Political Watch
The expected revolution in the UNP never came. The working committee meeting last Thursday was a flop. The failure of the latest rebellion may mean that there will be no more rebellions against Ranil Wickremesinghe within the UNP. If there is one thing that the rebels have learnt from all this, it is that Wickremesinghe cannot be removed from the party and the UNP will have to put up with him whether they like it or not. The biggest casualty of this whole sorry episode was not so much Johnston Fernando and Lakshman Seneviratne, but the party seniors, who have been exposed to the public as impotent puppets. We explained last week how the powers of the seniors committee were whittled down gradually until the week before last when Wickremesinghe took over all decision making power away from them. And there was not a word of protest.
Unsolicited support

At the last meeting of the committee of party seniors, held the week before last, Wickremesinghe had basically brushed aside the recommendations made by this committee to the effect that Rukman Senanayake be appointed deputy leader, with S.B.Dissanayake, Sajith Premadasa and Ravi Karunanayake named assistant leaders with the party chairmanship going to Joseph Micheal Perera. Wickremesinghe brought in the proviso that appointments to party posts will not be made on the personal desires and ambitions of some people but on certain set criteria. It would appear that Wickremesinghe was not on principle against appointing a deputy leader or one or more assistant leaders. He probably realizes that there has to be some concession made to the demands for reform.
Previously he got by simply by changing those who hold the positions of general secretary , chairman or treasurer. But this time around there was no way to remove either Tissa Attanayake or Rukman Senanayake from the posts they hold. So in order to convey the impression that some change has taken place, new posts will have to be created. While he recognizes the need to make some concession, Wickremesinghe is probably apprehensive of who might be appointed to the positions of deputy leader and assistant leader. The last time there was a deputy leader and assistant leader (Karu Jayasuriya and Gamini Atukorale) both of them ganged up against Wickremesinghe. That was in a situation where both were 100 percent Wickremesinghe appointees. He may have been apprehensive that if the appointment of a deputy leader and assistant leader is ceded to the working committee, that would remove whatever hold Wickremesinghe would have over the new appointees.
Hence, even though he may not be in principle opposed to the appointment of a deputy leader or assistant leader, Wickremesinghe would like to make sure that the appointment comes from him and that the individuals appointed are to his liking. If the appointment of a deputy leader and an assistant leader is made without his direct intervention, that will set a precedent which would be to Ranil’s detriment. At the working committee meeting held on Thursday, two individuals had stood up and said that there need not be any reforms at all. It is widely believed that Wickremesinghe was instigating his loyalists to oppose any move to appoint a deputy leader and an assistant leader. But some of these things in Wickremesinghe’s favour may be happening without any orchestration by him. One of those who opposed even the truncated reform proposals was Vajira Abeywardene who, as we pointed out in a previous column, wanted one of the top slots himself and hence had an interest in opposing the appointment of anyone else to the position of deputy leader and assistant leader as that would blast his chances for good. Ravindra Samaraweera had stood up and opposed the stand taken by Abeywardene. In any case the majority of the working committee, obviously with Wickremesinghe’s tacit concurrence, was of the opinion that a deputy leader and assistant leader should be appointed.
SB & Sajith
It is possible that Wickremesinghe feared to keep the slot of deputy leader or assistant leader vacant for the likes of Abeywardene to step into at a later date. It would be better for him to have both positions filled than leave them vacant. The chances are that he will do a Premadasa and appoint party seniors to these positions rather than appoint the ambitious young Turks who have been eying these positions. In 1989, when Gamini Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudali both wanted to be prime minister, Premadasa checkmated them by appointing D.B.Wijetunga. He was made PM. because DBW was an old party senior and neither Lalith nor Gamini could object to him. Wickremesinghe might adopt a similar strategy to keep out the younger and more ambitious types who have been eying the top posts. Wickremesinghe has been good at defusing and dissolving things. When he appointed S.B.Dissanayake as the national organizer of the party, he appointed Sarath Ranawaka as the deputy national organizer, so as to take the clout out of SB’s post.
He may do the same with regard to the deputy leader and assistant leader posts. Appoint two harmless but acceptable individuals to those posts so that a line of succession is established and in comparison to the deputy leader and the assistant leader, the present leader may even look dynamic. The deputy leader and assistant leader that most people have in mind are obviously S.B.Dissanayake and Sajith Premadasa. But it seems unlikely that Wickremesinghe will appoint either to these posts. Some members of the working committee feel that if Wickremesinghe is going to remain as the leader, then the deputy leader and assistant leader should be able to offset, at least to some extent, the shortcomings of Wickremesinghe. And for such an arrangement, the obvious choices would be SBD and Sajith. But then Wickremesinghe apparently does not see anything wrong with his leadership and it is unlikely that he would consider it necessary to have anyone who can compensate for his weaknesses.
