Exits and the dilemmas they spawn

In the second week of June, the Yahapalana Government dispatched several high ranking loyalists to the UK or else instructed those who happened to be in that country or were planning to visit for other business to lobby UK citizens of Sri Lankan origin against Brexit.

Harin Fernando, Harsha de Silva, Rosy Senanayake, Dayasiri Jayasekera, Dilan Perera and Susil Premjayantha are reported to have done the canvassing at the time. The majority of voters (51.89%) voted in favour of Britain exiting the European Union. The exit was formally written into law on January 23, 2020.

At the time, with Brexit impending, Ranil Wickremesighe, then Prime Minister, was reported to have said that Sri Lanka should look East. Specifically, he outlined long term plans to forget stronger ties with Asian countries (China, India, Japan and Korea). He spoke of fast-tracking ETCA (Economic Technology Cooperation Agreement) with India and Free Trade Agreements with the aforementioned economies.

It took Brexit, then, for the darling of neoliberalism in Sri Lanka to ‘see’ the neighbourhood. Fast forward to 2022, Ranil Wickremeisnghe, now President, ‘shockingly’ resorted to rhetoric that was almost a throw-back to the policies of the United Front government of the early 1970s. He has eased off that kind of stuff since, understandably so given a long standing fascination with neoliberalism which, in current circumstances, requires repeating the mantra ‘IMF is God’ and following relevant precepts.

From Day One it has been a case of wanting to get money from wherever in order to make people feel things are better. ‘IMF’ has been thought of as a means to secure further loans and attract investment on account of a relatively rosier picture of general economic health. The first is essentially about adding to the debt burden and getting deeper into a default cycle. The latter just doesn’t work that way. The government just doesn’t have any solid, sustainable plan to sort out the foreign exchange problem.

The focus instead has been on political viability and, on the economic front, ticking ‘IMF Boxes.’ Among them is a condition on restructuring domestic debt. Problem: local banks are saying ‘no can do.’ And why should they, anyway? They are not obliged to bail out governments.

What are the options, then, if the boxes remain unticked? China.

Wait. Julie Chung won’t be happy about it, right? The lady might think that it’s time for Wickremesinghe to exit! Perhaps this is why presidential pretenders like Patali Champika Ranawaka has adopted an unusually US-friendly position.  Perhaps this is why the pro-US Al Jazeera calls him a ‘dictator.’ That’s the first salvo of vilification and discrediting. Expect more of the same. ‘Unless,’ is the word unsaid followed by the do this and do that of arm-twisting.

Right now, there’s a tightrope to walk. A fine line. On the one hand, the government is unable to tick certain IMF boxes. On the other hand, Chung shouldn’t be displeased. Something has to give. Or, put another way, something has to be given. The devils have to be appeased. SOFA? MCC? Don’t be surprised, folks; this is a battle for political survival and not economic recovery, alleviating miseries or a plan to get the country out of a rut and ensure it doesn’t slip back. It helps when you are ideologically happy embracing such servility and facilitating such outright plunder. Bottom line: whatever it takes, never mind the people, the resources, who gets short-changed, who gets enslaved, what gets looted, the potential pillage etc.

All this is framed by the question of legitimacy. We have a legally appointed president who has a serious legitimacy deficit. Right now he’s dependent on numbers provided by a party that has severely discredited itself since the 2020 election and a few who have reneged from parties such as the SJB and SLMC. Naturally, he would prefer to be a president elected by the people and not their representatives. Thereafter he could stir the coalition soup to obtain the consistency required for political stability. Easier said than done. He does have the advantage of an opposition that’s not only divided by confusion, not to mention the fact that it is composed of groups and parties led by ego-maniacs who themselves stand discredited in the eyes of the people. All that, later. What of the here and now?

Maybe the most serious issue is that a politically beleaguered leader just doesn’t have the space to develop a solid, pragmatic and sustainable plan of action. Tossing out a date (2048 in this case) just isn’t enough. Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government is like a bunch of specialist bowlers batting on a minefield and attacked by unforgiving bowlers while being surrounded by the sharpest fielders ready to pounce on edges produced by each and every false stroke. And no one to cheer either, for it is, for all intents and purposes, an ‘away match.’

The world has changed a lot after Brexit. The West is in decline; only the West doesn’t want to admit it or else just don’t believe the writing on the wall. Wickremesinghe knows this though. Ranawaka knows it too but probably thinks the bad days are still far away — therefore it’s a warm enough embrace to achieve political ambitions.  Wickremesinghe is in the hot seat, not Ranawaka. Right now he’s struggling to appease those who seem to have run out of patience and at the same time is wary of considering the obvious alternatives.

There’s one thing he can do though: address the larger and most worrisome issues at hand. What’s the plan? What’s the plan to fix the foreign exchange crisis? What’s the plan to encourage industry even as you implement austerity measures? The industries have to compete in a global economy. They have margins to worry about. Why not engage with them? Coherence. That’s probably a good thing to be framed by at this point. The sheer lack of clarity on all matters will not help.

