Is Ranil Wickremesinghe the messiah that people wanted?

Can he deliver the change the people were yearning for?

So far, no one has been able to come up with a proper evaluation of Wickremesinghe’s performances.

While some will no doubt say that Wickremesinghe has accomplished a lot for the good of the people others will dispute it with a vengeance, 
calling him nothing more than an agent of the capitalist class. 

Of course, Wickremesinghe and his party trod a centre-right path, to the chagrin of many left-oriented politicians.

 Then what have the Galle Face strugglers asked for? The younger generation has asked for a system change. A change for the better. For equality and equal opportunities and protection under the law. The existing system is corrupt and riddled with nepotism and cronyism.

Whether it is the United National Party, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party or any other party, all are joining the political fray with selfish motives to exploit the unsuspecting elector and to exult. The political system which has been in existence for over seven decades is facing new challenges. The thinking of the people, especially the youth, has undergone drastic mutations with the influence of modern trends and their trepidation to become vassals of a stagnating outdated system is quite evident. The recent demonstrations are symbolic of the new changes the younger generation is longing for in a shorter space of time. They have rejected the arrogation of power centred around an individual.

More than ever before, people are educated and conscious of their rights.  Their global exposure has given rise to seeking a new social order.

Hence it is incumbent upon the President and parliament to realise where we stand and the direction in which the country should be steered parallel with much needed economic and social recovery.   They must cast aside their insular mindset.

People are more politically astute and oppression by no means helps reap the desired results but will harden resolve.   It will lead to stagnation, socially and economically.

The most crucial aspect of economic recovery is to achieve fiscal discipline by upholding the rule of law without fear or favour.

Given the current political climate, it is an arduous task for the government and country to come out of the scourge of corruption.

The resentment of the masses is on the rise by the day. It has reached unprecedented heights as the economic crisis engulfs the country.

Most political parties want Wickremsinghe to dissolve parliament, seek a fresh mandate and reintroduce the now defunct 19th amendment to the constitution which was repealed and replaced by the 20th amendment. Many political entities have said that the proposed 22nd amendment is a faint shadow of the 19th amendment.

Getting the presidency was Wickremesinghe’s crowing moment. It was a job which had eluded him for years and now that he is well ensconced in it, he will want to complete what his deposed predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa started. Wickremesinghe will make noises about reinstating the 19th amendment but he will not be believed by the people who have now become as savvy about his political manoeuvring as he is to politics.

Nevertheless, Wickremesinghe is a political Phoenix who is well known for his opportunism and it will be curious to see how he will move the icons on the political chess board.

 Known to be a shrewd politician, Wickremesinghe keeps his cards close to his chest. One political analyst pointed out that Wickremesinghe was the beneficiary of the mass protest or the Argalaya which did not have a proper leadership to channel the resentment of the masses to achieve the desired goal.  Tamil National Alliance parliamentarian MA Sumanthiran put this in the well of the House aptly.

One of Wickremesinghe’s first presidential decrees was to declare a state of emergency. It prompted a baffled Sumanthiran to point out that Wickremesinghe had after all become President because of the Aragalaya or struggle. ‘Everybody who says we must abide by the constitution has formed a government and is seated here. You have benefited from the protest. You have set up the government on the back of the protests. After forming the government, you say all this is illegal? Then all that happened was also illegal and occupying the post is also illegal’, he charged.

 Speaking during the debate to extend the state of emergency, Sumanthiran said that the emergency laws that were promulgated will suppress the fundamental rights to engage in peaceful protests against the anti-social acts of the government. Many parliamentarians referred to the military thrust launched by the government to liberate the Presidential Secretariat from the clutches of the protestors, as unwarranted.

 In the wee hours of the day in question, a contingent of security personnel and a group of men in military fatigues stormed the Presidential Secretariat. People allege they belonged to a private security outfit run by a fraudster with close links to the Rajapaksa government. This operation brought Sri Lanka close to a diplomatic stand-off with several overseas missions that promptly condemned the military action of cracking down on unarmed civilians.

The United States Ambassador Julie Chung met with President Wickremesinghe to tell him all that it was unnecessary. She had said that Sri Lankan forces should have refrained from using force on unarmed civilians at the Presidential Secretariat. She said this was not the time to act harshly.

