Right of Reply – ‘Ranil’s Return’

UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe

The return of Ranil (RW) has created an unnecessary media blitz of imagined relevance. Some in the media have attempted to create a tardigrade (a micro-animal thought to be indestructible) like figure out of the hollow shell that is the former Prime Minister. 

I have sung his praises when he has deserved it and I have noted his strengths and accomplishments. However when one overstays their welcome by over a decade, whatever accomplishments there were, become diluted to the point of insignificance. 

The speech in Parliament is being lauded by the media. I have been alive long enough to recall the oratory skills of Colvin R. De Silva, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and Vivienne Goonewardene. RW is nowhere near this level though the media tries desperately to create an illusion of statesmanship. 

RW represents more of a scarecrow than a tardigrade. There was a time when the elites of Colombo thought of him as a visionary leader, a man of integrity. Someone that will put the country before his party and the party before himself. Neither could be further from the truth. His record of broken terms in high-office speaks volumes. 

The manner of RW’s return, through the back door without anything resembling a popular mandate, is a microcosm of his political career. The media seems to be more interested than the public, ‘manufacturing relevance’ where there is none.

The Editorial titled ‘Ranil’s Return’ published in Daily FT on 22 June states he must make a “positive and constructive contribution to discourse”. There is nothing in recent history to suggest that RW has anything new to add. His rambling speech in Parliament served as a reminder that this is a politician with literally zero charisma. As someone that ‘inherited’ power, he seems to believe that his seat in Parliament is a birth-right. There is also reference to the UNP’s traditional moderate voter base. What is this UNP base? As far as I can tell whatever base that existed has moved towards the SJB as per the last election.

He returns to his ‘entitlement’ either in complete ignorance or indifference to the simple fact that the electorate not only rejected him, but his entire party and by extension, his stewardship of the country. ‘Yahapalanaya’ is little more than part of a punch-line of an over-used joke. 

‘Ranil’s Return’ continues to state that “it is widely accepted that the SJB has been a dismal failure,” however I am not so sure about this, there is little data. The present Government is under pressure, the Opposition must play have played some part in this, surely. 

Even if the thesis holds and the Opposition is inadequate, nothing in RW’s past suggests he has anything new to offer in this situation. There is also a line in this article which suggests that Sajith has failed to “capture the imagination”. None of the recent electoral victories have come due to a candidate ‘capturing the imagination’. There are currently no personalities in our politics that transcend their immediate base. Our current Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa is the only politician that has come close to exceeding those boundaries. 

The charge that Sajith Premadasa (SP) is too nationalistic is very interesting to me especially considering the counter charge against Ranil throughout his career; that he was not nationalistic enough. My personal belief is that the emerging new electorate is far more cynical than we realise. Modern elections are more about the lesser of two evils than of positive voting FOR a candidate or movement. Will minorities flock to the SLPP because SP is too nationalist? It seems a bizarre contention to make. 

At this stage we must consider what the Yahapalanaya regime tried to accomplish with regard to the ‘National Question’. We must also remind ourselves that this project was driven by RW and I contend that it was his unabashed acquiescence to the UNHRC and ‘internationalism’ that drove a wedge between the factions of Yahapalanaya and led to its demise. 

I refer to an article by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka from 2015 (http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/44576) where he clearly sets out that RW was either confused or deliberately disingenuous. RW stated time and again that his plan was to implement the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution whilst preserving the ‘unitary nature’ of the state. Dr. Dayan quotes RW as trying to establish an Austrian model of devolution by giving the provinces primacy on some matters over the Parliament and reminds us that Austria is “an explicitly, unambiguously Federal State”. RW clearly had little understanding of how deeply unpopular the idea of a Federal System was, and still is, with the masses. 

Further still, it is quite alarming that after multiple decades in politics, RW has no appreciation of the effects on the national psyche of the existence of a “huge landmass with 70-80 million co-ethnics” a mere 19 miles away from our Northern frontier. Dr. Dayan concludes “converting to the perennially pro-Western, pro Indian doctrine of the Federal Party, the regime has crucified the island on the Indo-US axis”.

Perhaps what the writer of ‘Ranil’s Return’ is trying to establish is that the SJB needs the UNP to become a greater electoral force, yet this is nothing to do with RW who, given his last vote tally, is an electoral liability of epic proportions. 

I hope SP understands the intricacies of “devolution of power” in the current context given the Easter attacks and the Arabisation of the Eastern Province. Perhaps the SJB could once and for all denounce a federal state as a viable solution to the national question as a means of exorcising the demon of Western internationalism that so taints the UNP. 

Thus far, I personally have seen nothing from SP that would isolate moderates. I would bet that any coalition with RW would contain the unmistakable stench of the bond scam and of the fugitive Arjuna Mahendran, a close friend of RW. 

If, as some analysts think, the TNA joins a Ranil coalition, that party too will have the same fate as the UNP and SLFP; disintegration into the fringes. 

Ultimately, this article only adds to the ‘hype’ surrounding ‘Ranil’s Return,’ but it seemed necessary to combat the media’s delusion of Ranil’s grandeur.

(The writer can be reached via [email protected])