{"id":47431,"date":"2015-08-29T21:34:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T03:34:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=47431"},"modified":"2015-08-29T05:44:28","modified_gmt":"2015-08-29T12:44:28","slug":"how-much-moral-petrol-is-left-in-ranils-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/08\/29\/how-much-moral-petrol-is-left-in-ranils-car\/","title":{"rendered":"How much moral petrol is left in Ranil\u2019s car?"},"content":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Ranil Wickremesinghe beat all odds and topped the list of preferences \u2013 a feat that was considered impossible earlier. At the base level, shorn off the rhetoric and the tinsel, it is an achievement\u00a0 that reflects the combination of national, international \u2013 and even some anti-national \u2013 forces. It has triumphed as the new force, replacing the preceding Mahinda magic\u201d. Wickremesinghe has done what\u00a0 his\u00a0 uncle, the Yankee Dicky did, rather late in his day. Of course, JRJ shot into power with a formidable force behind him. Whether the limited force behind Wickremesinghe has the depth\u00a0 to last the course and go the\u00a0 same\u00a0 distance as his uncle is yet to be seen.<\/p>\n

But this strikes a note of warning to political analysts : never write off a political survivor despite repeated failures until he goes down to push daisies. Extrapolated to the current situation, this means that if Wickremesinghe can rise from his grave the chances of Mahinda Rajapakse who is up and running, neck to neck with him, are far greater. Examples of Jayalalitha, de Gaulle and Churchill, or the rejects like S. B. (Balu\u201d) Dissanayake etc.,\u00a0 creeping in through the backdoor, demonstrate that Rajapakses chances, even if he is put\u00a0 in jail, are rosier than that of Wickremesinghe when he was down. In short, a political survivor who is down need not necessarily be out. Also, the eternal,never-failing Buddhist principles of Patichcha-sammuppa-da<\/strong><\/em> kicks in to establish that the triangle can be completed only when all the three sides of the same size are there, next to each other. In the case of Mahinda Rajapakse the three sides are there but the line on one side has fallen a wee bit\u00a0 short. It is not difficult\u00a0 to catch up and fill the gap on the missing side now.<\/p>\n

So where ever Wickremesinghe is Rajapakse will not be far behind, breathing down his neck. It is political myopia to write Rajapakse off at this early stage. Even if he steps out or is forced out he will still be there, like a touch-me-not ready to spring back when the time is ripe. The signs are already beginning to turn ominous for Wickremesinghe. He rode into power firing\u00a0 on all his moral cylinders. But the moral riders in his own car are now turning against him. Ven. Sobitha, expressing\u00a0 moral disgust with the entire political class, has confronted Wickremesinghe with his failures to fulfil his promises. Ven. Sobitha is dismissing the new Siri-Wicky regime as a \u201djoke\u201d. Parliament is condemned as a den for thieves, thugs, drug dealers or ethanol dealers\u201d. His verdict :The people are laughing at us.\u201d In short, within a few months, the nation has skipped the dawn, skipped the high noon and slipped instantly into a twilight with the light fading fast. To change the metaphor, it seems the Siri-Wicky regime is dying in the cot with the uncut umbilical cord hanging\u00a0 loose. To change it again, even the honeymoon seems to be strained even before both parties could get to bed.<\/p>\n

Though it was a personal victory for Wickremesinghe, he has nothing much to crow about now, though they take cover behind a few tit-bits. The overall results did not hand him the power he needed to govern in his own right with increased powers of the President in Parliament \u2013 his main political thrust launched in the January 8 presidential campaign. This watered down the full flavour of his victory. He is still dependent on the SLFP to muster the power he needs to be in overall command of the state he plans to lead. After the failure to transfer presidential powers to the prime minister in parliament and after the failure to get the requisite electoral votes to run a government of his\u00a0 own he will have to limp along as half the man he wants to be in power.<\/p>\n