The reason why some members of the working committee felt that Wickremesinghe was instigating opposition to the Johnston Fernando-Lakshman Seneviratne reforms was because Sirinal de Mel, the UNP’s former trade union boss, spoke up against the appointment of a deputy and asst. leader. De Mel, rarely speaks at working committee meetings and everybody feels that Wickremesinghe got him to oppose the reforms so that it looks as if Wickremesinghe had humoured the rebels with the appointment of a deputy leader and an assistant leader in the face of opposition. Thus he would appear to be giving more, not less, than what was expected. The end result of all these machinations is going to be that the UNP will have no way to mount a proper challenge to the government. Hence, we may have to prepare not just for the continuation of Mahinda Rajapakse as president for yet another term, but also for an entire Rajapakse dynasty, with Gotabhaya replacing Mahinda and Basil replacing Gotabhaya. There is this expectation that after being in power for a long time, the UPFA will collapse of its own accord and that this will bring Wickremesinghe into power eventually if he hangs on long enough.
But these expectations are a case of clutching at straws. The behaviour of the masses in all democracies are largely similar. If there is one thing that we can learn from studying the history of political parties in the democratic world, it is that the masses abhor a loser. There is no example anywhere where a leader who has been consistently defeated in election after election finally managing to make it to office simply by default. But then again, it must be said that no leader of a political party anywhere in the democratic world, has stayed on long enough to really test this hypothesis. The usual practice is for a leader who has faced defeat on one or two occasions to call it quits, leaving room for someone else to take over. If he does not leave of his own accord, the party usually removes such leaders. What we have in the UNP is really unique and Sri Lanka will be the testing ground to see what is possible and not possible in a democracy.
But what Sri Lanka’s own experience has revealed so far is that a leader who has been defeated once too often and has credibility problems will not make it in the end. In the case of Mrs Bandaranaike, who stayed on as the leader of the SLFP after being routed in 1977, she was never able to lead her party to power after that. The only reason why the PA won in 1994 was because Chandrika Kumaratunga was appointed the leader of the coalition that contested the election. Thus it was a new leader who won and not Mrs B, even though she was still nominally the leader of the SLFP. Another reason why the UNP was defeated in 1994 was because the party had split and both factions of the party lost their leaders in LTTE assassinations.
Thus it was due to a multiplicity of factors that eroded public confidence in the UNP which paved the way for change. Had the UNP remained the same in 1994, as it was in 1989, the PA would have had no chance of coming into power. So those who take comfort in the thought that the UPFA will ‘eventually’ collapse of its own accord may not be on the right track. They should also remember that it was the LTTE that was the main agent of regime change in Sri Lanka in the past two decades and at the rate things are going, they may not be in a position to act as an agent of regime change in the future.
Lawrence Madiwala

Without the LTTE, to intervene, the Sri Lankan political scenario is going to be radically different. This is what makes a Rajapakse dynasty a possibility if Wickremesinghe remains in power. Basil Rajapakse is a shrewd operative. He was instrumental in pulling the rug from under the Karu Jayasuriya group of UNP dissidents last year when they tried to take over the party leadership. Yet it was the same Basil who negotiated with them to get them over to the government. His position seemed to be that “We’ll give you anything you want, but we won’t allow you to dislodge Wickremesinghe!”. Basil is obviously thinking two decades ahead. The only chance that he has of becoming president, is if Wickremesinghe remains the leader of the UNP. Those like Basil who would like to see Wickremesinghe continuing as the party leader should take heart from the fact that they have ardent supporters within the UNP itself.
For example before the much touted working committee meeting last week, there was a gathering at the house of western provincial councilor Sagara Senaratne where the UNP WPC members had a discussion with dissident leaders Johnston Fernando, Talatha Atukorale and Lakshman Seneviratne. The whole purpose of this meeting was to impress upon the dissident leaders the need to come to a negotiated settlement. At the outset, provincial councilor Lawrence Madiwela told the dissidents that if they have a problem, to discuss it within the working committee but not to discuss these things outside. Johnston , Lakshman and Talatha had then explained to the provincial councilors present, their reasons for asking for leadership change. To this, provincial councilors like Lakshman Abeygunawardene had replied that they supported party reform but that they did not want the leader removed. The present writer said in a previous column that even if Wickremesinghe loses the support of every single UNP parliamentarian, he can always rely on the provincial councilors who will gladly do his bidding in expectation of being able to replace the parliamentarians. These are not necessarily being orchestrated by Wickremesinghe but taking place of their own accord. It appears that the very elements are conspiring to keep Wickremesinghe in the leadership.
