We do not wish to argue the merits or otherwise of Mudalige’s deeds in these columns. However, we do firmly believe that, if indeed Mudalige has transgressed his boundaries and committed any criminal or violent acts, the country’s criminal laws are more than adequate to deal with him. To use the PTA shows scant disregard for human rights and decency and betrays an arrogance of power, the same arrogance of power that brought Gotabaya Rajapaksa crashing down to earth.”
Ranil Wickremesinghe may have been Prime Minister of Sri Lanka six time before but this is the first time we are seeing him as Executive President.
In all his stints as Prime Minister, he never wielded complete authority- an all-powerful President was above him. With the exception of his first stint as Prime Minister under Dingiri Banda Wijetunge, he was also always under a President from a different political party, be it Chandrika Kumaratunga, Maithripala Sirisena or Gotabaya Rajapaksa. His relationships with Kumaratunga and Sirisena were acrimonious to say the least. With Rajapaksa, sufficient time didn’t pass to test that co-habitation.
Now, Wickremesinghe is seemingly in complete command, albeit relying again on a ‘rival’ party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) for support in Parliament, which is how he secured his position in the first instance. As a result, we are seeing a different version of Wickremesinghe and it consists of the good, the bad and the ugly.
Last week, Wickremesinghe visited Anuradhapura. There, he was seen mingling with the public and feeling quite at ease. He even stopped and made small talk with some and managed to do so without committing a blunder. In this aspect at least, he appears to have taken a leaf out of Mahinda Rajapaksa’s book.
That is a significant improvement because, historically, Wickremesinghe has been a public relations disaster, often making awkward gestures and uttering inappropriate and easily misconstrued statements when interacting with the masses. Whether this ‘relaxed’ Wickremesinghe will endure, we have to wait and see.
Then, we also saw the ‘bad’ side of Wickremesinghe. He continues to try and split the opposition for his own political gain, a trick he would have learnt from his uncle, J. R. Jayewardene, who successfully split the Sri Lanka Freedom Party into two factions. Wickremesinghe’s primary target is the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB). Insiders say he has not forgiven Sajith Premadasa for the ‘crime’ of breaking away from the United National Party (UNP) and forming the SJB. Hence, he is now planning revenge on Premadasa.
Of course, Wickremesinghe conveniently forgets that, time and again, he stymied and stalled Premadasa and didn’t step down even after innumerable election defeats. He also forgets that when Premadasa left the UNP to form the SJB, a vast majority of UNPers left with Premadasa because they had completely lost faith in Wickremesinghe- a decision vindicated by the 2020 general election results when the UNP was reduced to the rubble of a solitary National List seat.
Wickremesinghe’s attempt to poach parliamentarians, particularly from the SJB, is not only to form an ‘all-party’ government. It is also a thinly veiled attempt to destroy the SJB. Whether he will succeed or not depends on how resilient Premadasa is and how loyal his MPs are. For now, only two MPs, Harin Fernando and Manusha Nanayakkara have fallen prey but in the coming weeks the carrot of a Cabinet portfolio will be dangled to many more.
Then there is the ugly Wickremesinghe. That became evident last week, when he ordered the arrest of Wasantha Mudalige, the convenor of the Inter-University Student Federation (IUSF) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA).
We do not wish to argue the merits or otherwise of Mudalige’s deeds in these columns. However, we do firmly believe that, if indeed Mudalige has transgressed his boundaries and committed any criminal or violent acts, the country’s criminal laws are more than adequate to deal with him. To use the PTA shows scant disregard for human rights and decency and betrays an arrogance of power, the same arrogance of power that brought Gotabaya Rajapaksa crashing down to earth.
The PTA is a draconian piece of legislation that was perhaps necessary when the country was grappling with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The ghosts of the LTTE are long dead now and the government had already given an undertaking that, while it remained in statute books, it was not to be used lightly.
What is so unreasonable about the PTA is that persons could be detained without being produced in court for up to 72 hours in the first instance, then for 90 days, which can be further extended for up to eighteen months without the detainee having any recourse to the law.
What was also curious about the detention of Wasantha Mudalige was that, when the Police spokesman made an attempt to justify his arrest, he said the order was made by the ‘Ministry of Defence’. In fact, the order has to be made by the Minister of Defence who is none other than Ranil Wickremesinghe himself.
Is this Wickremesinghe’s modus operandi to send a chilling message to would be protestors, to convey to them that if you take up protests against him, you would be locked away and put out of circulation, without charges being levelled against you, for up to eighteen months?
Mudalige’s detention has already attracted a torrent of protests from the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Before Wickremesinghe signed the detention order, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders Mary Lawlor took the unusual step of publicly requesting him not to do so. Nevertheless, he did. Therefore, Wickremesinghe clearly values the message that Mudalige’s detention conveys to potential protestors much more than the criticism he received as a result of it.
The other ‘ugly’ aspect of Wickremesinghe’s rule so far is that, while he is pursuing and prosecuting those involved in the ‘aragalaya’ with great vengeance, those associated with the Rajapaksa family who have had many serious allegations of corruption and abuse of power made against them have suffered no consequences whatsoever. In fact, some of them may be rewarded with Cabinet portfolios soon. Had Wickremesinghe attempted to punish them too while pursuing the protestors, he could have justified his actions to some extent.
That however, is not Wickremesinghe’s style. That is why Ranil Wickremesinghe’s tenure as the eighth Executive President of Sri Lanka is likely to end like his six stints as Prime Minister: with many unfulfilled promises and as a total disaster.