As against\u00a0 this, SLFP, along with its traditional allies in the Left, produced the second\u00a0 highest vote-winner, Mahinda Rajapakse, bringing the SLFP within striking distance of power.\u00a0\u00a0 In terms of electoral clout the difference between the two is a marginal 3. 28% which gave 106 seats to the UNP-led UNFGG and 95 to the UPFA. These two basic figures affirm that neither party won outright power, though, of course, the UNP got the slight edge to grab the throne. These figures indicate clearly the standing of the two camps in the electorate and parliament respectively is not too far apart. Buoyed by the weightier alliances and other external factors, the UNFGG was expecting to deal a crushing blow to the UNFA. But it didn\u2019t materialise. A slight shift either way, in the Parliament or in the electorate, can make all the difference as to who would retain power with whom and for how long.<\/p>\n

Mahinda Rajapaksa\u2019s strong performance is far superior to any of the performances of Wickremesinghe when he was in the opposition. But Wickremesinghe\u2019s\u00a0 grit and survival skills carried him through. Rajapakse, however, gained greater credence and significance when John Kerry took credit for the regime change in Sri Lanka. For Rajapakse to retain a formidable grip\u00a0 on the nation at the end of an uneven battle in which global forces were\u00a0 pitted against\u00a0 him stands as solid evidence of the strength of the forces that are waiting in the wings to regroup and strike back. The fears and frustrations of the UNFGG forces were further highlighted by Paki\u201d Saravanamuttu, who lamented dolefully that the (election) result would be disappointing for the UNFGG which had hoped for a clear rejection\u00a0 of the Rajapaksa era \u2013 infamous for corruption,state intimidation and Sinhalese nationalism.\u201d His other line is equally damning: This has potentially given Mr. Rajapaksa a new lease of political life. He\u2019s not out at all.\u201d (The Australian<\/strong><\/em>, 19\/8\/2015 \u2013 p.11)<\/p>\n

This then is the underlying reality. Yes, Wickremesinghe managed to scrape into the seats of power for the fourth\u00a0 time with barest minimum. This\u00a0 does not\u00a0 mean that he had crushed the Rajapakses. Defeated candidates, like Jayalalitha, Wickremesinghe, and Mahinda Rajapakse have many lives. However, the upshot of all this is that Wickremesinghe is enjoying a fund of goodwill right now. His cup runneth over. The current political ambience is dominated by the euphoria of the UNPers which is understandable. Enjoying\u00a0 the sweet smell of success is also inevitable considering the\u00a0 fact that they have been in the wilderness for nearly 20 years. But the danger is in being intoxicated by it, assuming that they have acquired the mandate to do it their way all the way. The time hasn\u2019t yet come\u00a0 for Wickremesinghe to sing : I\u2019ll do it my way and\u00a0 the others can\u00a0 take the highway.\u201d So Wickremesinghe\u2019s formula of national government\u201d is not only vital for his survival but also a pragmatic necessity to tide over his shortcomings and escalating issues, if he can. Unlike JRJ, Wickremesinghe\u00a0 has no power to stabilise his power and\u00a0 put his undisputed stamp of authority without the backing of the SLFP, particularly the backing he gets from the CBK-Sirisena duo. His real source of power is in the hands of this SLFP duo, not the UNP MPs. If the SLFPers pull the rug under\u00a0 him he will soon be going downhill either in crutches or a stretcher.<\/p>\n

In fact, the MoU between the UNP-SLFP concedes the fragility of the political alliance. It is, for all intents and\u00a0 purposes, a tentative and experimental alliance for two years minimum, with the possibility of extending it further.\u00a0 Legally, under the amended constitution, the President cannot\u00a0 meddle\u00a0 with\u00a0 the\u00a0 newly appointed regime for the next four years. But Wickremesinghe can\u2019t run a stable state and deliver his promises within the time available to him \u2013 four\u00a0 or two\u00a0 years — without the backing of\u00a0 the SLFP. The alternative is\u00a0 to tie up with the TNA as a compliant outsider \u2013 an unholy alliance which will come at a heavy price. There is, however, one glimmer\u00a0 of\u00a0 hope in all the combinations and permutations of the minority parties : the force is still with the two main political parties. Power\u00a0 hasn\u2019t shifted to the minorities to the extent it was feared by some. For instance, the rise of pro-American Wickremesinghe is a far better bet for the State Department than the papier-mache<\/strong><\/em> prime minister, V. Rudrakumaran, of the TGTE in New York. America has found their pliant man in Colombo to do their bidding and in this setting the Tamils in New York, London, Paris are totally irrelevant to their geo-political agenda. At least it has exposed the hysterical lunacy of the extremist politics of asinine Vigneswaram gone ballistic.<\/p>\n

