By: Chrishmal Warnasuriya
Ayubowan – It’s been a while:
Its been quite a while, certainly over two years since I’ve been moved to put pen-to-paper like this for public consumption. Those who have followed my previous contributions may recall that I was a regular guest columnist and a frequent appearance on your screens in the late evenings but all of that came to almost a complete stop with the defeat of the UNP at the last General Election; I had literally given up, previously having worked with various civil society and pressure groups for almost three decades, trying to change the course of our Nation, I felt it was time to let-go and keep quiet. It was not only the massive loss the UNP suffered in 2020, when for the first time in my life I joined a Political Party to contest an election, under H.E. the incumbent President Wickramasinghe but also the disappointment of two previous attempts; in 2015 as a nominee professional on the JVP National List (which two seats we secured they decided to fill with defeated comrades) and then in 2019, when many of us civil activists got behind a common candidate, Gen. (Retd) Mahesh Senanayake encouraging the voters to shed party allegiances and get behind the professionals to build a new nation. We all know what happened, 6.9 million voters elected the “weda karana apei wiruwa” with an astounding majority (and the Wiruwa then abandoned ship and ran away) whilst the people didn’t even let our man muster 50K in total. Thus, it was that in complete disgust and utter frustration I resigned to my practice, recommenced my international work travelling regularly and tried to be content in my sulky corner; gave up watching local news, didn’t bother reading any papers and ran-away from any political discussion or dialogue, even at social occasions.
However, some of us do remain “Political Animals” as Aristotle expounds, it remains cancerously in our blood and the fever to make things better never goes down; I’ve diagnosed that this is indeed a terminal illness and the only remedy is to keep fighting the good fight until its time to meet your maker. It was thus when the Hon. Opposition Leader, whom I consider a friend, telephoned me in or around October or November 2021 I agreed to meet with him at his official residence. I found his sincerity far superior to my pride and he won me over instantly with his humility, offering me the olive branch that he bore no ill-feeling for my having declined his (SJB) invitation and contesting instead with the UNP; we left the bygones behind and I agreed to assist him as an advisor on legal / constitutional matters. This relationship was nothing new to me though, since for many years I have known and worked with Sajith, I knew him to be a few years my senior at S. Thomas’ Prep and we occasionally played guitar and sang together, sharing some fun in lighter vein at our annual Roy-Tho pilgrimage; but we also communicated with each other on more serious matters of State and Politics and I was always quick to offer my 2-cents worth with a quick message or call when needed and he always appreciated it.
So Why Sajith?
Its not for any of those reasons, for my friendship that I recently met Mr. Sajith Premadasa in Parliament and agreed to join his campaign, its because I cannot see anyone else matching that commitment for change with an equally ready qualified and passionate team that can get us out of where we are. It is as simple as that. If we don’t elect Mr. Sajith Premadasa to office as our 9th Executive President and immediately thereafter allow him to form a government made up of proven, eminently qualified, passionately committed and most importantly pristinely non-corrupt personnel, we will all be lamenting for years to come and our next generation, our kids will curse us!
Let me set down a few reasons for your consideration before I engage in the dialogue of why not his competitors:
• Primarily I believe he is genuine and sincere in his declared passion for true change and that’s a darn good reason without anything more;
• He has given priority to education as a means of empowering our future generations and that is what I’ve also committed a majority of my public service to;
• He’s been well groomed under many leaders in Politics, including the incumbent H.E. the President when he was in the UNP and leadership is embedded in him with those years of gruelling experience;
• He has shown through sheer committed service, even without governmental power that if one truly wants to serve, you will find a way to do it and to me that speaks volumes of the man (even if I don’t factor in my personal knowledge of his sincerity);
• He manifests discipline, personal decorum and the highest standards of political behaviour and etiquette and I have never seen him to sling cheap-mud at his opponents, we really need to get this through to those who come forward to serve us as our representatives;
• He has got the team to deliver – all one needs is to compare the mammoth bank of experts, professionals and proven leaders across a spectrum of vocations, trades or enterprise who are already flanking him and gathering by the day and I pose the question, which other prospective “team captain” can boast of such a crème-da-la-crème that almost spoils him for choice;
• He has a plan – whilst others are making wild promises in usual Sri Lankan fashion as to what they “will do” when (that is if) they make it to office, Sajith and the SJB have a clear and workable plan with full knowledge of the very challenging mission at hand, with our country tethering on the edges of economic bankruptcy and a clear vision on how to save us.
I do not mince my words when I say this – take it from me, with our country where it is at present, if we miss the bus this time, we have certainly lost out on the whole journey and the sure end will be a very steep and insurmountable precipice!
Why Not Anura?
