspired and killed her father, prime minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike in 1959, and to the senior leader who defected from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and toppled the government of her mother, Sirima Bandaranaike. De Silva had declared he wanted to "live a free man in a free society", but prime minister Bandaranaike, whose alignment with the Marxists led to his defection, wailed, "I've been stabbed in the back."