However, the fact remains that Wickremesinghe is still sailing in President Sirisena\u2019s Titanic\u201d. Sirisena, in his convoluted way, sounded the warning when he said that it was he who saved Wickremesinghe\u2019s\u00a0 Titanic\u201d. He went all out\u00a0 to plug the leaks and if\u00a0 he pulls them out Wickremesinghe will certainly go down with his band. But can Wickremesinghe steer\u00a0 his way through in the stormy seas ahead, with or without the CBK-Sirisena duo ? His main anchor is Chandrika Kumaratunga. Jointly, they led the nation to brink of disaster with their CFAs and P-TOMs. When finally their hidden agenda is revealed the nation will find\u00a0 that\u00a0 they have been\u00a0 plotting and planning to drag the nation back of February 22, 2002 \u2013 the fateful year in which Wickremesinghe signed the CFA, selling the nation to Velupillai Prabhakaran,\u00a0 without telling the President, Parliament, Cabinet, Party or the sovereign people. His style\u00a0 of government, as seen even in his last 100 days\u201d, is to steer the ship of state like a juggernaut, dismissing the thundering waves lashing\u00a0 the hull on all sides. He either goes into intransigent denial or appoints endless committees to the problems he just can\u2019t handle, hoping that if he puts his problems in the freezer the issues would\u00a0 go away. How far can this style carry him? How long will the nation tolerate his idiosyncratic fancies? Which book of R. A. Butler or Gladstone can provide him with the answers to the 21st century problems of Sri Lanka?<\/p>\n

If the Siri-Wicky regime is getting tied up in knots in the preliminary stage how are they going to meet the pending challenges that are waiting round the corner to grab them by throats and shake them down? For instance, if the moral and the socio-economic conditions continue to worsen \u2013 and there are no signs of\u00a0 it improving — can CBK-Wickremesinghe mobilise the necessary forces to hose down pyromaniacs like Vigneswaran and Gajendra Ponnambalam, igniting, in competition with each other, ethnic extremism to grab the title of the sole representative of the Tamils\u201d? In any case, both CBK-Wicky will be starting on the wrong foot because their aim is to revive the blue print they tried it first with their CFAs and P-TOMs and failed in Febraury 22, 2002. The hidden agenda not revealed to the electors threatens to drag the nation back to February 22, 2002 when Wickremesinghe signed the infamous CFA with the one man on earth who never stood for peace and reconciliation.\u00a0 So can they do it this time what they failed to achieve the last time? They have nothing in their armoury except to fire their failed formulas. But can they reverse the victory of Nandikadal and drag the nation back to the failed juck-muck\u201d politics of Wickremesinghe? This is a critical issue that needs another\u00a0 chapter.<\/p>\n

As the\u00a0 numbers stand\u00a0 now, this new symbiotic relationship between the UNP-SLFP is\u00a0 more favourable\u00a0 to the UNP than to the SLFP. It will strengthen the UNP more\u00a0 than the SLFP. Though the SLFP will bargain for its pound of flesh it is the UNP that can come out on top, more so because of the ideological confluence of the triumvirate \u2013 Presidency, Prime Ministership and Madame Defarge counting the\u00a0 heads that fall from her\u00a0 guillotine. CBK who was booed at election rallies was given a standing ovation\u00a0 in the post-election party room because she has emerged as the Chief Executioner with power to\u00a0\u00a0 roll heads or\u00a0 fix severed heads. But once\u00a0 Wickremesinghe gathers his Cabinet\u00a0 together the overall responsibility will fall on his shoulders to account for success or failure. All three of them will be watching over each others shoulder to see that the other won\u2019t get excessive share of power that would jeopardize his\/her interests. All three of them will be walking gingerly trying\u00a0 to balance the power they share to shore up their political bases.<\/p>\n