Julie Chung and Ranil Wickremesinghe met on Wednesday for the second round of talks, where Ambassador Chung pledged to cooperate with Sri Lanka for a better future.

The relations between the two had a jerky beginning as Ambassador Chung tweeted about how Wickremesinghe handled the protesters.

 The tweets put Wickremesinghe in a defensive position and prompted a hurriedly convened meeting with Colombo’s diplomats to enunciate his stand concerning the protests. He told them to check facts before tweeting and not to rely on social media posts alone.

 During the meeting Wickremesinghe reaffirmed the commitment to uphold the right to peaceful, non-violent assembly. However, he said the protesters had acted contrary to the norms, blatantly violating the sanctity of State institutions, including government offices, the Presidential Secretariat and others. He pointed out that even in the US, there are norms regarding protests, as stated by the American Civil Liberties Union. The protesters are not permitted to “block government buildings and interfere with other purposes for which the property had been designed.

 In her tweet following the second meeting, Chung noted that Wickremesinghe has taken office “at a time when Sri Lanka stands at a crossroads.” She interestingly elaborated on the discussion of how the two countries could work together to navigate toward a brighter future. Nevertheless, a meticulously designed operation against unarmed and peaceful protesters caused havoc.

Many of these protesters are now in police custody after being apprehended by the Colombo Crime Division.

Dhanish Ali from Kurunegala, who stormed into the studio of the State TV, the Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation, to tell them to give priority to the Aragalaya news  eventually ended up in police custody after he was arrested while trying to leave the country on a Dubai bound flight. Passengers on the plane protested about his arrest. Aragalaya activists now say that Dhanish Ali was not a part of them. They also discovered his connections to the Rajapksa family and called his act of storming the TV station associated with terrorism. Police also arrested another frontliner of the Aragalaya Pathum Kerner and remanded him till August 3 after producing him before a Magistrate.

 During the parliamentary debate on the emergency, MP Kumara Welgama told parliament how a gang of about two to three hundred youth came on motorcycles, surrounded his vehicle and attacked him close to the Kottawa entrance of the Southern highway.  He said he had a narrow escape and faced this attack because he is a Parliamentarian.   ” I pity the youth who assaulted me and burnt my vehicle. I ended up in hospital with severe injuries. I must tell the Opposition Leader and this House that there is an organised movement behind these attacks, and I want to inform the opposition leader that they talk to you not to put you in the saddle.

 He cautioned everyone of an emerging situation which needs handling with dexterity.Welgama thanked the medical staff and Wickremesinghe, for visiting him in the hospital.

 All these events unfolded against the backdrop of the weak leadership of the Rajapaksa administration. It inevitably paved the way for Ranil Wickremesinghe to bid his claim for the top slot in the government.

 Wickremesinghe was not welcomed by many, maybe because of his inability to relate to people and his problem with his attitude.  Nevertheless, his fortuitous rise gave the political opponents and the electorate a precipitously difficult option to come to grips with in the new normalcy.

The meteoric ascent of Wickremesinghe to the high post is a rare case of a solitary parliamentarian with no party backing reaching the top owing to calamitous political circumstances.

 It is also a severe indictment on the Rajapaksa government where they could not forge ahead without Wickremesinghe.

Maybe they could not find a suitable and more acceptable person to replace Mahinda Rajapaksa after the May 9 fiasco which led to Rajapaksa’s immediate resignation.

 The leftist political elements also attempted to harness the momentum of the people in their favour to achieve their political ends, but they could not go beyond a certain point. It showed clearly that Sri Lankan electors are still reluctant to form a government outside the democratic process.

 Storming a presidential palace or the palace of the king is unique. It is phenomenal and with catastrophic proportions unheard of in the long history of Sri Lanka. The administrator of the USAID Samantha Power, addressing an event in New Delhi, said that the headwinds against democratic rule are strong the world over. She was referring to the US and India and the 2021 storming of the Capitol building by the rioters following the defeat of former US President Donald Trump. The events bear many similarities to the Sri Lankan situation except that Wickremesinghe was not elected to parliament and is president by default.

 Is it at our doorstep in a different garb altogether?

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