Flight of Insanity

Now in its third week and still no end sight, Trump’s Iran’s war is showing a tedious pattern of tragic-comic episodes. The human tragedy continues under relentless aerial assaults in Iran and under both aerial and ground assaults in Lebanon. Israel, now in a hurry to destroy as much it can of its enemy assets before Trump lapses into war withdrawals, is picking its spots at will; three of its latest scalps could not have come at higher echelons of the Iranian regime. Within two days, Israeli has targeted and killed Ali Larijani, the powerful, versatile and experienced secretary of the Supreme National Security Council; Gholamreza Soleimani, head of the Basij paramilitary force; and Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib.

Yet there is no indication if the continuing hollowing out of Iran’s decision making apparatus will produce the intended effect of encouraging the people of Iran to come out on the streets and topple the regime. People cannot pour on to the streets, even if they want to, until the American and Israeli bombing stops. That may not happen till the US military finishes its list of asset targets in Iran and Israel finishes off the list of Iranian leaders who are tagged on by Mossad’s network of Iranian moles. They are so widespread that last year after setting up a special task force to expose the internal informants, the National Security Council found out that the person whom they had selected to lead the task force was himself a spy! Disaffected citizens are also becoming informal informants.

The comical side of the war is provided by President Trump in the daily press court that he holds at the White House, taking full advantage of the presidential system in which the chief officer is not required to present himself to and take questions from the country’s elected lawmakers. There has never been and there likely will never be  another presidential spectacle like Donald J. Trump. It is shocking although not surprising to find out daily as to how much he doesn’t know about the war that he started or where it is heading. The ghost of Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary of the Iraq war and the coiner of the ‘unknown unknowns’ phrase, would tell you that Trump is the epitome of one of the known knowns, the predictable bully. For all his misjudgements and bad calls over the Iraq war 23 years ago, Rumsfeld now looks like a giant of a professional in comparison to Pete Hegseth, the bigmouthed charlatan who parades as Donald Trump’s Secretary of War.

Asymmetric Advantage

For its part, Iran appears to be reaping the worst and the best of an asymmetric warfare. Iran is getting pummelled in all the metrics of conventional warfare and there should be nothing surprising about it. It is rather silly for the American and Israeli military spokespeople to crow about their aerial strikes and their successes. On the other hand, the US and Israeli forces combined have not been able to answer Iran’s ability to establish areas of war where Iran sets the term and scores at its choosing. Quite astonishingly, President Trump has said that Iran was not supposed to attack its neighbours and no one apparently told him that such attacks might happen.

“Nobody. Nobody. No, no, no. The greatest experts—nobody thought they were going to hit,“ Trump responded to a leading question by a Fox News reporter whether the President was “surprised nobody briefed you ahead of time” about the likelihood of Iranian retaliation against America’s Gulf allies. Prevarication is second nature to President Trump and it is the same explanation for the Administration’s strategic gaffe over the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has imposed a blockade over the narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that provides vital passage for about 20% of the world’s oil shipments. Again, no one told him that Iran might do this. That is also because Trump has gotten rid of all the people in government capable of providing advice and is surrounding himself with sidekicks who will not challenge him on his misrepresentation of facts. As well, by keeping Congress out of the loop the President and the Administration tossed away the opportunity to deliberate before deciding to go to war.

True to form, Trump trots out another bizarre argument that the US does not have any shipment through the Strait of Hormuz and, therefore, it is up to countries, including China, that depend on the Hormuz route to come to his party in the Persian Gulf. The US would be there to help them out and he went on to invite his erstwhile allies and fellow NATO members to join the US and help the world keep the Strait of Hormuz open for its oil shipments.

Trump’s calls have been all but spurned. No US president has suffered such a rebuff. Other presidents did their consultations with allies before starting a war, not after. “This war started without any consultations,” said Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius. He then  queried incredulously: “What does Donald Trump expect from a handful of European frigates in the Strait of Hormuz that the mighty US Navy cannot manage alone?” Iran has let it be known that it will block passage only to its enemies and allow others to cross the strait by arrangement. Chinese, Indian and Pakistani ships have been allowed to navigate through the strait. The UN and NATO countries are reportedly considering new initiatives to ensure safe passage through the Strait, but details are unclear.

