Sick Jumbos dream

Saturday 30th January, 2021

The trouble-torn UNP shows signs of further disintegration with some of its rebels giving up their positions and criticising their leader in public. Curiously, some of them have already stressed the need to field a common Opposition candidate at the next presidential election. There is much the UNP will have to do on the political front before the next presidential election.

Interestingly, those who cannot even get rid of their party leader are planning to oust a powerful President, who is vigorously consolidating his power. Accomplishing the task of engineering the ouster of a powerful government is within the realm of possibility, one may argue, pointing out that a dark horse beat an extremely popular President–– Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR)––in the 2015 presidential race, but the fact remains that MR had served two terms and was seeking a third when he suffered the humiliating defeat. On the other hand, MR had ruined things for himself, ably assisted by those who were around him. At the next presidential election, the situation will be different; the incumbent President will be seeking a second term. It may be recalled that the Opposition’s plan to defeat MR when he entered the presidential fray to secure a second term went pear-shaped in 2010; the common Opposition candidate—the war-winning Army Commander, Gen. Sarath Fonseka—lost badly in spite of being backed by the entire Opposition.

The UNP will have no say in selecting a common candidate vis-à-vis the strength of the SJB, which will field its leader Sajith Premadasa at the next presidential election. So, it will be a case of Hobson’s choice for the UNP and others. Sajith shows signs of attaining political maturity and is apparently making the best use of the post of the Opposition Leader to boost his image and shore up his support base.

The practice of cobbling disparate political forces together to contest presidential elections is the political version of ingesting Dhammika peniya. All those who pinned their hopes on the common presidential candidate in 2015 subsequently found themselves in the same predicament as those who converged on a small village in Kegalle in their numbers to secure doses of the shaman’s concoction only to be disappointed; they realised they had been taken for a ride. Some Opposition grandees in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election marketed what may be called the Sirisena peniya or Maithri palanaya, the way Health Minister Pavithra Wanniarachchi promoted the Dhammika syrup by swigging it in public to ward off coronavirus, but had to be rushed to a COVID-19 treatment centre a few weeks later.

It did not take long for the proponents of yahapalanaya to realise that the remedy they had found was fake although it seemed to work initially. Their experiment with Sirisena peniya caused the country to witness the biggest ever financial crime, tableaux of horror in churches and hotels in 2019 and the sale of state assets. Sirisena is now in the exalted company of the Rajapaksas, having failed to destroy them politically!

The blame for what befell the country after being given an overdose of the Sirisena peniya should be apportioned to MR, who during his second term failed to live up to people’s expectations and surrounded himself with political dregs and astrologers and lost the plot. Following the conclusion of the war and the 2010 presidential election victory, he could/should have concentrated on helping the country heal and developing the economy instead of strengthening the Rajapaksa dynasty, squandering public money, and unnecessarily making a lot of enemies both locally and internationally. In 2015, he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, so to speak. This is the fate that awaits any leader who lets power get the better of him or her.

The SLPP has apparently duped itself into believing that the people have approved its leaders’ past wrongdoings by voting for them overwhelmingly at the last three elections. The public did so out of desperation as they were fed up with yahapalanaya, but they will not hesitate to defeat the present dispensation unless it makes a course correction and fulfil its election pledges, most of which have been reneged on.

What the UNP should do is not planning for what is to be done at the next presidential election but giving itself a radical shake-up and regaining vitality to act as a formidable countervailing force against the incumbent regime, which is like a juggernaut careening downhill. If the Jumbo party gets its act together and adopts pro-people policies instead of trying to humour the western members of the international community, it may be able to make up lost ground in time for the next election. If it continues to cherish delusions to the neglect of what needs to be done now it is bound to be swallowed whole by the SJB sooner or later.