Should Ranil Wickramasinghe be President?

by Dr. Sumedha S. Amarasekara

Sanja De Silva Jayatilleka’s (SDJ) article, ‘Why Ranil Wickremasinghe cannot be my President in The Island 18.07.2022, discusses elegantly the constitutional issues and the fact that ‘sovereignty is in the people and is unalienable’. SDJ goes on to exemplify why RW cannot be PM as well. The editorial of the same day- ‘Kings, Kingmakers, Puppets and Dangers’ – has dealt with the background issues behind the current political machination with regard to RW. There is no disagreement with the arguments put forward. As far as RW is concerned none of these – being appointed to Parliament, Prime Ministership and now acting presidency- should have happened. And, certainly, he should not be the President of this country. However, as the saying goes ‘yet, here we are …’

What we are experiencing is primarily an economic crisis- which has split over into a political crisis. If there were no fuel shortages and electricity cuts there would have been no Aragalaya and the Rajapaksas would still be ruling this country.

One of the outcomes of the Aragalaya has been to highlight the nature of our politicians. What has been demonstrated amply without a shadow of doubt, is that our politicians are power hungry to the exclusion of everything else. Coming to power seems to be their one and only ambition. Serving the country is a very distant option that is to be considered, if only one is in power! Which is why they – Pohottuwa, SLFP, SJB and JVP – have not been able to come to an agreement on anything and currently are unable to forward a single candidate that they can support together for the Presidency. This hunger for power is exemplified by the common premise of agreement, for a common candidate, as stated by Dayasiri Jayasekara and Vijitha Herath on ‘Salakuna’ 11.7.22. Wherein it was stated that whoever agrees to be the President /Prime Minister should have no future political aspirations for the same posts. The reason as explained was, that the President and the Prime minister, if they had a future potential to continue in the same capacity, would only be concerned about the future of themselves and their party and not the current economic crisis and the welfare of the country! ‘Game gahanna patan gannawa’! That whoever has the ability to steer us out of this mess should also be a future leader seems to be a moot point.

So, if this were to happen, whoever gets nominated would have to be devoid of political ambition. What are the chances that such a person is now going to do the hard yards to get the country out of this mess, solely for the love of this country with a guarantee of no political future?

At the same time, given our political ethics, there is no guarantee that what is agreed at this stage with regard to the future of the President and the Prime Minister, will be carried out later. Therefore human nature being what it is, it is extremely unlikely that whoever is selected to the presidency will have the full support of even the rest of his own party, besides the other parties; in case he succeeds and decides to continue.

So the current political situation- at the time of writing this piece- is: there is the ‘political hara-kiri’ for the presidency and the prime ministership as expounded by the SLFP, JVP and other parties, the SJB wants to have ‘nothing to do’ under a RW presidency and are undecided about their own course of action, the SLFP has already stated that they are not supporting anyone which would include ‘the SLFP/Pohottuwa’ candidate – Dullas Alahapperuma, Pohottuwa’s official line as indicated by Sagara Kariyawasam is to support RW, the other parties are either silent or not committed. Therefore, it would seem that at the moment the only candidate that has some support is RW!

There is no argument that RW does not qualify as a moral/ethical/constitutional… platform to be the President. However, there is also no argument that to lead us out of this economic crisis among the suggested candidates, he is the most suitable. None of the other candidates even come remotely close to having the experience, intelligence, intuition, political acumen and the international rapport that RW possesses.

When 6.9 million voted for GR and then voted en masse at the general election in order to give a two thirds majority that was needed for the Executive Presidency; what was expected was for GR to be able to steer this country without being dictated to by the remaining ‘corrupt political system’. It is still this mandate that we expect from whoever takes over the Presidency.

Ironically RW is the only candidate that is most suitable/able to do this. RW, unlike GR who was vacillating on most occasions, is fully versed with an Executive Presidency and how it should be run. He has learnt this from one of the masters of the ‘Game’ no less a person than the late JR Jayewardene- his uncle. He will not kowtow to any of the existing parties, as none of them have any bearing on his future. He has no party in the parliament to support him. The only support RW can expect is the support of the people that was given to GR to deliver. RW has no alternative but to deliver on this mandate. His and the UNP’s future- if there is to be one- depends on him being able to deliver us out of this mess. That is the only way to ensure that he has the support of the people. Ironically it will be the same wave of ‘public opinion’ that was utilised to push the Rajapaksas out of power that will keep RW in power!

SDJ’s article finishes with the question ‘Surely, it shouldn’t be left to the Aragalaya which will step in if this anomalous situation is not corrected by the 20th of July?

At the end of the day the Aragalaya needs to take a stand on what has been happening. They cannot say we were the reason why Mahinda Rajapaksa resigned, Basil Rajapaksa left and finally why Gotabaya Rajapaksa had to resign and then not claim responsibility for Ranil Wickremesinghe being appointed as the Prime minister, (and Finance Minister), then the acting President and now possibly the President. If they claim full responsibility for ousting of the Rajapaksas, taking over the President’s House, TV stations etc., and call out henceforth things are happening according to the Aragalaya; then they are also responsible for the events that follow; be it the burning of RW’s house, Looting and destruction of the Presidential house and the current rise of RW in the political arena.

The Aragalaya should take a step back and realise that ours is a truly corrupt political system. A system change is not going to happen any time soon however much you (and I) wish for it. As mentioned in The Island editorial -‘There are no dream presidential candidates’. What is needed is to support whoever becomes the President to get us out of this economic mess and then commit to do the hard yards necessary to bring about a system change.