And it would be good to revisit the post-Brexit thinking. There’s some distance from thought to action, but Wickremesinghe did get it right in 2016. There were no other options then. There are none today either. Could work, subject to the non-negotiable condition of the national interest informing all engagements.  He’s a tad poor on that. Indeed, he’s not alone there. All major political parties and their leaders are equal to him in this regard. Or worse.

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The H-Factor in Uva

Some months ago when there was talk of Harin Fernando giving up his parliamentary seat to come forward as the UNP’s Chief Ministerial Candidate for Uva, there was one rather talkative man who pooh-poohed the notion.  ‘Just a media show – he will not contest,’ he was convinced.  He offered instead that the UNP should find ‘a suitable candidate,’ meaning that Harin was not the deal.  Well, Tissa Attanayake is not exactly the UNP even though he can be trusted not to stray from the script of Ranil Wickremesinghe. 

It’s all done now.  The UNP didn’t defeat the ruling party, but it can count a lot of victories this side of securing the council.  Improved numbers, greater enthusiasm among the rank and file when it comes to electioneering and a whopping preference return for the chief ministerial candidate all add up to a healthy performance by a party that’s been in the doldrums for years, sadly even in the context of declining regime popularity.  In previous elections, ‘regime-fatigue’ has not translated into electoral shift towards the opposition.  It’s as if the voters thought the Opposition was worse than the ruling party and went with ‘known devil’. 

There are positives and these will no doubt be inflated by regime-haters and perennial down-in-the-mouths, like Thisaranee Gunesekera’s ‘analysis’ of the Uva outcome (‘Uva: The slap and the signal’ in Colombo Telegraph).  Yes, the UPFA went down to 47% in Badulla -- down from 72% in the 2009 PC elections that is – but 2009 was about post-LTTE euphoria.  Still, the UPFA got 58% of the Badulla vote in the 2010 parliamentary election and the UNP got just 32%.  At the same time, it must be remembered that the UNP got 54% of the Badulla vote in the ‘going-out’ 1994 election. 

Uva and in particular Badulla, until recently, was as green as it gets, outside of the Colombo Municipal area.  Making too much of a percentage increase has more to do with outcome preference than anything else.  And if the less than 50% performance of the UPFA in Badulla is something to cheer, let it be remembered that the UPFA got less than 45% from the Colombo District in the Western PC election.  They still won the province and that makes for the (sometimes) crucial bonus seats.

Clearly, it was not an even playing field.  There’s the inbuilt edge for the ruling party and over and above that there was palpable abuse of state resources.  General dissatisfaction with the regime has not risen significantly and this, therefore, cannot explain the ‘UNP surge’ if you want to be generous and call it that.  There was just one thing different between ‘Uva’ and the other provinces.  A candidate. Harin Fernando.  Thisaranee slaps herself when she says ‘Harin Fernando’s candidacy had a huge impact on the election outcome’.  She is correct here and therefore contradicts all her other claims about slaps, slips and signals.

Harin brought energy into what had become a party without vim, vigor or vitality.  He showed courage and proved he was willing to sacrifice for the benefit of the party.  As Thisaranee correctly points out he did in Uva what the likes of Ravi Karunanayake, Harsha De Silva and Sajith Premadasa could have done but didn’t do in the Western and Southern Provinces.  That courage naturally activated the party faithful in the province.  A lot is being made of Sajith’s last minute fence-mending with Ranil and the cheers he got, but it is also true that Sajith came and went with his cheering squad.  Cheap politics backed by media mavericks can fool a party leadership but it won’t sway the voter – this was also proved. 

Harin showed the difference between voice-cut politicians and those who do the on-the-ground grind that’s a non-negotiable when confronting a ruling party ready and able to through all resources at you and bend or break the laws if necessary too.  He was not just a candidate with a national profile but a candidate who could be creative, who could speak and who could draw out the latent agitational and organizing energies of the party membership.  People rallied around him because he unlike others did not fight for positions but in fact gave up position, fought what is arguably a lost cause. That’s how leaders emerge.

 

Most importantly, at the end of the day, Harin showed that he had humility and he knew the meaning of gratitude.  He said without hesitation that he owes a lot to Karu Jayasuriya for encouraging and supporting his decision to contest and doing everything possible to make it happen. He said 'Karu Jayasuriya is the unsung hero of this victory' in a credit-where-credit-is-due observation.  He said that the Leadership Council should remain and here he was at odds with what seems to be the present position of the Party Leader vis-à-vis the Leadership Council. That’s being brave and honest. 

Harin was a factor.  A huge factor, as Thisaranee said.  He has a long way to go. He would know about peaking too early.  He would know about the need to keep the momentum, the need to remain humble and to keep to the ground even as the media spotlight falls on him. 

Harin had an impact.  How many Harins does the UNP have?  Can Harin be cloned, politically speaking?  If not, what next for the UNP?  These questions ought to sober the leadership and if they have any sense they will face them with courage, humility and realism.   Or else they’ll continue to cry ‘hora umpire’ or blame it all on ‘computer jilmarts’, and whether or not such things are true or if they are of critical importance, they’ll remain in the Opposition.

  

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