While the official American endgame is unclear, scholars and academics have started weighing in and calling Trump’s misadventure for what it is. Three such contributions this week have caught the media’s attention. Muhanad Seloom writing online in Al Jazeera, has presented an unsolicited yet by far the strongest case for Trump, arguing that “the US-Israeli strategy is working” because Trump’s war against Iran is accomplishing a “systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades.” A former State Department staffer and now a Doha and Exeter academic, Seloom seems overly sanguine about the impending demise of the Iranian regime and underplays the political implications of the war’s externalities and unintended consequences for the Trump presidency in America.

The comprehensive degradation of virtually all of Iran’s hard assets is not in question. What is in question is whether the asset degradation is translating into a regime change. The additional questions are whether the obvious success in asset degradation is enough to save President Trumps political bacon in the midterm elections in November, or will it stop Iran from controlling the Strait of Hormuz and impacting the global oil flows. Firm negative answers to these questions have been provided by two American scholars. Nate Swanson, also a former State Department staffer turned academic researcher and who was also a member of Trump’s recent negotiating team with Iran, has additionally highlighted the martyrdom significance of the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei both within Iran and in the entire Shia crescent extending from Lebanon to Karachi.

Robert Pape, University of Chicago Historian, who has studied and modelled Iranian scenarios to advise past US Administrations, has compared President Trump’s situation in Iran to President Johnson’s quagmire in Vietnam in 1968. Pape’s thesis is that asymmetric conflicts inherently keep escalating and there is no winning way out for a superpower over a lesser power. The main  difference between Vietnam and Iran is that Vietnam did not trigger global oil and economic crises. Iran has triggered an oil crisis and the IMF is warning to expect higher inflation and lower growth as a result of the war. “Think of the unthinkable and prepare for it,” is the advice given to world’s policy makers by IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva to a symposium in Japan, earlier this month.

Global Oil Crisis

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has created a crisis of uneven supplies and high prices the likes of which have not been seen since the 1973 oil embargo by Arab countries in the wake of the Yom Kippur War that saw the price of oil increasing four fold from $3 to $12 a barrel. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which came into being as the western response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo, has warned that the market is now experiencing “the most significant supply disruption in its history.”

According to Historians, denying or disrupting oil flows has been an effective tool in modern warfare. The oft cited examples before the 1973 oil embargo are the British oil blockade of Germany in World War 1, and the stopping of Germans accessing the Caucasus oilfields by the Soviet Union’s Red Army in World War II. The irony of the current crisis is that until now the world was getting to be more energy efficient and less oil dependent as a result of the technological, socioeconomic and behavioural changes that were unleashed by the 1973 oil embargo. Post Cold War globalization streamlined global oil flows even as the turn towards cheaper and renewable energy sources increased the use of alternative energy sources.

What was becoming a global energy complacency, according to Jason Bordoff and Meghan O’Sullivan, American academics and National Security advisers to former Presidents Obama and Bush, suffered its first disruptive shock with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Market reaction was immediate with crude oil prices increasing by over 50% and exceeding $135 per barrel. Russia cut its natural gas supply to Europe by half leaving western Europe the worst affected region by the crisis. In contrast, Asia is the worst affected continent by the current crisis although market reaction was not immediate apparently because the US was deemed a far more reliable actor than Russia. It is a different story now.

The present crisis is expected to ratchet up crude oil prices to as high as $150 to $200 a barrel in current dollars from what was below $75 before Trump started the war. Futures trading before the war projected $62 per barrel in 2027. Now, lower prices are not anticipated until after the end of this decade. The daily price has been yo-yoing above and below $100 in harmony with Trump’s musings about the course of the war and the time for its ending. The current market uncertainty stems from the growing realization that the Trump Administration was not clear about why it was starting the war and now it does not know how or when to bring it to an end. The Hormuz crisis has made the prospects all the bleaker.

Sri Lanka’s Options

In the unfolding uncertainty, the only certainty is that Sri Lanka’s options are limited. The challenges facing the country and the government involve both politics and economics. For the country, even the political options are limited – perhaps as limited as the economic options available to the government in the short term. The incessant political critics of the government start with extrapolating Aragalaya and end with anticipating another government collapse like the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government. But anyone looking for political alternatives to the NPP government should look at the press photograph showing a recent news conference of opposition party leaders announcing the formation of “a common opposition platform to resist the government’s anti-democratic actions.” Missing an action and absconding per usual, like Julia Roberts in Runway Bride, is once again Sajith Premadasa, the accredited Leader of the Opposition.

