COLOMBO, 10 November 2003 — The Sri Lankan president’s plan to oust her archrival prime minister through a constitutional maneuver may have backfired and caused new rifts within her ranks, politicians and analysts say.

A member of Kumaratunga’s coalition People’s Alliance (PA) said she had failed to muster defections from Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s party to “push through a parliamentary coup” and seize total control of the government. “A parliamentary coup was contemplated but it has not happened because she failed to engineer defections someone had promised her,” said Batty Weerakoon, the leader of the LSSP, or Equal Society Party, which is a member of the PA. “She has had to retreat from the strong positions she took,” Weerakoon said referring to the withdrawal of a state of emergency which the president’s office said was invoked shortly after the sacking of three ministers and shutting Parliament for two weeks on Tuesday.

Political analysts noted that the premier’s party as well as the president’s side has been badly bruised, as has the country’s economy, due to the unprecedented political turmoil last week. The tiny Colombo Stock Exchange regained some of the massive losses suffered in the two days after the emergency was declared, but industry and business leaders are worried that the country is headed for a snap poll.

“Even if the two sides agree to some compromise, the government will have the threat of dismissal over its head like a sword of Damocles,” said Lands Minister Rajitha Senaratne. He said the government would be ready for a snap poll once it regained control of the portfolios Kumaratunga seized. Constitutionally, however, there is no way this can be achieved apart from putting pressure on the president.

“She had the legal and constitutional right to do what she did,” said Weerakoon. “But the wisdom of her actions will have to be proved.”

Diplomats said foreign governments had mounted pressure on Kumaratunga to roll back the tough security-related laws and not to jeopardize the Norwegian-led peace initiative with Tamil Tiger rebels. Kumaratunga’s action was supported by the Marxist JVP, or People’s Liberation Front, which is the third largest group in Parliament, but they went into a sulk after she announced she would uphold the Norwegian-backed peace bid.

The JVP had earlier pressured Kumaratunga to take the defense, interior and information portfolios as a sign of her good faith toward working out an electoral pact with the Marxists. The JVP also wants Kumaratunga to kick out the Norwegian peace brokers and scrap a truce deal the prime minister entered into with Tiger rebels in February last year, but the president, under intense international pressure, vowed to uphold both.

“Clearly they are furious over the president’s offer on Friday night (to uphold the truce),” the privately run Sunday Island newspaper quoted political sources as saying. “This is not what they expected.” Political sources said the coup that backfired may have created new rifts between Kumaratunga and the JVP and harmed an electoral deal they have been negotiating for months.

A senior member of Kumaratunga’s party said that a snap election could be a way out for both parties to save face and to try to resolve the power struggle, but many backbenchers on both sides opposed another election. “No member of Parliament wants an early election,” the party member said. “A snap election can land us in another mess if there is no big mandate for anyone.”

Sri Lanka has had an uneasy cohabitation government since Wickremesinghe’s United National Party won parliamentary elections in December 2001. Kumaratunga was elected president in a separate election in December 1999 and can remain in office till 2005.