Every single move from now will be seen as a critical move to get\u00a0 the lion share to consolidate their\u00a0 grip on power. Initially, the internal power-struggle will be subdued and\u00a0 tolerated by all three parties but as time goes on it can turn\u00a0 sour and bitter. Right now, the internal power struggle has thrown national\u00a0 politics\u00a0 into a spin. That is why Ven. Sobitha, the\u00a0 leading light of the moral crusade, is moaning about\u00a0 the power vacuum in which the SLFP and UNP power brokers are floundering. That\u00a0 is why the initial term of\u00a0 the MoU is limited\u00a0 to two years \u2013 roughly the testing time span for any honeymoon in any marriage, personal and\u00a0 political, except those in Hollywood. But that is to anticipate events that may or may not happen.<\/p>\n

Wickremesinghe\u2019s task is two fold : 1. to deliver his list of impossible promises (he has already failed the `100 day\u201dtest.) and 2. to protect his national cup filled with half a\u00a0 million votes. If his skills in keeping the 100 promises within 100 days is any indication of his capacity to deliver then the nation has only one source left\u00a0 to get at least an inkling of what\u2019s in store : the astrologer of President Mahinda Rajapakse who assured him victory in the presidential race! If, as promised, Wickremesinghe can deliver an absolutely free media in a persecution-free, corruption-free democracy, without vindictive politics rejected in the Lichchavi principles which he promised, and transforming the Siri-Wicky regime into a transparent state guaranteeing\u00a0 human rights of all, then his cup will overflow with a million votes next time round. But the Central Bank scandal, the banning of the publication\u00a0 of the Parliamentary report, the decision to cohabit\u00a0 with the very politicos whom he\u00a0 has condemned, his own cronyism, going along with nepotism, etc., etc., within the first 100 days of the Yahapalanaya reduces him to a purveyor of slogans and not substance.<\/p>\n

There are also some ominous signs arising within the UNP itself. In the hullabaloo of helter-skelter goings-on leading UNPers seems to have gone out of the radar screen. Example: Sajith Premadasa, the Deputy Leader, is hardly visible and in his place the unscrupulous careerist Champika Ranawaka has crept into through the backdoor to Wickremesinghe\u2019s influential circle. First he tried to creep into the bosom of President Sirisena but\u00a0 he soon realized he was not\u00a0 that indispensable to the President. Now he is worming his way into the heart of Wickremesinghe. He sidles up to Wickremesinghe, like a Churchilian dwarf whispering obscenities in the Emperor\u2019s ears. He cultivates the top to impress the power-brokers that it is worth having him because he is the man of the future. All these Svengalian machinations makes him the obnoxious interventionist manoeuvring to oust the traditional UNPers. He is the kind of man who was described by Lyndon Johnson as a man\u00a0 worth having\u00a0 on your side because he could\u00a0 direct his piss on the outsiders, shooting from inside, rather than pissing in from out.<\/p>\n

Ranawaka is bound to be a stinging thorn in Wickremesinghe\u2019s side. As things stand, Wickremesinghe\u2019s plate is overflowing with\u00a0 problems of his own making and the last thing he needs is Ranawaka. But then\u00a0 in his desperate political journeys Wickremesinghe\u00a0 has never hesitated to align himself with an assorted variety of wheeler-dealers, from Gonawila Sunil to the Batalanda brigades. So why not go along\u00a0 with Ranawaka if he is ready to be another Gonawila Sunil to Ranil, eh?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

H. L. D. Mahindapala Ranil Wickremesinghe beat all odds and topped the list of preferences \u2013 a feat that was considered impossible earlier. At the base level, shorn off the rhetoric and the tinsel, it is an achievement\u00a0 that reflects the combination of national, international \u2013 and even some anti-national \u2013 forces. It has triumphed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-h-l-d-mahindapala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}