Talk about democratic priorities when the economic engine and the energy generators will soon have no oil or diesel to run on. Among the assembled, there is no one equipped enough to head a government ministry with the possible exception of Champika Ranawaka. And it is rich to talk about constitutional dictatorship for a group that was associated with the extended one-party government from 1977 to 1994, and a second group the tried to perpetuate a one-family government between 2005 and 2022. It is virtually imperative to argue that for the sake of the country the NPP government must successfully navigate through the impending crisis. Whether the government will be able to live up to what is now a necessity, not just expectation, we will soon find out.

There is no minimizing or underestimating the magnitude of the crisis. Crude oil and petroleum products account for nearly 20% of the total import bill. Rising oil prices will impact the balance of payment and forex reserves, and could potentially siphon off the currently accumulated $7+ billion forex balance. Rupee devaluation and inflation are likely, but not necessarily to the absurd levels reached during the ultimate Rajapaksa regime. Economic growth will slow and the $1.5 to $2.0 billion FDI targets may not materialize. The current arrangement for debt repayment may have to be revisited, even as relief measures will need to be undertaken to soften the rising price effects throughout the economy and among the less privileged sections of society. Restricting consumption has already been started and the country may have to brace for further restrictions and even power cuts.

In the short term, renegotiating the current EFF (Extended Fund Facility) terms with the IMF will be unavoidable. Equally important are long term measures. The low storage capacity for oil and petroleum has made price fluctuations inevitable. The government has announced storage capacity expansion in Kolonnawa and fast tracking the construction of a jet-fuel pipeline from Muthurajawela to Katunayake – to facilitate the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) becoming a regional aviation hub. The current shipping problems present a new opportunity for the utilization of the expanded terminal facilities to increase transhipment operations at the Colombo harbour.

At long last, after 78 years, there is some action to upgrade the storied 99 oil tanks in Trincomalee. But the bulk of the upgrading depends on the trilateral agreement between Sri Lanka, India and the United Arab Emirates to create an energy hub in Trincomalee. This might run into delays because of the current situation involving the UAE. Already delayed is the construction of the $3.7b Sinopec Oil refinery in Hambantota, the MOU for which was signed more than an year ago. The NPP government has been adept in keeping good relationships with both India and China. Now is the time to try to expedite the deliverables on their commitments.

Another not so long term necessity is to expand electricity generation through renewable sources and minimize its dependence on thermal generation based on imported oil, not to mention coal. Thermal power contributes to just under 50% of energy output at about 80% of total generation costs. In contrast, just over 50% of the output is generated by renewable sources, including hydro, at 20% of the total cost.

The contribution of hydropower is weather dependent and its uncertainty has long been the pretext for persisting with thermal power and not encouraging the development  of solar and wind energy sources. There is no more urgent time to stop this persistence than now in light of the oil crisis. The government must cut through the cobwebs of vested thermal power interests and make clean energy a central part of its Clean Sri Lanka initiative. China is in the forefront of renewable energy technology and expansion and has timed the unveiling of its new five year renewable energy expansion plan to coincide with the current oil crisis. Many countries are emulating China and Sri Lanka should join them.

Singer Sri Lanka, the nation’s foremost retailer of consumer durables, celebrates a truly historic milestone at the SLIM-KANTAR People’s Awards 2026, securing a prestigious triple victory while marking 20 consecutive years as the People’s Brand of the Year, an achievement made possible by the enduring trust and loyalty of Sri Lankan consumers.

This year, SINGER was honoured with yet another triple win with People’s Brand of the Year, Youth Brand of the Year and People’s Durables Brand of the Year at the awards ceremony. This remarkable recognition reflects the deep and lasting relationship the brand has built with Sri Lankans across generations, standing as a symbol of trust in homes across the island.

Reaching this 20-year milestone is not just a testament to brand strength, but a celebration of the millions of customers who have continuously chosen SINGER as a part of their everyday lives. For two decades, Sri Lankans have placed their confidence in the brand, welcoming it into their homes, their families, and their aspirations.