As Professor G.L.Peiris had told members of the business community who were present in their numbers at the presentation of the presidential export awards organized by the Export Development Board last week, one of the key requirements for business is political stability and at present the country has a very stable government. In the pre-1977 system, the key indicator of political stability was the results of by-elections.As there are no by-elections now, the key indicator of governmental stability are provincial and local government elections. The result of the three provincial council elections held in the east, NCP and Sabaragamuwa indicate that the government is very stable. GLP had pointed out to the business people present that had these elections been held under the old system, that would have resulted in a 27-nil score which would have been even more overwhelming a victory than that of 1977.
But the main point that Professor Peiris failed to mention was that the most vital element of this stability was Ranil Wickremesinghe and not necessarily Mahinda Rajapakse. President Rajapakse certainly has his merits as a man of the people and a very popular leader. But he who is giving the government these overwhelming majorities is Ranil Wickremesinghe who has a tendency to push the youth voter and the floating vote in the government’s direction. When the UNP working committee met last Thursday, Tissa Attanayake presented the report of the senior’s committee where it had been decided to appoint a deputy leader and two assistant leaders. The UNP’s committee of party seniors met last week once more under the chairmanship of Wickremesinghe before the working committee meeting on Thursday. Tissa Attanayake, Joseph Michael Perera, Sarathchandra Rajakaruna, Gamini Jayawickrema Perera and Renuka Herath were present. One of the decisions taken at this meeting was to appoint a shadow cabinet comprising not only of parliamentarians from the UNP, but if possible from the JVP as well.
Wickremesinghe is thereby holding out hope to those who have been rendered desperate due to a long string of defeats. “If you can’t be a minister, I’ll appoint you as a shadow minister at least,” seems to be the carrot the party leader is holding out, so that the recipients can live on the hope of stepping in to the shoes of minister at some undetermined future date. The proposals were approved unanimously in the working committee because of the pressure exerted on the dissidents that a vote would convey the impression of a split in the party to the country. Thus ended the umpteenth rebellion against the party leader.

Wooing the apolitical
generation

While the UNP was thus drowning in a mess of its own making, the president was quietly concentrating on the task of nation building. Last week he met some school students from 27 schools in Jaffna who had come down to Colombo for a sports meet. The meeting had been arranged by Douglas Devananda. Even five years back, such a meeting would have been impossible. Even the poosari who had blessed president Rajapakse when he visited his devale in the east was shot dead by the LTTE. The fact that students from Jaffna would meet the ‘Sinhala’ president without fear of reprisals, is indicative of the fact that the LTTE is rapidly losing the hold it used to have over the Tamil population. Moreover, the president met the new apolitical generation. This is the generation that does not volunteer to join the LTTE and have to be taken by force out of their homes. Just as the present generation of Sinhalese does not understand the concept of social revolution, the same generation of Tamils has no understanding of the concept of ‘liberation’ touted by the LTTE.
What could be seen at this meeting of Tamil students with the president was the same phenomenon that could be seen among the ordinary Tamil voters in the east who were interviewed by Sirasa TV during the EPC election campaign – they had stopped asking for political intangibles like ‘liberation’, and wanted instead tangibles like schools, roads and toilets. During the meeting with the president the Tamil students had been asking for their text books to be sent on time. Another thing they had asked for is that letters to their schools regarding sporting events and the like be sent to them in either Tamil or English.
The JVP pulled off a coup last week by setting up an entity called the Deshahitaishi Jathika Madyastatanaya (Patriotic National Centre – PNC) to counter their own creation the Deshshahitaishi Jathika Vyaparaya (PNM), which sided with Wimal Weerawansa. We have said in this column that the jathiwadi line was the mainstay of the JVP because that is the only aspect of the JVP which was capable of inspiring support among the general public, Marxism, now having lost its former appeal. The PNM, which broke away from the JVP with Wimal Weerawansa, has now become the mainstay of his political party. A couple of weeks back, Weerawansa’s group held a vehicle parade from Colombo to Kelaniya. But posters advertising the event were put up all over the country, in such numbers as to give people the impression that it was an island wide event. That poster campaign was in a way the coming of age event for Weerawansa’s fledgling party.
Conducting island wide poster campaigns was the specialty of the JVP, both major political parties finding it difficult to co –ordinate a campaign of that nature. It needs logistics and an organization that only the JVP possessed. It also needs a ground level presence. The poster campaign conducted by Weerawansa’s party indicates that they have the ability to conduct such campaigns just like the mainline JVP. This will no doubt make Weerawansa’s party more important to the UPFA in the future. At election time, Weerawansa’s party will provide that extra organizational drive which the UPFA lacks. While the JVP has managed to set up their own rival organization to the PNM, it is doubtful whether the Ven Dambara Amila who was elected president and Vijitha Herath who was elected secretary of the JVP’s new front organization, will be able to provide the same leadership to the PNC, that Wimal Weerawansa and Gunadasa Amarasekera have been providing to the PNM.