By Veeragathy Thanabalasingham, Courtesy The Morning

Former President Ranil Wickremesinghe (RW) has many ‘firsts’ in Sri Lanka’s political history. No other political leader has served as Leader of one of the country’s oldest political parties, the United National Party (UNP), for as long as Wickremesinghe. He has been the Leader of his party for more than three decades and was the longest-serving Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.

He is the only politician to have served as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister six times and was unlucky enough not to complete those terms even once.

Wickremesinghe is the first political leader in Sri Lanka to be elected as an executive president through a contested election in Parliament and he eventually became the first former President to be arrested and remanded on charges of abuse of power, allegedly having spent public funds for personal use after a political career of almost half a century.

He was accused of misusing State funds to pay for his and his entourage’s expenses during his two-day stay in London on his way back home from official visits to Cuba to attend the G77 Summit and to the US to attend the 78th annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2023. 

The former President was in London to attend a ceremony in which his wife Prof. Maithree Wickramasinghe was awarded an honorary professorship by a British university. It is reported that Prof. Wickramasinghe travelled to the UK with her own money. Wickremesinghe is accused of spending Rs. 16.6 million in State funds on his staff and security personnel during his stay in London.

The former President returned home on Friday, 29 August after a week in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the National Hospital of Sri Lanka (NHSL) in Colombo, where he had been treated for several serious diseases, including heart disease and diabetes, under the supervision of specialist doctors. 

It is not known whether the Government will allow Wickremesinghe to seek treatment abroad. It is noteworthy that the Attorney General did not request the court to impound the former President’s passport to ensure that he does not go abroad.

Opposition show of support

Wickremesinghe’s case will be heard again on 29 October. Since his fate will be decided by the court, it will amount to contempt of the Judiciary if we were to say anything more about it. Although the affair has become a purely legal issue since his arrest on charges of using State funds for personal benefit, it has created a great deal of furore in the political arena.

Politicians who have been very critical of Wickremesinghe in the past have also rallied to show their support and solidarity with him. Leaders of almost all Opposition parties held media conferences justifying his position and saying that one should not differentiate between the Head of State’s personal and official lives. Moreover, they describe the legal action against Wickremesinghe as political victimisation by the National People’s Power (NPP) Government.

While former President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga condemned the move against Wickremesinghe as a calculated assault on the country’s democratic values, another former President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, described the arrest as political revenge. 

Meanwhile, former President Maithripala Sirisena has called on Opposition parties to unite, forgetting party differences, to defeat the constitutional dictatorship being established by the NPP regime. Among the former Presidents, Gotabaya Rajapaksa is the only one who has not publicly commented on the issue. 

Int’l perspective

The Wickremesinghe affair has also sparked a debate about whether there can be a distinction between personal visits and official visits of presidents. Additional Solicitor General Dileepa Peiris informed the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s Court that Wickremesinghe had said there could be no such distinction.

Opposition parties have questioned whether President Anura Kumara Dissanayake uses his own vehicle without security personnel when he travels to Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)/NPP events and to visit his family members in Anuradhapura.

In response, Foreign Affairs Minister Vijitha Herath stated that the President’s travels within the country for personal needs, especially to visit his ailing mother, could never be compared to the former President going abroad. JVP General Secretary Tilvin Silva dared the Opposition to take the issue to court if it could.

Since Wickremesinghe is reportedly considered to be the most influential and respected current Sri Lankan political leader at the international level, there was a widespread expectation that the US and Western countries in particular would condemn the actions against him and pressure the Government to release him immediately. Nothing like that seems to have happened.

However, there is no doubt that these countries were watching the developments in Sri Lanka carefully. Among those who had publicly spoken on his behalf from abroad are Indian National Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Shashi Tharoor and former Norwegian peace envoy to Sri Lanka Erik Solheim. They both urged the NPP Government to release Wickremesinghe, saying he had not committed any serious crime.

When Foreign Minister Herath was asked whether there was pressure from the international community, including foreign embassies, regarding the arrest of the former President, he replied that no foreign diplomat or diplomatic organisations had made any remarks. He further said that the international community recognised that the rule of law in Sri Lanka had been applied equitably and honestly, unlike in the past.

Senior UNP leaders briefed various foreign embassies in Colombo on the circumstances that had led to the arrest of the former President and some international organisations had requested them to provide further details about the arrest, party sources said.

Attempts at mobilising support 

It is reported that after returning home from remand (the ICU of the NHSL) former President Wickremesinghe is now keen on forming a broader alliance against the Government by uniting the now-dissipated Opposition parties. The Opposition was hoping to use his arrest to mobilise people against the Government, but the emotional momentum of the voices that arose in his support now seems to have subsided.

It was reported that Wickremesinghe had planned to turn the UNP’s 79th annual convention, which was to have been held yesterday (6), into a major political event to showcase Opposition unity and to invite all former Presidents and Opposition politicians, including Opposition Leader Sajith Premadasa, to attend. It was also planned to shift the convention from the UNP Headquarters Sirikotha to a neutral venue in order to avoid discomfort to leaders of other parties.