Perish the thought that these are “sour grapes” since my (former) comrade Anura K. Dissanayake didn’t include me in his Parliamentary Group in 2015, after I won my National List seat; this has nothing to do with it as I believe (he has also stated it publicly) that we remain friends, I maintain very cordial relations with many former comrades of the JVP from that campaign and even some of their re-launched NPP. I concede that AKD is a very attractive public speaker and can draw mass crowds, we did the same in 2015 too when we secured 06 seats (including our 02 National List) in Parliament, which they managed to reduce to 03 seats at the next election (2020) even under the relaunched NPP banner; but being a good stage-speaker alone is no criterion to handover the reigns of a nation, particularly when we are tethering for sheer survival and do not have the luxury to experiment with untested individuals.
Has AKD to date pronounced the members of his future Cabinet? Surely he can’t handle all the portfolios by himself; other than the public pronouncement that a future NPP Cabinet will be limited to 25 heads have they placed before the public any possible name of a single suitor to such office? Are we then to speculate that once elected AKD will suddenly pull out a dream-team magically? The simple response is that on all relative scales AKD led NPP cannot even come close to the bank of proven professionals and experts that Sajith has at hand in the SJB; that is the reality and we need to see this very soon before we make a drastic mistake of listening to our hearts instead of our heads!
Why Not RW?
Admittedly he is the most senior in the race but he unfortunately, my former Party Leader (at the last 2020 election) comes with way too much baggage that nullifies his very presence as a candidate. Is it not utterly ridiculous that one of the oldest Political Parties (if not the) in our country is struggling to field their candidate from that party and the household “elephant” symbol and he has had to rely on a “gas cylinder” to try and remind the people of our fuel crisis?
I vividly recall a very interesting conversation from an elderly lady, a die-hard UNP’er from my Moratuwa electorate at the last election. She told me (in Singhalese which translated meant) that she had decided not to vote for me or the UNP, due to her anger with RW; but when she went into the polling booth and saw the elephant on the ballot paper, she just didn’t have the heart to vote for any other symbol, so she crossed that box and gave me one preference vote (not for any other). Now this is the sentiment of the traditional UNP voter and they will never stand this nonsense of RW shedding the Party for anticipated political gain from the SLPP; which is now denied to H.E. President Wickramasinghe in any event, with the young Namal Rajapakse joining the fray.
Although RW has picked the gas-cylinder for obvious advertising reasons, to remind us of the “aragalaya” days and he now proclaims to be the saviour of the economy, we all know this not to be true; factually we are now in deeper debt than before and all that accumulated debt when we declared a sovereign default remains to be settled. All he actually managed was to realign the balance of payments between imports and exports by sharp increases in pricing, thereby reducing consumption and not servicing our debt (suspending capital and interest repayments); you are obviously going to show a surplus. However, this burden remains for the next government to grapple with. RW also wants us to continue the status quo and permit him to continue but those around him are the same rogues that led his predecessor up the garden path, until he gave up and ran away!
Why Not Young Namal?
I am personally (as an old Thomian) elated that we have two of “our lot” running for the Head of Government in our Republic, my friend Sajith (from Prep School) and my young learned-friend Namal from a much later era; surely our forefathers like mahamanya DS Senanayake, Dudley Senanayake, SWRD Bandaranaike and W. Dahanayake, all who were groomed at our school-by-the-sea to assume leadership of the nation must be proud!
Namal does show signs of a mature young leader than what we saw as he entered politics, the exuberance of youth appear to have left him and I was particularly impressed with a dialogue I watched on TV recently; but he has more time and this is far too early for him to assume the reigns of the top job, I wish him well for the future sincerely. He also needs to distance himself from that “Rajapakse tagline” that many around him appear to be promoting him with, that sort of politics will not run for long my young friend, certainly not beyond the tenure of your senior (and father) for whom some, including myself, are still grateful for the leading us to the end of a bloody and useless war that sucked the very lifeblood out of our nation for three decades; but now we need to move beyond, reach reconciliation and think-anew as one united Sri Lanka.
My Prediction & the Future:
Mr. Sajith Premadasa, MP, the Hon. Leader of the Opposition is leading the race in all the pre-election polls and reviews and he will most certainly reach the goal, there may not be a need for a second preference count; however the challenge my friend lies beyond that victory.
We must quickly finish a simple celebration, which I very sincerely wish for you, to see you as our 9th Executive President but then we have a lot of work to do in re-building our nation! We need to get some good, non-corrupt and hard-working teams together in the various fields as we form a new government led by you, appeal to the People to join and work with us and start the hard and gruelling tasks ahead of us; laying brick-by-brick, firmly from the foundation upwards, cleaning up the muck and negativity that has pulled us down thus far, until we take our People to the promised land, the land that flows with milk and honey that has been assured to all Sri Lankans by our forefathers!
To that end I leave this city now and get on an aeroplane in the next few hours, to help and assist in that mammoth challenge ahead of us, in any way that I can – #2GetherVcan