Expressing his appreciation, Janmesh Antony, Director – Marketing of Singer Sri Lanka PLC, stated:

“Winning these awards reflects our commitment to quality, innovation, and staying closely connected to our customers. Being recognised as Durables brand, Youth brand, and as the People’s Brand of the Year highlights our ability to resonate across generations. As we celebrate 20 years as the People’s Brand, our deepest gratitude goes to our customers, this milestone truly belongs to them. It also reflects the dedication of our teams, who continuously strive to serve them better every day. Winning Youth Brand of the Year further reinforces our focus on staying relevant and meaningfully connected with the next generation.”

Commenting on the milestone, Mahesh Wijewardene, Group Managing Director of Singer Sri Lanka PLC, added:

“This recognition is a tribute to the millions of Sri Lankans who have stood by us over the years. Being named the People’s Brand of the Year for the 20th consecutive time is both humbling and inspiring. It reflects the deep trust our customers place in us, and we are truly grateful for the role we play in their everyday lives. This milestone strengthens our commitment to continue delivering value, innovation, and service excellence, always with our customers at the heart of everything we do.”

Over the years, SINGER has grown alongside the people of Sri Lanka, evolving from a trusted household name into a future-ready retail powerhouse. By continuously innovating its product portfolio and enhancing service excellence, the brand has remained closely aligned with the changing needs and aspirations of its customers.

Guided by a deep-rooted customer-first philosophy, an extensive islandwide retail network, and dependable after-sales service, Singer continues to set benchmarks not only in the consumer durables sector but across the nation. By elevating everyday living and bringing greater convenience, comfort, and ease into Sri Lankan homes, the brand has become a trusted partner in shaping modern lifestyles. Its growing connection with younger audiences further reflects its ability to seamlessly blend legacy with contemporary aspirations.

As Singer Sri Lanka celebrates this milestone, the company remains profoundly grateful for the trust placed in it by generations of Sri Lankans. With a continued commitment to enriching lives through innovation and making everyday living more effortless and accessible, Singer looks ahead to growing alongside its customers, strengthening its place as one of the most trusted, loved, and enduring brands in the country.

The Central Committee of the SLFP met in the President’s House on July 28, 2005 to select its nominee for the Presidential election to be held in December 2005. It was unanimously decided that the leader of the Opposition Mahinda Rajapaksa should be the SLFP’s, and by extension the PA’s, nominee. It was a bitter blow to CBK and especially Anura who had considered himself “primus inter pares” and the mentor of Mahinda ignoring the warnings of his mother and sisters. Even more galling was that Mangala Samaraweera, their favourite ring master, had become a staunch supporter of MR. He managed to wriggle out of this dilemma by proposing that Anura should become the Prime Minister when MR was elected President.

This was a face saving device which not many, except perhaps Anura, took seriously as our main task was to defeat the UNP candidate who was likely to be Ranil. As it turned out it was Mangala’s decision to manage MR’s campaign which was decisive in this battle. This was made clear when soon after this meeting we trooped across to Temple Trees to announce our decision to the media. Anura and Ratnasiri Wickremanayake were missing at this meeting in which Maithripala Sirisena, Nimal Siripala, Mangala, Kadirgamar and I occupied the head table and faced the press.

Since there was a long interval between the announcement and the election which was scheduled for December that year I continued with preparations for the 2006 Budget though the UNP voiced an objection saying that it should await the results of the Presidential election. Mangala was the chief negotiator for the MR camp and he came to us with various budgetary proposals to improve the chances of his candidate. The main demand was that we should further increase the subsidy on fertilizer which was then sold for Rs.500 a cwt. He wanted it reduced to Rs. 300 in the forthcoming Budget. All the studies by researchers showed that our farmers were overusing fertilizer or selling it at a profit to the commercial crop sector. It was not significantly increasing paddy yields while draining funds from the Treasury.

One of the difficulties with subsidies is the inability to get the price right. Over subsidizing leads to artificially inflated demand without a parallel increase in production. Therefore I was in two minds about increasing the subsidy. [This was proved right later when Gotabaya pledged that fertiliser will be given free. He later dampened the farmers hopes by banning chemical fertilizers and recommending the use of organic fertiliser. This was the beginning of the end of his tenure because the farmers violently resisted this “march of folly” and vowed to dismiss him and his Minister of Agriculture, Mahindananda Aluthgamage.

