Wednesday 25th September, 2024

The UNP has announced that its leader and former President Ranil Wickremesinghe will not contest the next parliamentary election; nor will he return to Parliament via the National List (NL). It has also said it will contest future elections under its Elephant symbol and invited the SJB to close ranks with it and form a new electoral alliance. The SJB has rejected the UNP’s invitation out of hand.

Ranil is known for his lateral thinking and unpredictable moves, and therefore it is not possible to guess what is up his sleeve. After suffering a humiliating defeat at the last parliamentary election, he said he would not enter Parliament, but a few months later he became an NL MP and went on to secure the premiership and the presidency.

Ranil, one of the most experienced and knowledgeable political leaders around, took over the reins of government in 2022 while the country was in flames and teetering on the brink of anarchy. No other leader dared come forward to do so in spite of repeated appeals from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Ranil skillfully navigated the ship of state between Scylla and Charybdis. He had the courage to make quite a few unpopular decisions, which helped resuscitate the economy and bring order out of chaos. It is doubtful whether any other leader would have done what he intrepidly did on the economic front despite the huge political costs his bold actions entailed. Some measures that the government adopted under his leadership were hurtful to the public, but there was no way they could be avoided, given the sorry state of the economy and IMF bailout conditions. True, Ranil did not act out of altruism; he had a political agenda, but what he did helped manage the economic crisis and prevent the country’s descent into anarchy.

Perhaps, what caused Ranil’s failure on the political front, as the President, was the arrogance of power, which he did not care to overcome like most other political leaders including Mahinda Rajapaksa. He was seen to be a defender of the corrupt. He refused to take action against Keheliya Rambukwella over several procurement scams in the Health Ministry during the latter’s tenure as the Health Minister. When it became too embarrassing for the government to go on defending Rambukwella, he was thrown to the wolves, but by then public opinion had turned irreversibly against the government and President Wickremesinghe. Rambukwella should have been sacked from the Cabinet when the mega rackets such as the procurement of fake immunoglobulin came to light.

President Wickremesinghe also protected the crooked cricket administrators in spite of a unanimous parliamentary resolution calling for their resignations. He incurred much public opprobrium as a result. He berated the judiciary while speaking in Parliament, and contemptuously defied a Supreme Court (SC) order that funds be granted to the Election Commission for conducting the local government elections, which he arbitrarily put off. He refused to carry out another SC order that IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon be suspended and an Acting IGP appointed. Perhaps, it was the on-arrival visa racket that sealed his fate; no action was taken against the masterminds behind that multi-billion-dollar scam. Unless new President Anura Kumara Dissanayake ensures that the visa racketeers are brought to justice forthwith in keeping with his solemn pledge to eliminate corruption, he too will be in serious trouble.

President Wickremesinghe undermined virtually all institutions, especially the judiciary, the legislature and the public service. Given the manner in which he behaved as an unelected President, it was only natural that the people became wary of electing him to the most powerful position in the country.

It was also a big mistake for Ranil to form an alliance with the SLPP dissidents with serious allegations against them. Maybe he was left without an alternative, but his dependence on those unpopular characters also became his undoing. Some of them have earned notoriety for drug dealing, extortion and chain snatching. The SLPP defectors who closed ranks with the UNP have fallen between Mahinda’s sataka and Ranil’s coattails! They have become a bunch of political refugees. The public must be deriving some perverse pleasure from their predicament.

Most political leaders in this country do not care to exercise power cautiously, minding public opinion and rectifying their mistakes. Ranil failed to be different and his good work on the economic front did not help him improve his chances in Saturday’s presidential race, which he could have won if he had learnt from his mistakes and mended his ways.

Tuesday 24th September, 2024

JVP/NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake (AKD) was sworn in as the ninth Executive President of Sri Lanka yesterday. His ascension to the highest position in the land marks a turning point in Sri Lanka’s political history.

