REMEMBERING A PEOPLES’ PRESIDENT

by Lalin I De Silva

JUNE 23 WAS THE 98TH birth anniversary of our country’s former Prime Minister and President, Ranasinghe Premadasa. He served as Prime Minister from 1978 to 1988 and as President from 1989 to 1993 and was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber on May 1, 1993.

President Premadasa was born on June 23, 1924 at Dias Place in the Keselwatte neighbourhood in Colombo Central. The eldest of five children, he had his primary education at Harvard Methodist Girl’s School and Lorenz College and thereafter his secondary education at St. Joseph’s College, Colombo.

President Premadasa had been a long-time friend of my father, the late E. P. De Silva, who was a well –informed political reporter before he became Editor of the Daily Mirror and Times and kept him touch with him through frequent early morning telephone calls.

President Premadasa started his political career in 1946 joining the Labour Party as a full time member. He was elected as the President of the youth league of the same party in 1949.

In 1950 he contested the Colombo Municipal ward San Sebastian and won the seat and became a Member of the Colombo Municipal Council. He was re-elected in 1954 and in 1955 became the Deputy Mayor.

He faced many challenges without fear. The biggest challenge he faced after he joined the United National Party somewhere in 1956 was contesting Dr.N. M.Perera, the LSSP leader, at the Ruwanwella electorate in 1956. Born and bred in Colombo and had no connection to that area and was defeated by 6,228 votes. He thereafter ran at his native Colombo Central.

In July 1977, when the UNP won 141 out of 168 seats, Premadasa was re-elected as the first MP for Colombo Central with a 94,128 votes. He was appointed as the Minister of Local Government, Housing and Construction as well as the Leader of the House.

After the executive presidency was estabished and JR became president in 1978, Premadasa, the man of the masses, was appointed prime minister holding that office from 1978 to 1988. After more than four decades of active politics, at the age of 65-years, he became the Executive President of Sri Lanka in 1999. He was a dedicated man with a positive vision and a mission for Sri Lanka.

President Premadasa was one who had feeling for the common man and reached out to uplift their living conditions. Whenever, he visited me when I was planting, he was very concerned about the living conditions of estate workers such as housing, drinking water, electricity etc. He has told me that whatever development we may bring about, it should be to the benefit of the poor people whether they lived in the village or on estates. What he meant was to remove the distinction between the haves and have-not’s altogether.

Whatever is said and done, with his assassination the country lost a dynamic leader who was action and result oriented. He launched many programmes on uplifting of the rural economy, Janasaviya and the 200 garment factories programmes among them. The garments industry became the largest industrial exporter from Sri Lanka thanks to the vision of the late President. As a planter, I’ve seen estate workers, specially young girls, leaving line rooms for jobs in the garments sector in Colombo and Katunayake. They lived in boarding houses but despite that did better than in the plantations and were able to help their families. Both these major programmes made a significant contribution to the economic emancipation of the rural people which comprised nearly 75% of the population of this country.

Today our people are facing untold hardships. The efforts of our youth at Galle Face fighting to obtain economic progress and social security have been unsuccessful. We can solve our problems. Scarcity of foreign exchange is no obstacle. To earn foreign exchange, we must increase production. To increase production, we must develop our national resources. The late President had the common touch. That’s why he always believed the common people should be made to share the responsibility of finding solutions to their problems.

The late President wanted those with a “Must Do” attitude to lead his programmes not caring whether they were Red, Blue or Green. He made it a point to monitor and evaluate progress in his programmes, sending his staff to visit work sites and report to him. When such inspection reports were received, he compared them with statistics maintained by the ministries. This enabled him to identify officials who worked tirelessly towards achieving results and act against bluffers.