Why I owe Ranil Wickremesinghe an apology

At the parliamentary election of April 2010, Mr Wickremesinghe outdid Madam Bandaranaike, beating her 1977 performance. He led his party to a percentage of 29.3 %, I repeat 29.3%. This is below the percentage (29.7) polled by Mrs Bandaranaike’s SLFP in 1977!
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by Dayan Jayathilleka

(June 20, Singapore City, Sri Lanka Guardian) I owe the UNP leader, the Leader of the Opposition and ex-Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe an apology and an unqualified one. As a political scientist and analyst-commentator I had gravely underestimated his achievement as a political leader and his contribution to the political history of contemporary Sri Lanka. Since I have been a public critic of Mr Wickremesinghe’s leadership, it is only fair that I tender this apology in public and in print.

Ranil Wickremesinghe’s abilities as a leader and his role and contribution to the UNP can be correctly understood only when we use the methodological tool of comparative political analysis. When assessed in a comparative sense, Ranil stands out in sharp relief, as ranking with the greats. Those who have been saying that Ranil is a weak leader must now eat their words. I can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Ranil is the equal if not the superior of one of our leaders most renowned for her strength, namely Madam Sirimavo Bandaranaike. Since I am a critic rather than a supporter of Mr Wickremesinghe, this reassessment must be taken very seriously indeed.

Two great Chinese leaders, Mao Ze Dong and Deng Hsiao Peng used the slogan: ‘Seek Truth from Facts’. I have sought to do so, and thereby get beyond the rhetorical criticisms of Mr Wickremesinghe. What I have discovered is that Ranil Wickremesinghe has done one better than the world’s first woman Prime Minister Madam Bandaranaike, who saved Sri Lankan democracy from the JVP in 1971 and carved Sri Lanka a place of respect in the world.

History has recorded the fact that no government in postcolonial Sri Lanka was as unpopular as that of Mrs Bandaranaike in 1977. No mainstream party has ever been as unpopular as the SLFP was by 1977. This was the result of extreme economic deprivation in the South, and discriminatory and coercive policies towards the North. People ate papaw skins and rummaged through dustbins for food; semi malnutrition set in, in the years of the United Front coalition of 1970-77. A violent youth upheaval was bloodily suppressed with tyre pyres and bodies floating down rivers making their debut in Sri Lanka, then Ceylon. The staple food of the Sinhalese for millennia, rice, could not be transported legally and consumption was restricted to certain days of the week.

The people of Sri Lanka ended this nightmare by electorally overthrowing this regime at the general election of 1977. At that election Madam Bandaranaike led her party to a catastrophic defeat, winding up with so pathetic a number of seats that Mr Amirthalingam, leader of the secessionist Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) became the Leader of the opposition. All this is well known. What is less known or has gone unnoticed is the actual level of popularity or unpopularity of the SLFP after those seven dreadful years; the infamous Seven Year Curse. This is best evidenced by the percentage polled by the SLFP in 1977. At that historic election, when the SLFP at the nadir of its popularity, plunged to defeat, it obtained 29.7 % of the vote – I repeat, 29.7% i.e. under 30%.

This is precisely the point at which the facts reveal the true dimensions of Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe as a leader. At the parliamentary election of April 2010, Mr Wickremesinghe outdid Madam Bandaranaike, beating her 1977 performance. He led his party to a percentage of 29.3 %, I repeat 29.3%. This is below the percentage (29.7) polled by Mrs Bandaranaike’s SLFP in 1977!

Now, this is no mean achievement and is not to be shrugged off. After seven dreadful years in government, Madam Bandaranaike led her retreating party to a paltry 29.7% vote. Mr Wickremesinghe managed to secure a lower percentage for his party without having been in office, except partially and briefly in 2001-2003. It took the drastic economic deprivation of 1970-77 and the powerful reconstructed opposition led by JR Jayewardene and R Premadasa, to render the SLFP so unpopular as to reduce it to 29.7%. Mr Wickremesinghe has succeeded in bringing his party, the UNP, to lower depths than the SLFP in 1977, without even the burden of a long and harrowing term in office.

In 1977, it was an anti-incumbency tidal wave. In 2010, it was a pro-incumbency tidal wave in one sense and an anti-incumbency one in another: it was a vote against the incumbent leader of the Opposition. And the SLFP of Madam Bandaranaike, leaving office in 1977, was marginally more popular, i.e. marginally less unpopular, than the UNP under Ranil Wickremesinghe today, after 16 years in opposition!
This is by no means easy and amounts a truly remarkable achievement -- and is therefore the reason and occasion for my apology to Mr Wickremesinghe for underestimating his achievement as a political leader.

The fact that he has beaten the SLFP’s record of 1977 has certain implications. After that low point of 29.7% it took the SLFP 17 long years AND a leadership change to make a comeback. Mrs Bandaranaike was never to be elected Sri Lanka‘s leader again. Mr Wickremesinghe has already made sure that the UNP has broken that record as well, because the next national level election is in 6 years, which would mean that in the best case scenario for the Opposition, Mr Wickremesinghe would have kept the party out of office for 22 years! Barring an act of God or Gods, this fate has already been assured by Ranil for his hapless party. So he has already beaten the SLFP’s record of the longest stint in opposition by one of Sri Lanka’s two major parties.

Here are a few points to ponder: what new low in terms of percentages will Ranil take the UNP to at the upcoming local authorities election scheduled for January 2011? What depths of unpopularity is he capable of plunging the UNP to? Below which point will it be endemically impossible for the UNP to recover to the point of governing? Will the country recover from the lopsidedness that all this imparts to the polity and political processes? Why should anyone in the UNP permit Ranil to continue to do this to the party and wreak this havoc and destruction on the opposition?

Given that (A) the SLFP’s recovery from a defeat was slightly better than the UNP’s this year, or to put it differently, given that the UNP has to recover from a worse defeat than the SLFP suffered in 1977, and (B) given that this took a change in the SLFP’s leadership, surely the conclusion should be blindingly obvious to any sane individual? The removal of Ranil is the necessary but insufficient condition for salvaging the UNP. It is the single essential prerequisite for the recovery of the party and the return to a functioning two party system. If the UNP fails to remove him, one can only conclude that the party is in the throes of a collective death wish and has turned into a political suicide cult.