By Kassapa
A familiar theme from President Ranil Wickremesinghe when he hits the campaign trail now has been to suggest that his erstwhile deputy Sajith Premadasa is in third position in the presidential stakes and will lose out on even becoming the Leader of the Opposition to the Jathika Jana Balavegaya (JJB)’s Anura Kumara Dissanayake. Wickremesinghe, of course, pretends that he will win the election!
He has begun addressing Dissanayake as “my friend Anura”, attempting to imply that there is some kind of nexus between them. If riling the opposition was his intent, he has succeeded. Premadasa and others in the Samagi Jana Balavegaya (SJB) are accusing Wickremesinghe and Dissanayake of having a ‘deal’. For his part, Dissanayake has been compelled to refute this claim in remarks to the media.
Wickremesinghe’s tactic of belittling Premadasa begs the question, why? One does not have to be a political analyst to gauge that Wickremesinghe lies a distant third, only ahead of an even more distant fourth in Namal Rajapaksa, in the race for the Presidency right now.
With only a few days to go for the vote, there isn’t sufficient time for Wickremesinghe to beat Premadasa or Dissanayake who appears to be the frontrunner at this time. What does he then gain from trying to push Premadasa into third place? A look at their past may provide an answer.
Wickremesinghe and Premadasa went their separate ways not because of any difference in ideology or political principle. They parted because, firstly Wickremesinghe was not marketable to the electorate in the aftermath of Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s election victory in 2019. Secondly, despite this handicap, Wickremesinghe did not wish to hand over the reins of the United National Party (UNP) to Premadasa.
Frustrated, Premadasa formed the SJB taking the bulk of the UNP with him except a handful who remained steadfastly loyal to Wickremesinghe. It was a decision that was vindicated at the 2020 general election: the SJB won fifty-four seats to the UNP’s solitary seat- and that too on the National List.
It was accident rather than design that parachuted Wickremesinghe to the Presidency. He happened to be in Parliament when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in crisis and accepted the Premiership. He then happened to be in the Prime Ministerial chair when Rajapaksa resigned. Despite Wickremesinghe’s boasts that Premadasa “ran away” when the country was in crisis, it was the Rajapaksas who engineered Wickremesinghe’s election as President by Parliament, to ensure their political safety.
Once ensconced in power, if Wickremesinghe had some degree of political foresight, he would have deduced that the Rajapaksas would dump him when the occasion demanded it and could have wooed the SJB, instead of cosying up to the political riff-raff from the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).
Now, Wickremesinghe find himself in an unenviable position: his UNP is still in shambles because his minions have neglected to resurrect it after the 2020 debacle. The official arm of the SLPP has deserted him. The planned defections from the SJB haven’t materialised save for the opportunistic cross-overs of Rajitha Senaratne and Thalatha Atukorale for which they could both pay a price at the next general election. Orphaned politically, Wickremesinghe is setting his sights on the long term.
If Premadasa does win the presidential election, that will be the end of Wickremesinghe’s political career. Even the UNP inviting Premadasa back is a possibility because the alternative is to self-destruct, while Premadasa flourishes as SJB leader and President- but of course, Premadasa winning the poll is a very big ‘if’.
On the other hand, if Dissanayake does win the election, it could also signal the end of Premadasa’s political life. There is no doubt that most SJB MPs will revert to the UNP and seek refuge there, hoping that the Grand Old Party will somehow reinvent itself and become the principal opposition party with the prospect of gaining power in five years at a time when the SLPP is split three-ways and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) is at death’s door.
Therefore, it is in Wickremesinghe’s sole, selfish interest for Premadasa to lose the presidential election. Then, Wickremesinghe can renew his call to SJB members to return to the UNP and prepare for 2029. If his past record is anything to go by, Wickremesinghe, who would be eighty years of age when the 2029 presidential election is held, may well want to contest instead of offering the chance to a younger candidate.
This is why Wickremesinghe is keen to promote Dissanayake over Premadasa. He operates on the principle that his worst enemy’s enemy is his friend, hence Dissanayake is ‘my friend Anura’. The bitter reality that UNPers- who are still in the party or even those who defected to the SJB- must realise is that Wickremesinghe would rather see Dissanayake as President than Premadasa.
The beneficiary of this internecine rivalry between Wickremesinghe and Premadasa is Anura Kumara Dissanayake and rightly so. The country is about to see a presidential election like no other where three ‘main’ contenders are in the fray and the winner may have to await the count of preference votes. If Dissanayake does win, it will be a watershed moment for the nation because a truly ‘common’ man- more so than Bandaranaike in 1956, Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1989 and Maithripala Sirisena in 2015- will be at the helm. Again, there is an ‘if’ as a caveat to that sentence as many an attempt could be made to thwart Dissanayake.
At seventy-five years of age and having reached the Presidency at last- albeit unelected- many would hope Wickremesinghe would have satiated his hunger for power. His conduct during the election campaign suggests that this is not the case. He would argue that he has miles to go and promises to keep: become elected President, restore the UNP to its former glory and then, ensure that its leadership passes on to someone of his choice- all of which are tasks J.R. Jayewardene achieved.
Instead, Wickremesinghe should count himself lucky if, after September 21, he is allowed to retire gracefully without having to spend his time in courts answering various allegations like his two immediate predecessors had to.
