Ranil: "U R 2 dumb 4 politiks"

By Lucien Rajakarunanayake

(November 14, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) He is a truly bold man, Ranil Wickremesinghe is. He is not his party’s clear and unquestioned choice as candidate for the next presidential election. A party that is desperate for good leadership after nearly 60 years in politics, and a huge vote base in the country, is looking for a common candidate to lead it into the seats of power.

The politics of desperation has led the UNP into an alliance with parties that cannot contribute much to its distant dreams of success. The biggest noise is Mangala, with his single member party, which can lay claim to a single wheeler – a monocycle familiar in circuses, as his party symbol.

The great hope of the new alliance of sorts is General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka. He is the great saviour, the redeemer of the hopeless. And, Ranil is laying down the conditions for his candidacy. His opening salvo is to show that Fonseka is not trusted, for too long. He can be trusted only, hopefully to win an election, which the UNP cannot clearly win on its own. As Ranil, and possibly his ever dwindling number of supporters in the UNP would have it, Fonseka is only to head a Caretaker Government, with the assurance of Ranil being Prime Minister. The Executive Presidency has to be ended, with or without a two-thirds majority and a referendum, as his late uncle, foxy JRJ, laid down. So Fonseka has to keep the seat warm for Ranil to be the Executive President (if not abolished) or the Executive Prime Minister. I doubt whether Ranil has asked "Fonnie" (I won’t call him Phoney) what he thinks of all this caretaker business.

But that’s not all. Ranil also wants Fonnie to make sure that the JVP and TNA gets Cabinet posts. No question as to how many seats each party should have to qualify for such an elevation in power. It’s only Ranil’s way of assuring for himself that he will get his hands on executive power through Fonnie’s success. With the record the JVP has shown in all of the recent provincial council elections, there is nothing to show that it can gain any more than the absolute minimum votes to be represented in parliament. It is not even in the new, hastily strung up alliance of the UNP, Mangala & Co. But, Ranil wants it assured of Cabinet Office.

Has he asked the JVP whether they would accept office in a UNP (albeit Fonnie) led alliance? Of course Ranil is certain that with the JVP behaving as it does today, anything will be possible.

But there is a catch with the TNA. Ranil’s expectations seem to be going ahead of reality. I won’t blame him. We have known for so long that Ranil is far removed from political reality. But his condition laid down to General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka that the TNA should accept Fonnie’s stand on Tamil issues, beats it all. It’s very simple. The TNA should start eating humble pie from now on, and accept the Sinhala dominance in the power equation in Sri Lanka, which is what Fonnie has been stating repeatedly when carrying on the war against the LTTE. In fact there were times when his utterances vis-à-vis the Tamils became an embarrassment to the government, which had to issue clarifications that they were Sarath Fonseka’s personal views and not the thinking of the Government. So, is General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka to give up all of his beliefs about the lower status of Tamils in Sri Lanka, and accept the TNA’s position of equality with the Sinhalese, and even now the call for provincial autonomy, if not full scale separation? It is time for Ranil to clarify matters to the people as well as to Sarath Fonseka.

Ranil will have to do a lot of explaining to the people as to how he will get Sarath Fonseka to agree to all of this. And, it is good for him to know that such explanations cannot be given via SMS messages, whether subsidized by the state or not, which is his latest promise of what will be the first task of a new UNP led administration.

The UNP leader is worried that the youth of our country, who have embraced the mobile phone today, have only the ringing tone that one can get free. So, in all his wisdom, he has offered to provide subsidies for SMS messages. Ranil’s short message service promise falls in the same category as the old promise of chewing gum for all youth, instead of the traditional betel chew; and later, the

offer of gold necklaces and bracelets for the youth, with the latest in designer jeans for those in the rural areas who would get into the paddy fields for sowing, and harvesting. Not for him the humiliation of then good old "amude". To the political thinking of Kollupitiya, subsidized SMS messages are very much in line with designer jeans for the paddy fields. There is no difference in thinking.

But the question is, even as a transitional President, with Sarath Fonseka keeping the seat warm for him, as Ranil hopes he would, will the former army commander also agree to subsidized SMS, as a way of winning votes among the youth?

The reality of General (Rtd) Sarath Fonseka, taking to the hustings, to lead the alliance of sorts the UNP has put together, may be another distant dream of a party that is lost in a political field of scarecrows, and trying so desperately to find someone better than Ranil who can bell the UPFA cat at the next polls.

It is Ranil’s most fervent belief that bringing an end to the Rajapaksa Presidency is the most important of all issues. Is it important for Ranil and Mangala or the people of Sri Lanka? Are they ready to have a retired general foisted on them to pave the way for a Ranil presidency or executive prime minister, to be rid of the Rajapaksa presidency?

Have those who are now desperate to hug the uniform of Sarath Fonseka for their political success, forgotten how they scoffed the victories of the Sri Lankan troops at Kilinochchiya as capturing Medawachchiya and the overrun of Elephant Pass – Alimankada –as the fall of Pamankade? One wonders what Sarath Fonseka could do with such types.

The best is to send an SMS to Ranil: "U R 2 dumb 4 politiks" It’s short, not sweet, but the truth.

-Sri Lanka Guardian