In a complete departure from past tradition, this time on the occasion of the UNP’s anniversary, arrangements were to have been made to pay floral tributes to all the past leaders of Sri Lanka including former Prime Ministers S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Dr. N.M. Perera, and D.A. Rajapaksa.

However, at the last moment, considering Wickremesinghe’s health condition, it was announced that the convention had been postponed.

There is a widespread opinion that the Wickremesinghe episode is unlikely to unite Opposition parties and pose a major challenge to the Government. They do not have an acceptable leader with the political clout to lead them to form a broad alliance of Opposition parties. At the same time, an important question is whether Wickremesinghe has become a strong political factor that can help unite the Opposition parties after his arrest. 

Meanwhile, most of today’s Opposition politicians can easily be targeted by the Government for their past misdeeds. Therefore, they are talking about uniting and mobilising people in order to create an atmosphere whereby they can ensure that the Government is not inclined to take legal action against them. It is certainly not possible for such an approach to win the support of the people.

Govt. position 

At the same time, there is criticism that the NPP Government, which has failed to deliver on the promises it made to the people during last year’s national elections, is preoccupied with legal action against members of former regimes in order to divert attention from important issues. It is also believed that Wickremesinghe was taken into custody to check the pulse of the people before going after more popular and powerful political leaders.

Government leaders make declarations about action to be taken against corrupt politicians, showing that they do not heed the warnings of Opposition politicians who accuse the Government of pursuing political vendettas. The Inspector General of Police has said that investigations have commenced to identify those who mobilised protesters at the court premises in support of Wickremesinghe.

President Dissanayake reiterated the Government’s commitment to the implementation of the law in an equitable manner for all citizens, stressing that measures already taken would not be reversed. He said that State money would be recovered from those who misused it, and that those responsible for corruption and abuse would be severely punished. The President has also announced that State-owned houses given to former presidents will be taken back after a new law is passed this month.

At the same time, the Government has announced that other former presidents will also be investigated if complaints of their alleged irregularities are received. Public Security Minister Ananda Wijepala told the media that investigations would be launched against other former presidents if complaints were received from anyone, saying that the law would be applied equally to all.

A political message? 

There is an important aspect to be noted in the Wickremesinghe affair. He is a leader from one of Sri Lanka’s traditional political families. 

His arrest and the many hours of discomfort he had to endure in court have caused serious anger among Colombo’s elite. There have also been criticisms concerning class animosity in the actions taken against Wickremesinghe, given the humble family backgrounds of the leaders of the NPP and particularly the JVP, including President Dissanayake.

It is obvious that even many of those who dislike Wickremesinghe’s politics and his personality traits are deeply offended by the fact that he was handcuffed and bundled into a prison vehicle like an ordinary criminal. 

There is also a view at some levels of society that the use of a sum of Rs. 16.6 million (a small amount compared to the massive financial corruption that has taken place in Sri Lanka) to attend a ceremony where his wife was honoured for her accomplishments in the academic field, should not have been blown into a serious issue that warranted Wickremesinghe’s arrest. 

Former diplomat and political analyst Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka, who has been a fierce critic of Wickremesinghe, said in an article that the true face of President Dissanayake’s administration had been exposed. 

On the issue of the Central Bank bond scam, Dr. Jayatilleka said he did not consider the former President to be above suspicion and added that it would be an insult to one’s own intelligence to believe that Wickremesinghe would have siphoned off Rs. 16.6 million from State funds when he would have received the sum immediately if he had asked his family or friends.

Dr. Jayatilleka further stated that it was impossible for the leaders of the JVP/NPP to differentiate between legality and legitimacy, and that by arresting Wickremesinghe for a relatively weak issue and inflicting discomfort, the Government had demonstrated not only its lack of commitment to social justice, but also the low-mindedness and misplaced fanaticism of its leadership.

A section of the population is also concerned that Sri Lanka, facing an unprecedented economic downturn in its history, should not have arrested and humiliated a senior political leader who took on the mantle of power with political courage and guided its recovery. 

A prominent political columnist wrote that a man who raised the dollar reserves of the Treasury from a low of $ 50 million upon taking office in July 2022 to a high of $ 6 billion upon leaving it in September 2024 was not fit to be arrested for misusing a mere Rs. 16 million ($ 53,000).

Wickremesinghe left the NHSL on 29 August. He was carrying a book, the political memoirs of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, titled ‘Unleashed.’ 

He may have brought the book from home to read during his days in the hospital. And he may also have intended to convey a political message to the Government by displaying a book with such a title. 

While Googling to find details of Johnson’s book, this writer chanced upon a review of the same by The Guardian Associate Editor Martin Kettle under the headline ‘Unleashed by Boris Johnson review – memoirs of a clown.’ The review is introduced as follows: All the fancy verbiage in the world cannot disguise the emptiness at the heart of this self-serving, solipsistic book.”

(The writer is a senior journalist based in Colombo)