The JVP returns

The JVP group left the CBK government after objecting to 1) PTOMS. They were against any deal with the LTTE, tsunami or no tsunami. We were particularly distressed to see the departure of the four JVP Ministers- AKD, Herath, Lalkantha and Wijesinghe, who had handled their portfolios with competence. AKD in particular was quite active in his Agriculture Ministry. I went out of my way to help him.

PB Jayasundara and I arranged for him to address the Chamber of Commerce. The hall was full to capacity and AKD outlined a strategy to revitalize the rural vector with the assistance of the business community. It was the lirst time in its long history that the Chamber was addressed in Sinhala. In order to make AKD comfortable I too spoke in Sinhala making a plea for private sector cooperation. The Treasury then revised the purchasing price of milk upwards for milk producers, particularly of the hill country, in order to support AKD’s attempt it increasing domestic milk production.

In my discussions with the JVP ministers I got the feeling that there was a group in their Central Committee who for ideological reasons did not want any truck with the PA. It was this group that later became the “Peratugamis” led by Kumar Gunaratnam. But with the likelihood of the contest for the Presidency to be one between Ranil Wickremesinghe and Mahinda Rajapaksa, the JVP decided to back the latter and took the lead in promoting Mahinda’s campaign.

There were several reasons for this since up to now there was not much love lost between the JVP and MR. Of all the PA leaders MR was the least enthusiastic about the earlier PA-JVP alliance. On the other hand Anura who expected to be nominated for the Presidency was close to the JVP and was an advocate of an alliance without conditions. But with the LTTE on the ascendant and Ranil advocating a negotiated settlement, including a temporary joinder of the North and East, the JVP took a decision to back MR to the hilt.

Mangala was the chief interlocutor on MR’s behalf and with his good relations with the JVP he was able to firm up that flank before he secretly began to lure the LTTE into sabotaging Ranil’s chances. All this was done in the background of CBK and Anura offering lukewarm support to their own candidate. CBK’s strategy was to hold a series of meetings at provincial level under her patronage supporting MR without actually appearing at meetings arranged by Mahinda’s campaign staff.

But Mahinda outwitted her by not depending on CBK’s meetings and organizing his own mammoth district meetings. By this time the JVP and Jatika Hela Urumaya had taken over his campaign and had mobilized the Sinhala Buddhist vote for MR. This was not difficult since MR himself had built up his “persona” as a Sinhala Buddhist nationalist from the deep south. Perhaps the LTTE strategists thought that with MR at the helm it would be easier to mobilize the sympathies of India and the Tamil diaspora which tended to oppose an extreme Sinhala Buddhist candidate.

While the two candidates were planning their campaigns I joined CBK on a visit to Washington to discuses Tsunami relief with the IMF and the World Bank. The other members of the delegation were Mano Tittawella, Rohini Nanayakkara, and a representative of the Central Bank. Peter Harrold joined the World Bank delegation. Our visit became a high profile one when Bill Clinton came over from the White House to attend this meeting. All this was probably interpreted by the Mahinda camp as a CBK delaying tactic which drew attention away from their campaign. But even in Washington her mind was on the series of meetings she was planning in order to draw attention to the SLFP’s “political heritage” and hold MR to following party policies that she had advocated for ten years as President.

Kandy campaign

Kandy and Nuwara Eliya districts are usually problematic for the PA. The multi ethnic character of these two districts tended to favour the UNP. Due to a pact with JRJ which led to the granting of citizenship to all estate Tamils and their children left out after population shifts under the Srima-Shastri accord, Thondaman and his party became camp followers of the UNP which tended to tilt the balance in favour of the “greens”.

Mahinda was acutely conscious of this gap in his electoral strategy and had developed a bond with Lakshman Kiriella and Monty Gopallawa who were to spearhead his campaign in the hill country. But Kiriella had crossed over to the UNP and Monty was out of politics. MR was not close to Anuruddha Ratwatte or Jayaratne. For him I happened to be the best bet and he sent word to me that if elected he would make me the Prime Minister. Since he had made the same offer to several others [Just as Premadasa did in his campaign] and the PAs official position was that we were to make Anura the PM, I did not respond to his offer. However I decided to support him to the maximum and moved over to Kandy to participate in the local campaign.