President AKD, in his inaugural address to the nation, made a solemn pledge to uphold and safeguard democracy. The irony of the image/footage of President AKD’s inaugural address may not have been lost on political observers. In the late 1980s, AKD and other young JVP members may have had the members of the armed forces running menacingly behind them, but on Monday, the Commanders of the Security Forces stood steadfastly behind him.

The JVP, which came into being as a revolutionary outfit with the goal of wresting control of the state through extra-parliamentary means, has secured the executive presidency democratically. This is a feat other Marxist parties could not achieve in this country despite their entry into mainstream politics; perhaps, they failed because they refused to deep-six their socialist ideals. Nevertheless, the JVP’s evolution is good for the country’s democratic wellbeing.

Some defeated presidential candidates’ propagandists are peddling an argument aimed at taking the gloss off AKD’s victory. They are highlighting the fact that AKD secured only 42% of the valid votes and a count of preferential votes had to be taken. This argument is seriously flawed. AKD won in a constitutionally prescribed manner. It may be recalled that in 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the US presidential race, but Donald Trump became the President thanks to the Electoral College mechanism, which not even Albert Einstein could understand, as the genius famously said in answer to a question on the American electoral system. In this country, the UNP has claimed that in the 1970 general election, it polled more votes than the SLFP-led United Front alliance, which won a two-thirds majority in Parliament. So, the fact that the winner of the executive presidency fails to secure more than 50% of votes does not affect the legitimacy of his or her victory, at all.

There are signs of the sobering reality dawning on President AKD. He is now like an overbearing backseat driver facing the task of navigating a wheeled leviathan. As an Opposition firebrand, he became popular by speaking, and the only way he can retain his popularity as the President is to translate his words into action. Thanking his immediate predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, who ensured a smooth transfer of power, President AKD said on Monday: “We have deeply understood that we are taking over a very challenging country. There is the need for creating a favourable political culture in the country, which the public expect from us. We’re ready to commit for that ….”

With the burden of responsibility written all over his face, President AKD struck a conciliatory note: “I also expect the support of each and every citizen for ending the crisis. But I will always assure the public that I, as the President, carry out my responsibility with commitment … I know we need international support.” He also sought to infuse the business community with confidence vis-à-vis his political rivals’ claim that the election of a Marxist president will spell doom for capitalist enterprises. He said, “We also expect the much-needed support of the industrialists and the entrepreneurs of the country.”

Speaking about those who had not voted for him, President AKD said he would work towards winning them over. That, no doubt, is the way to set about the task of enlisting popular support for resolving the present economic crisis. But he will not be able to please everyone, and, in fact, he should not try to do so. Making a serious effort to achieve greater good will do. Before trying to win over those who did not support him, he may have to manage the group dynamics of the NPP, which consists of some disparate forces with competing interests and agendas. He is likely to find himself in a situation where he has to reconcile different political and ideological views and beliefs, which are bound to clash with a pragmatic approach to governance in keeping with democratic principles. Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike had to do so in the 1970s but without much success; the socialist constituents of her United Front (UF) coalition voted with their feet. Above all, the JVP, which campaigned for the UF and helped it win the 1970 general election, took up arms against the UF government in 1971. President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga also faced a situation similar to what her mother, Sirimavo, had to contend with in the mid-1970s. In 2005, the JVP, which had 39 MPs in the Kumaratunga government, pulled out in protest against a plan to share tsunami relief with the LTTE. That administration however survived the crippling split.

Meanwhile, many dyed-in-the-wool JVP/NPP members who are active in the digital space, which they pollute with venom and abuse, are now baying for the blood of some efficient and upright officials in key positions in the public service; they are calling for a witch-hunt or a purge. If their wishes were granted, this country would surely end up being another North Korea. Such aggressive characters will inflict irreparable damage on the JVP/NPP government in the making, and alienate the public.