Canard

But this did not prevent our opponents from spreading a canard that I was contemplating joining the UNP and working for Ranil. Both MR and I gave interviews denying this rumour. On September 20 the Daily Mirror reported MR as saying “No dispute between Amunugama and me” and “The UNP has reached bankruptcy. False propaganda is used to sling mud on me to create a dispute between Sarath Amunugama and me. Minister Amunugama discussed matters with me before leaving the country.”

At all our meetings I asked my supporters to back MR and the SLFP. The Daily News of October 11 reports the following; “Vote for Mahinda says Amunugama”- “Dr. Sarath Amunugama called upon all Sri Lankans to rally round Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa to ensure his victory at the Presidential election in view of the threat to the country’s democracy that would be leveled by a UNP rule. He refuted speculation that he was planning to leave the SLFP and he would work against Rajapaksa’s candidature. “I have no reason to leave the SLFP or to work against Rajapaksa he said” .

The brunt of MR’s campaign was borne by Mangala and the JVP. There were daily early morning meetings with the JVP to coordinate our strategy. We had a mammoth meeting in Galagedera where PA speakers and JVP representative ViJitha Herath addressed the audience in the presence of Mahinda. Since I had been appointed the SLFP organizer for Galagedera, the former organizer Samarakoon had planned to disrupt the meeting. But he was foiled because of the large numbers that turned up. His tactics of spreading rumours of an impending cross over by me were exposed. Mahinda wanted me to join him in his ritualistic visit to Asgiriya and Malwatte where he received a good reception. He left for Colombo satisfied and telling his entourage that “With Sarath there we will have no problems in Kandy”.

Anura however continued to boycott MR’s meetings – a “lapse” that was highlighted by the media. “But Mr. Anura Bandaranaike, back home after a long absence…. was not present at the Wariyapola rally and one report said he had pleaded that his helicopter could not fly because of the weather. Bandaranaike still has visions of the Prime Ministry and he is on record saying that was the decision of the SLFP Central Committee that must be honoured. “But the candidate will obviously expect his running mate to show up at the campaign, not poke him in the ribs in sundry interviews and throw his literally considerable weight in winning the election if he wishes to partake of the subsequent plums” [Sunday Island 16 October 2005].

Budget 2006

In the meanwhile we were getting ready to present the Budget for 2006. Th UNP was naturally perturbed about an “election budget” and wanted it postponed till the election was over. But we decided to go ahead because there was no precedent for postponing the next year’s Budget. Nor were we willing to forgo a good opportunity in the context of a tight contest. It was Mangala who was overlooking this aspect and also directing MR’s publicity campaign. At the same time he and his inner council were planning a sensational coup for election day which ultimately snatched victory away from Ranil and gave MR the Presidency by the narrowest of margins.

The theme of our Budget proposals was bridging the gap between the “haves” and “have nots”. At the same time I emphasized the need to coordinate state efforts with a dynamic private sector which was the path to improve on our 5.5 percent GDP growth which marked 2005. While delivering the Budget speech Mangala and MR sent notes across the table asking me to reduce the price of fertilizer from Rs. 500 a cwt to Rs. 300. It was not possible to oblige them because the figures of the budget would then have to be revised drastically. So I refused their request but “ad libbed” that I would review these prices during the course of the year if the economy grew as we anticipated.

That seemed to satisfy MR and Mangala because they praised the Budget. The previous year MR had called my Budget “the best since NM’s Budget” which appeared to be a double edged compliment since my effort, unlike NM’s, was to stimulate the private sector overlooking the usual leftist nostrums about socialism.

Election Results

The Presidential election which was called on 7th September 7, 2005 was held on November 17 that year. 9,826,908 votes were cast and Mahinda Rajapaksa won by a narrow majority:

Rajapaksa; 4,887,152 votes [50.2 percent]

Wickremesinghe; 4,706,366 votes [48.3 percent]

Rajapaksa barely cleared the 50 percent minimum which was necessary if this verdict was to be upheld. If not a run off would have resulted with Ranil winning on the second count. A statistical analysis of the results showed that there was a polarization between the votes cast for MR and those of RW on the basis of majority and minority ethnic groupings. While the Sinhala Buddhist electorates tended to give a majority to MR, electorates dominated by Muslims and estate Tamils as well as electorates which had a significant minority representation went to RW. The inevitable conclusion was that the majority of Sinhala voters did not approve of the “peace pact” assiduously sponsored by RW.

MR emerged as the representative of core Sinhala-Buddhist interests which had not been the case with CBK in 1994 and 1999. Since the LTTE had called for a boycott of the election many votes in the North and East which would have gone to Ranil were lost to him. Of the core Tamil electorates of Kilinochchi, Point Pedro and Chavakachcheri which polled 18 percent of the registered voters in the 1999 election, only 01 percent went to the polls in 2005 clearly indicating that the LTTE sponsored boycott was working.

Deal with LTTE

It was common knowledge among political commentators, and later alleged by Ranil himself, that the MR camp had struck a deal with the LTTE to prevent Tamil voters from exercising their franchise. The “brokers” of the deal were reputed to be Mangala and his protege Tiran Alles. Both were greeted with hugs by M R when they came to Temple Trees to announce their victory Ironically their negotiations with the representatives of the LTTE were based on the financial estimates for development in the North and East which had been prepared for the implementation of P-TOMS.

Another irony was that several Colombo Tamil lawyers who claimed to have access to the LTTE had assured that the northern vote would be delivered to Ranil. “Thus till it was all over the UNP strategists were expecting the Tamils to vote “en masse” for their candidate. The boycott came as rude shock to them. Ranil had lost both the hard core Sinhala Buddhist vote as well as the pro LTTE Tamil vote thereby snatching defeat again from the jaws of victory.

Cabinet

With the formal announcement of MR’s victory by the Elections Commissioner attention was shifted to Cabinet making. A few days after the announcement CBK called for a meeting in President’s House. We all assembled for dinner and the talk turned to the hostility between the newly elected President and his predecessor. I took MR to CBK’s circle and asked her to give him her blessings since we all wanted a SLFP victory which MR had delivered. CBK was quite cold to that idea and we left without much success.

All attention was focused on the Premiership. It was clear that MR’s advisors had decided that Anura should not be given that post as he had not pulled his weight during the election campaign. In fact he had not even attended the dinner party organized by CBK to felicitate the President elect. We were wondering whether Mangala would be able to convince MR to forgive and forget. On the way out after dinner Mangala asked me what portfolio I would like. I replied that my preference was for the Tourism Ministry since I had dealt with the subject as a public servant.

Early the following morning I got a call to see MR in Temple Trees. I went upstairs to find the President and Amarasiri Dodangoda in earnest conversation. He told me that he was appointing me the Minister of Public Administration and Home Affairs which was then held by Dodangoda. He told Dodan that since he was not in the best of health he would be made Minister of Justice so that he could take it easy – a diagnosis which was not to Dodan’s liking since he soon began sulking.

Later in the day the new Cabinet was sworn in with Ratnasiri Wickremanayake as Prime Minister. Mangala told me that Anura was to be the Minister of Public Administration and I, as requested by me the night before, was to become the Minister for Tourism. But Anura had come late at night to Temple Trees and asked for the Tourism portfolio as he wanted to travel overseas. Thus our portfolios were switched and the more senior position was fortuitously assigned to me. The new President retained the portfolio of Finance with PB Jayasundera as his Secretary.

I was happy to be assigned the portfolio of Public Administration as I had served there as a senior Assistant Secretary under Felix Bandaranaike. In fact a few months earlier I had delivered the Felix Bandaranaike memorial oration at the request of Mrs. Lakshmi Bandaranaike and my former boss Baku Mahadeva. It was a senior position in the Cabinet which was once held by Ratnasiri Wickremanayake before he became Prime Minister. The JVP and JHU which played an important role in the election opted not to accept portfolios but they were cultivated by the new President who could always sense trouble before it erupted.

This JVP combine had over 30 members of Parliament who could determine the fate of the MR government. Their main reason to remain in the government group was to ensure that there would be no attempt to end the war through negotiations.

(This volume is available at the Vijitha Yapa Bookshop)

(Excerpted from vol. 3 of the Sarath Amunugama autobiography)