Monday 23rd September, 2024

Sri Lankans spoke on Saturday, and it took the system a while to figure out what they had said. NPP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake was finally declared President on Sunday night after a preferential vote count, which was a novel experience.

The wave of popular support Dissanayake claimed to be riding was not as huge as it was made out to be; however, its outcome was quite impressive, especially for a person who could obtain only 418,553 votes (3.16%) in the 2019 presidential race. On Saturday, Dissanayake polled as many as 5740179 votes, inclusive of preferential votes.

The NPP leader benefited from a huge protest vote against the mainstream parties that had been in power and their offshoots. A split in the ITAK’s block vote owing to the participation of Pakkiyaselvam Ariyanenthiran, described as the common Tamil presidential candidate, in Saturday’s presidential race, stood Dissanayake in good stead; it apparently dampened the Tamil voters’ enthusiasm to some extent, as evident from a drop in the voter turnout in some parts of the North and the East, where the ITAK backed SJB presidential candidate Sajith Premadasa.

Dissanayake has done for the JVP what its slain leader Rohana Wijeweera failed to do in 1982. However, he won the presidency by dissociating himself from the JVP’s core Marxist ideology. The JVP/NPP succeeded in reimaging and repackaging Dissanayake with special emphasis on sartorial and tonsorial elegance. But a snap general election is expected soon, and the question is whether the JVP/NPP will be able to make all its candidates similarly appealing to the public. Dissanayake will have to obtain at least a working majority in Parliament to implement his pledges and retain popular support.

The SLPP-UNP regime, which survived an attempt to behead it in 2022, like Miracle Mike, the headless chicken, has suffered the coup de grace at the hands of the JVP/NPP, so to speak. Now that there has been a clean break from the former dispensation, Dissanayake will have to make good on his promises. The people have a long wish list, but they may not be so unfair as to demand that all promised relief be granted forthwith, but there are pledges they expect him to honour fast, action against the corrupt being a case in point.

Parliament is expected to be dissolved shortly. It is hoped that the NPP will not make the same mistakes as the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government, which resorted to ill-conceived measures such as haphazard tax cuts in a bid to win the 2020 general election. President Dissanayake will have to tread cautiously.

The people have given Dissanayake a passing grade, and if he is desirous of bettering it and consolidating his electoral grains, he will have to live up to the people’s expectations, which are extremely high. Otherwise, his political rivals may pull a surprise on him come the next presidential election, or the very people who voted for him on Saturday might take to the streets, the way they did in 2022 against Gotabaya.

President Wickremesinghe would have been able to win Saturday’s contest hands down if he had not ruined things for himself politically. He misused his executive powers to defend the corrupt Sri Lanka Cricket officials despite a unanimous parliamentary resolution calling for their removal. He even undermined the judiciary on several occasions. First, he defied a Supreme Court (SC) order pertaining to the allocation of funds for the Local Government elections in 2023, and then he ignored an SC directive that IGP Deshabandu Tennakoon be suspended and an Acting IGP appointed. It is only natural that the people were wary of giving him a mandate.

Interestingly, in some areas, SJB candidate Sajith Premadasa and President Wickremesinghe, between them, polled more votes than Dissanayake. But they apparently thought that united they would fall and divided they could stand; Dissanayake benefited from their enmity.

The SLPP, which secured the presidency and mustered a two-thirds majority in Parliament in 2019 and 2020 respectively, has been reduced to a mere 342,781 votes (2.57%). Namal Rajapaksa lost ignominiously in the districts organised by his father and uncles for the party––Kurunegala, Hambantota and Gampaha.

It is heartening that the presidential election ended without any incidents of violence or serious malpractices. Democracy has triumphed, and praise should go to all candidates and their parties and independent groups, the Election Commission, the police, the armed forces, polls monitors, public officials and the public.

Let all political parties and their leaders be urged to take cognisance of the poor state of the economy and cooperate to steer the country out of the present crisis.